OK, so I have been absolutely slammed at work the last few weeks, working on a bunch of projects which include in no particular order:

• Sally Hansen Natural Beauty (a cosmetics company back east — woohoo!)
• GM
• Purina Mighty Dog
• American Airlines
• Microsoft Dynamics accounting software
• Liberty Fillmore, Cart Whisperer phases II AND III for VeriSign

I’m trying to get all that done so I can take a week and a half off starting Thursday when both Julie’s and my family have tons going on including Katie and Tagg getting married. So with all that, I haven’t had a chance to write but I do now as I sit on the train on the way to work. The new FrontRunner train is very nice. I can sit at a table, plug in my laptop and have wireless connectivity so I can work — or blog. So anyway, there’s a bunch of updates. The biggest is that we’re FINALLY getting our yard done!

The kids enjoying the tramp pit settling

The kids watching the basketball pad construction

Three weeks ago we got the trampoline pit completed. I laid a bed of gravel, leveled it out pretty well, then laid 128 cinder blocks in a ring 3 feet high and 13 feet wide. To get things settled I filled the pit with water and walked around on the blocks a bunch, to push the blocks and gravel into the nice muddy ground. The boys especially loved that part. We got all our concrete done 2 weeks ago – the back patio, side basketball court, and steps going down the east side of our house from the driveway to the back patio.

The new back patio

Last week the fence got started. All the posts are in and the concrete had to cure for about a week. But today they got started putting up the actual fence. We went to Julie’s Uncle Kimo’s house on Sunday and they had just redone their yard. They had done the Trex fence in exact same color and style as we’re doing so it was nice to see it “in vivo” so to speak instead of just in pictures. I LOVED it and can’t wait until ours is done. It should be done by tomorrow. Once that’s done, we’ll hydroseed! Then we have to stay off the yard for about 6 weeks, but it will be SO NICE to have that done.

Other random updates:

Logan must have been REALLY tired right after his bath a couple weeks ago. I snapped these pictures so you could see it from my point of view as I walked into the bathroom:

The twins are doing great. They’re both sitting up on their own, and rolling over a little bit. Roman LOVES to play with his feet:

And Maren LOVES to play with Roman:

And the other kids are having fun with summer break here. The other day, the boys decided to play prisoner with Eden, 2 laundry baskets and 3 soccer socks:

I’ve been had! I just got off the phone with Peyton and I’m busted. Well, actually the tooth fairy is busted. Peyt told me he knows I’m the tooth fairy. See, he lost a tooth yesterday and didn’t say anything. He said he wanted to test the tooth fairy. So he secretly put the tooth under his pillow and sadly there was no money there this morning. So now he knows. I figure if a kid can come up with a plan like that and say nothing about a lost tooth, which most kids are so excited about, then he deserves to know the truth anyway. I wonder what sort of plan he has for Christmas?

And by the way, perhaps the best part of the story is HOW he lost the tooth. When I told him I didn’t know he even had a loose tooth, he replied:

“Oh, I didn’t. Well, it was a LITTLE bit loose. But Soren kicked it out.”

Great.