early does it

this morning (if you can call it that), sometime between 4:00 and 4:30 a.m., the party unofficially started back up.  two little boys, unable to sleep, were scuffling around in the room with three other sleeping boys (who, miraculously, did not wake up).  greg ushered them back down to the living room where they were supposed to be sleeping, and for the next hour or so i listened to intermittent whispers.  by sometime before 6:00 all five boys were up, rifling through the cupboard with the candy william has slowly hoarded over the course of the last six months and with the leftover birthday and easter candy.  we'd been warned of this by one of the mothers who'd overheard them hatch the plan, but the original plan was supposed to involve an alarm clock and we didn't find any hidden alarm clocks so figured we were in the clear.  i guess when you're 7 though, you have a highly functional internal alarm clock, and we didn't anticipate that.  

but we let them eat the candy.  better divided among 5 boys than 2.  

by 8:30, in addition to the candy, they'd gone through two batches of pancakes, two packages of bacon, a quart of strawberries, and two oranges, and were still scrounging.  "make another batch of pancakes... quick!"  

they spent the next hour plus running around outside and jumping on the trampoline.  

by 10 o'clock we were back to four-- two parents, two children.  greg and i felt like we had hangovers, the boys had had a full day's worth of exercise and a month's worth of sugar, so we put them in front of a couple cartoons and pulled some chairs out onto the porch and enjoyed the sun and the calm and some coffee.  

with everyone tired, the porch was mainly where it was at today.  it was surely the best day yet at 65 degrees fahrenheit, sun, and little wind.  the forecast said thunderstorms, which are so rare here, and only as i'm writing this has it begun to rain (though not thunder).  

sometime during the day... henry sat here talking to himself (overheard: "it lost its claw.  oh no, i better be careful!")

the relative calm of the afternoon was only interrupted by things like this...

greg carrying william home after william stepped on a fallen branch from a rose bush (and soberly pulled out the three thorns from his foot himself)...

...and henry, watching the scene, from the top of the porch railing (not behind it, as he's doing here)...

and falling off to the other side (though true to his form, he didn't even seem to notice he'd fallen).


later, well after lunch, the boys had an outdoor picnic... and displaying their respective personalities again, there's henry eating the peanut butter and honey from the knife and william chopping the vegetables...

later, after they ran off, greg and i sat out there and ate up all their leftovers.

dinner was early.  we made an agreement to work earnestly at table manners, at least every sunday. showers, stories, and two sleeping boys, the four year old by seven, the seven year old by 7:30, the blog by 9:20.  goodnight!