Oh, poor neglected blog...Long post ahead

So much going on here. We had a great 4th of July weekend with family and friends. There was swimming, fireworks, and a trip for me and the boys to the neighboring town's parade. Hubby took time off work, so we truly had a lovely long weekend together as a family.

Are you sure this parade is almost over?

The boys enjoyed the parade, and the rain held off until the very end, when the skies opened up and the deluge began. We were soaked and stranded with the car several blocks away, and lightning had us hopping to a kind family's garage to seek refuge. They were kind enough to even give us a lift to our car, as the rain refused to let up.

On the homefront, our little man has taken over his big brother's bicycle and refuses to give it up (not too surprising from the little daredevil). Which leaves big bro with nothing to ride but his scooter. So this past weekend, Liam got a new bicycle --one that doesn't come with training wheels. Hubby and I have been under the impression for a while that the big guy could ride a bike without training wheels if he would let his brain get out of the way. Sure enough, a new bike with hand brakes and grip shift got him interested in riding without the training wheels. He's getting it, slow but sure. The straights are good, but corners are still a bit iffy.

J-rock on his bro's old bike

We've also been doing some reorganizing (and PURGING!! yay!) in the house. Our house is what I would consider cozy. A small cape cod built in the 40s or 50s, there is not much in the way of storage in this place. Our eat-in kitchen was never big enough for a kitchen table, so that got relegated to the living room. My office also got relegated to the living room once we had kids and decided we needed a playroom. The living room now had so much stuff in too little a space, and we never could get the feng shui to flow. No surprise there. I knew the office needed to go, and now that I have the laptop with wireless, I really can compute from anywhere in the house.

I've wanted to reorganize the room to more separate the dining/living space, and I thought that having a small hutch to hold napkins, tablecloths, and placemats would help. To this point, I also haven't had a place to display the tea set that my dad's side of the family got us for our wedding shower. A trip to the secondhand store solved all my problems. I found the perfect little Ethan Allen hutch for the right price (only a few scratches and dings) and also scored a nearly complete (only missing a few teacups!) china set with service for 8! I fell in love with the china but wavered on getting it because of the missing teacups, but after I talked the salesperson down to a ridiculously low price, I couldn't resist any longer.

The hutch in its new spot with the tea set on the top shelf

Closeup of the pattern on the new china

Whats left of my office area

The china is from a Japanese company (apparently the Japanese make wonderful china), but I can't find any information on how old it is or anything. There is a stamp on the bottom of each piece with the company name, pattern name and number.

My desk has been shrunk from an oversized laminate beast into a smaller desk that hubby has from when he was a boy that also matches the dresser we have upstairs. This is also where the desk will stay. Much purging has yet to be done. More pics will likely follow. So sorry.

The boys and I took a break this week and made a trip to the zoo. Our little local zoo has grown by leaps and bounds in the past few years and has become a great place to escape for the day. The new reptile house has an interactive children's area complete with climbing wall and gymnastics mats. Both boys enjoyed climbing the wall and performing tricks on the mat.

Little Man climbing

Big Man climbing

One-handed pushups by Liam

And to top it all off...there has been knitting...of the purple and baby girly kind. I know several pregnant people right now (myself included), and surely someone will have a girl. We're hoping that we'll get to keep it here, but we won't know for a while whether it's a boy or girl. Pics will follow since it's late, and this post is a novel.