Where is that Cleaning Fairy??

Ever have one of those days where the only thing you really need to do is clean the house and do some laundry? Has that day ever come on the very same day that the very last thing you want to do is clean the house and do some laundry? Well, that is what is happening in my world this very day!! Seriously, I cannot seem to muster up any desire to clean or do laundry. Maybe that is because today is the first day that we don't have planned for people to be in our home for some reason or another since I can't even remember when. Now, don't get me wrong, you know we LOVE to have people at our house. But that does mean that I try to keep things at least a bit tidy for our guests which isn't always the easiest thing to do considering the fact that I live with two little munchkins who are the world's all time best mess makers. Granted they can be good cleaner uppers too....just takes them a while to get it done and quite a bit of encouragement some days.

I told you in my last post that Arin and Kristy made it here to Washington and showed you some of our "Welcome to Washington" party. We've had so much fun having people over to help welcome them and get to know them a bit.

Pirate Jacob, here, came over with his parents after church Sunday night along with a few other folks and we had a little pizza party. We even got a chance to have a big dinner at our place again Monday night. The Lewallen home has been party central for the past week now!

Yesterday we had our first really "down" day and I decided to take the boys to the library for the first time in a couple of weeks. We have been doing the summer reading program and they finished up these charts:

quite a few days ago but we haven't had time to let them go redeem their prize.
They got some fun little water squirting fish and were pretty happy about that. But we didn't stay at the library for long because it was apparent that in our couple of weeks break from library trips that they forgot how to remain calm there. So what did I do? Strapped them down in the car, hit the McDonald's drive through and got us all a cookie and drove around while they watched a movie that they checked out at the library. That was my down time for the day. Mom of the year award, right? Ha!

That's okay, I don't feel so bad about the cookie because today for lunch I fed both of my boys baby food sweet potatoes and corn. I know, that is crazy, but they LOVE it! Kade always has and started asking for it again when Ryne got old enough to eat baby food. Ryne never was very good at eating baby food but for some reason now he always wants it anytime Kade has it. Totally bizarre!
Anyway, I'm feeding my boys baby food for lunch today and waiting for the cleaning fairy to show up and the doorbell rings...not the cleaning fairy....just the UPS man. When the doorbell rings the second time before we finish lunch, I'm thinking surely this will be the fairy I'm hoping for. Nope! Even better...our former neighbor Audrey and her baby Adele dropped by to visit while they were in town!! You might remember me talking about how many of our friends were moving away a while back and I mentioned them. They moved to Arizona....one of those military moves. Anyway, she was back in town for a wedding and came by to see us.

Here are the boys with Adele. I'm telling you it is so hard to get my boys to pose for pictures. And I think Adele wasn't sure what to make of those crazy guys. It was so good to get to see them. Such a nice surprise, in fact, that I'm totally okay that the cleaning fairy still hasn't shown up. I might as well go ahead and come to terms with the fact that the only cleaning fairy in my neck of the woods is obviously busy with way more important chores. Guess maybe tomorrow I'll just have to be my own fairy.

And on a completely different note, we are getting one of these:

Okay maybe not such an entirely different note, they make messes, too, right?
Anyway, yes, yes, we are getting a puppy in a few weeks. The boys at my house are extremely excited and I'm starting to work up a little excitement myself.
We've only had one problem so far. Boy or girl was an easy choice....Kade said, "Let's get a girl dog, that way Mom has another girl in the family." Girl it is! What to name this girl puppy however has caused great friction in our world. Kade was determined she would be named "Ruffy." Kyle, on the other hand, had his mind set on calling her "Mazy." They have argued about it for two weeks now. We had to reach a compromise the other day because the man who has her is wanting to go ahead and start calling her by her name for us. FINALLY, we had an agreement on the name "Daisy" for our new little yellow lab puppy who will be joining our family the first of September. That gives me what, three and a half weeks to get my boys all trained up before we start all over again with a puppy? Wish me luck!