Brotherly Love and Neighborly Fun

Yesterday my boys were up just after 6:00 which was just fine. I was up and starting to make breakfast and lunch. They were sweet and content to help, but then they started to get loud. If you have a good way to get an almost four year old and a two year old to be relatively quiet when you are otherwise engaged in a project please let me know. Typically I sit down and read our pile of library books during this time of day or Frank and his dad are out walking so I'm not concerned about waking anyone up with the noise. Today they were still sleeping, and I was making something new for breakfast so I was very worried about the noise level. Finally about 6:20 it was obvious they could not be quiet so I sent them outside. {Thank goodness for pretty weather!}

From the kitchen window this is what I spied.

You know I had to go grab my camera... My boys love each other and every day are able to play better and better together. Stephen and Mary Frances are thick as thieves when she is around so all too often Walker gets left out, but times they are a changin'
Later this is how I found my boys ~
And this is how Frank found them this evening just prior to bath time ~
Which brings me to my next serious of pictures...

We love Steve's next door neighbors. They have three wonderful, precious, well-mannered children who our children love, and we think are fabulous role models. We have built in play dates, and it is awesome. When we move back down the street we are going to miss calling over the fence to see if they can come play and standing by the fence sharing an evening cocktail. My children had been begging all day for the neighbors to come over. I kept telling them that they had company, but as soon as we got the backyard back in order we could see if it was okay with their parents. Finally all remnants of the tree that fell during the bad weather a few weeks ago was on the street, and the patio was blown and put back together. Here is the fun they had.

You know I can't turn in without a house update. Yes, it is Saturday, but this fine man who has my oldest son in the "bobcat digger" is a super hard worker and also our contractors "go to" sub. Not only is he the head mason but apparently he {and his crew} perform a myriad of other odd jobs. Today he had a group laying stone on the house, but he was burying the utility lines and covering them up so they can get the machinery off of the construction site. {Shh don't tell Stephen.} This gentelman is also extremely tolerent of my courious son who does not often enter the job site without his hard hat and tools. He made my Stephen's day ~

And now for more stilts. This time it is Stephen who is mesmerized. If you have ever hung and applied mud to sheetrock you know it is a messy, time-consuming ordeal for the average do-it- yourselfer. Frank and I have done it in a couple of projects, and we actually hired someone to do it in the last project we did in the house we tore down. Frank decided it was worth the money and his time not to do it himself. Amen sister! I was there when the guy did the work in the sewing closet that we created. Let me tell you it was worth it to hire him and he didn't even have any of the fancy gadgets that these guys have.