Sitting on the couch and taking pictures of ourselves is about all of the energy I feel like mustering today. It was a fun and busy weekend, but I stayed up way too late Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights and I'm paying the price today. The kids and I even slept in until 9 a.m. today. I don't think I've slept in that late since right after one of the kids was born! Isn't that sad that 9 a.m. is sleeping in for me?

Chloe and Alexia were over for about four hours Friday evening while their parents took another foster parenting class. The kids all had fun and spent almost all of the time outside since Mercedes was able to play once again and had three cousins (ages 6, 10, 11) over for the night. Two of those cousins were boys, and Cole was in heaven with two boys who wanted to run around with him and play with all of his vehicles. Accalia will sometimes want to do that with him but not nearly enough. By the time Chloe and Alexia left, Cole was entering meltdown mode because of how tired he was, and none of the kids were up terribly late.

Saturday was a rainy day on and off, but Cole and Accalia still ran around outside for much of the day with Mercedes and her cousins. We ran a couple errands throughout the day, too, but overall it was a fairly lazy, sticking around at home sort of day. That night Cory and I stayed up too late for having young children who wake up fairly early. The reason for that is because we still hadn't watched the final three hours of Lost, and after we watched the first of those three hours we couldn't just go to bed and leave it be. Thankfully the other two hours lived up to our expectations. It's sometimes frustrating watching Lost because there some questions are answered, but new questions are always being raised.

So Sunday morning dawned much too quickly, but we took it easy. Cory did the grocery shopping in the morning, and in the afternoon we spent a couple hours at the rec center during open swim. That meant Ella's usual afternoon nap was pushed way back, and she was so exhausted by the time we got home around 3 p.m. Both she and Cole ended up napping for two plus hours. That meant the three of us had a very late night together before they were ready to sleep again.

We're all surviving, though, and having a fairly quiet day so far. Accalia has a checkup later this afternoon. She hasn't had one since she was five and hasn't even been to the pediatrician since then because there's been no need. When I took Ella in for her 18 month checkup, though, I asked how often they recommend older children having checkups. They said usually every couple years, so that's what we're doing.

After supper I think the kids and I are going to the wading pool in town because that's opening up today. So is the big pool, but since there's not a shallow area for Cole and Ella to play in there, we're sticking with the wading pool. Thankfully Accalia doesn't mind since she has plenty of other opportunities to swim in deeper water. We'll have to check out the lake soon, although I have a feeling that's going to be rahter cold yet!

The rest of the week is filling up quickly, so there should be all sorts of things to do.