New this week....

My husband went to play church basketball last night and left looking normal. It's been a pretty calm season. He's only sustained a ripped shirt and a few bruises, and hasn't had anyone ask him if he "wants to take it outside right now" like last year. He returned from last night's game looking like this:

(It looks more impressive today, this was a mere hour after it happened.) If you get grossed out easily, try not to look at the next shot.

Some guy jammed his finger in Tyler's eye socket, breaking a bunch of blood vessels and giving him double vision for a while. A different teammate got his other eye with his fingernail. Apparently church basketball in Hillsboro involves some vicious, bloodthirsty opponents!

Last week I was upstairs feeding this guy, who thinks he needs to eat all day long. Lydia and Luke were in the backyard playing when I went up to feed him, since for once it wasn't raining! I heard them come in and out of the house and turn on the bathroom sink a few times, but that's pretty normal since they get dirty playing in the dirt and think they need to wash it off before they can put more dirt on themselves.

Lydia came in and asked me if I wanted to go to their picnic when I was done. I agreed, thinking they were making mud pies on the kitchen set on the deck and it was a pretend picnic to eat them. Not so! These two set up this picnic all by themselves, including washing the fruit before bringing it outside to eat (I was a proud mama that they remembered to do so!)

We enjoyed a lovely afternoon picnic of apples and strawberries together (Luke had politely taste-tested my apple before giving it to me) and chatted about springtime and what we want to plant in our garden in a few weeks. Luke also informed me that "when I was a baby I popped out of you and drank your milk. But now I'm not a baby; I'm handsome." That's right little man, you are, most especially with your jammies on backwards and wearing your sister's boots!

I love these two so much and I'm glad that I had them as close together as I did. I love that they have a playmate when I'm busy with the baby and can't play with them. They still fight about things but they've really gotten so much better at playing with each other since they started sharing a room. Sometimes it's bad that they have a little buddy though; they dream up some naughty things to do when I'm not paying attention. I was lucky this time and I hope there are many more picnics to come with my favorite kids!