Slide Party Fun

I can't believe that not only is it August, that August is almost 1/2 over and that I have not made one blog post the whole month.  I'm not sure why I've become such a slacker absent blogger.  But I'm going to blame it on the heat and the amount of fun we are having this year.

We truly have been having a great summer.  I know that I've mentioned it before but the boys and I have been enjoying many things that last summer we were just not able to do because of Grace's therapy schedule.  Grace has been in an ESY (extended school year) program this summer, which was essentially summer school with the same kids, the same teacher and the same van & driver.  Today was the last day of ESY for the summer.  She will have off until school starts again on August 30th.  All my babies will go back to school starting August 30th.  And every time I think of that I hyperventilate a little.  As it turns out, I will only have 2 free mornings a week but still all my babies will be in school this year...

I have no way to transition here to the actual topic of my post so...

Last weekend, several families in our neighborhood chipped in together and rented a HUGE water slide for the day.   This is the third year we have been included in this and it is really fun every year.  We have it at one of our neighbor's houses who has a pool and a flat lot.  We got to the party at 12:30 and left when we dragged the kids off the slide they came and picked up the slide at 8:30PM.  It was super fun for the kids and plum wore them out (I'm not sure where that expression came from).

Here is a picture of the slide

In this picture the boys are at the top ready to go down with John's friend Ashley.

All smiles from Luke.  People still talk about the first year when he was 2 1/2 and spent the whole day going down the slide with the big kids.  In fact, when we got to the party I was unloading the car and turned around to find a pile of clothes next to the car and didn't see Luke again until he was hungry :)

John saw some of the big kids pose like this with the double peace sign, so now he thinks its cool to do in every picture I try to take of him.  But I guess that is what happens when you are six and starting 1st grade in the fall and going to school full time and leaving your mom home alone.  You start thinking of ways to be cool...

And finally, Mark thought Grace would enjoy the slide.  I'm not completely sure why he thought that but I decided to let him take her down it and let me just say, she HATED it.  So he did it again.  This picture is funny because he loved it and Grace is starting to cry.

I hope to do better with documenting our summer here on the blog but like I said at the beginning, August is almost over and all my babies will be in school soon.  With John starting full day first grade I am holding him a little tighter and trying to live in the moment more because soon he will be going away to college gone most of the day and I will miss him so much!!  He told me the other day that he wasn't going to go to college because I would be too old to go with him and he was going to live next door to me when he got married so he could go to the grocery store for me.  So I bought him any toy he wanted in Target and prayed that his future wife likes our neighborhood.