Oh my. What a week it has been. I have been furiously working away on the next Bobbledy Book (check out the Bobbledy Blog to see how it’s been going) while Matthew has been doing housework, wrangling kids, and feeding me snacks to keep me fortified.

But in looking back on this past week’s photos, it appears we actually did much more than just drawing this week.

Kato found a super elongated egg in our Friendship Montessori School free-range chicken egg fundraiser delivery:

August wrestled his way into but not out of Alden’s Tang Soo Do sparring helmet:

Alden met Minnie Mouse in the slightly less Magical Kingdom of Costco:

Which, evidently, made the excursion totally worth it. The boys, on the other hand, sulked because their favorite, Donald Duck, was not in attendance:

We enjoyed another family bike ride in the late afternoon sun:

August enjoyed his first lollipop from the bank:

And Kato graduated to sitting forward in his car seat, which meant that Alden finally got her wish to sit next to August, instead of in the back row by herself (Kato is perfectly happy in the back row, because now he can watch our car’s progress on the GPS. Before, facing backwards, he only got periodic reports on it from Alden):

August also graduated, in a way – he apparently gave Matthew his first eye roll while swinging at the playground:

The weekend brought two major projects. First up was some gardening. We planted some seeds early in the week and have been dutifully watering them.

Kato believes that if he looks at the dirt through his hand binoculars, he’ll be able to see the non-existent sprouts:

The endeavor had the kids itching to do some REAL gardening, so this weekend we decided it was time to put something into Matthew’s mom’s raised beds (did you know Matthew’s mom bought a house up the street from us? Yes! We are taking over Chestertown!) Our sad little plantlings aren’t quite ready for primetime, so we headed to the Kingstown Garden Center right across the bridge. I love the garden center. It is the best. Everyone who works there is the nicest. But any of you folks out there who would ever be in the neighborhood and in need of a garden center already know that, so, ahem, back to it.

One of the perks of the Garden Center is getting to pull around a wagon to collect your wares. Of course, if you’re going to be at the Garden Center pulling around a wagon, you may as well dress for it.

There was a little bit of a kerfuffle when I told them that we were only going to take one wagon. After a heated discussion, Alden won out by convincing Kato he could be her co-pilot (every princess needs a co-pilot). Being co-pilot apparently means that you get to steer. You can see Kato takes his job very seriously:

We filled our wagon with some choice plants (tomatoes, cukes, peppers, a couple flowers for Alden, and an artichoke plant. I can’t wait to kill them all) and headed back to the counter to pay.

The counter had all kinds of pamphlets on it about dog food and cat food and plants and whatnot. Typical garden center things. Oh, and it also had a basket full of cat.

What cat? Oh, that cat.

We got the plants loaded into the car. Iggy was unimpressed – or maybe just uninterested. I think she was actually slightly worried about that cat, which was just in a basket, behind two wide-open doors. Any minute that cat could decide to jump up and scratch Iggy’s eyes out. It’s best to stay on the alert. Which is pretty much how Iggy views everything.

Shopping done, we headed over to Matthew’s mom’s to start planting. But first I had to mow the lawn. While I was dumping out grass clippings, I noticed some sort of conspiracy happening on the porch.

I spent the rest of the afternoon warily looking over my shoulder, expecting the worst. Iggy looked at me and said, “I know! That damn cat! I haven’t had a moment’s peace since we left the store.”

Once the lawn was mowed, it was time to do some planting. Alden decided that since she was dressed the part, she may as well act the part.

Luckily, this princess wasn’t afraid to get her hands dirty after bossing everyone else around for a bit.

Kato’s job was to put the markers in.

He is especially excited about his Lemon Boy tomatoes, which he expects will bear lemon-flavored fruits by tomorrow.

I’m looking forward to killing those as well.

So, that was project number one. I have noticed, on several occasions, that there are a couple of rabbits that like to hang out in the back of Matthew’s mom’s yard. I expect that if I don’t kill all of our new little plant babies, those rabbits probably will. We’ll keep you posted.

The second project was installing the kids’ new mailbox. They have been getting the occasional piece of mail, but since we usually check the mail while they’re at school and then just toss it on the table and forget it, some of their mail has been getting lost under laundry or dinner or any number of things that also get tossed on the table. So, we thought it might be useful (and fun) for them to have their own mailbox.

First, we had to hammer in some wallboard anchors. Kato went first.

Alden quickly learned that it’s much better to stand idly by if your maniacal baby brother insists on hammering in your wallboard anchor.

Just wait till he’s done, and then carefully fetch the power drill to screw in your screw while he wanders back and forth with the hammer cackling.

Once both screws were in, the mailbox was ready to hang.

Kato was quite disappointed to discover that the mailbox didn’t come out of the shipping box with mail already in it.

I sent them to their room to count to twenty three times, which gave me enough time to dig through the heaps of mail on the table to seed the new mailbox.

There was some bickering about who got the mail that was addressed to them both, and we settled on letting Alden open it:

if Kato got to pull it out of the envelope and see what it was first:

An invite to a party! To Iris’s party!

The kids ran out to the mailbox to check to see if there were any more parties coming their way.

So – our second major project of the weekend got two enthusiastic thumbs up. Amazingly nobody got anything smashed while August staggered around with the hammer. There were two screws to put in, so Alden and Kato each felt some ownership for the project. But though it has been a wild success so far, I must admit it’s getting a little tiring with Alden and Kato jumping up every five seconds to rush out to their mailbox to see if they’ve gotten any more mail. It took them an extra ten minutes to eat dinner, what with all the running back and forth.

Believe it or not, we also went to a party on Saturday night that involved a moon bounce and people throwing sledge hammers. But that adventure deserves its own post, so stay tuned.

Iggy, for her part, continues to have concerns about the wayward basket cat. She spent the rest of the weekend hiding behind her very menacing bear hat, hoping for the best.