For some of you who don’t know, I’m going to get the chance to play a single parent for the next couple of days. Holly is taking a much deserved vacation to NYC with a close friend of hers. They take off tonight and come back on Sunday. My job is simple… keep the boys fed, make sure in that time span no one gets hurt, keep the house in the same basic shape I found it when I came home, and keep some assemblance of the rules as laid out when there is normally two parents in the house.

Holly has been gone for a total of 138 minutes and I’m already behind the 8 ball on a couple items. Sam, in the spirit of making things easier for me, has already gone over his normal TV allotment. Evan didn’t wake up happy, so to keep Sam occupied I let him watch a little more (shhh… don’t tell Holly).

The other problem, and I don’t think this one falls completely on me, is that I found a fig newton smushed into the couch. Now why I don’t think this is my fault completely is because Sam was already sitting on the couch when I got home and therefore is a pre-existing condition. I’m sure my lawyer would back it up.

So stay tuned to see how the rest of the weekend turns out because tomorrow is all on me.

Sam got his first man toy over the weekend… a plastic sword.  We went to the Mankato Fun Days carnival Saturday evening.  Most of the time was spent going on rides and walking around, but just before we left Sam wanted to try and win a prize.  We went to an easy kids game and Sam got to pick a prize.  His first choice was a plastic sword (seen in pic).  He was so excited he started to play with it right away.  As we walked back to the truck, we laid out the ground rules for the sword.  One, it's an outside toy.  Two, you can't hit anyone (including the dogs) with it.  If you do we'll take it away.  Sam meanwhile was not paying the least bit attention.  We'll see how it goes.

UPDATE: Sure enough, just about 12 hours after getting it, Sam got his sword taken away for hitting Evan.  In Sam's defense, Evan did hit him first and for no good reason.  Evan just walked up to Sam and slugged him.  We took the sword away for the day and gave him a 2nd chance.  This time Sam was a little more attentive to the rules.  We'll see how it goes, again.

We went to the mall today because it was kind of a drizzly and dreary morning.  Evan showed off his improved climbing skills. 

We’re starting off the 3 day weekend in style. The boys slept in until 7:30am, we played at the park, and now that we’ve had lunch it’s time for synchronized family nap time.

Hope you and your family have a safe and happy 4th of July weekend.

Evan wanted to play peek-a-boo at breakfast the other morning. 

Note: You will all probably start seeing more and more 30 second clips like this instead of pictures from now on.  My new iPhone can now record video and 30 sec of video is sometimes worth a 1000 pictures.