Leaving Our Mark

We have always thought it would be a great idea to put a sidewalk in our backyard ever since my sister-in-law brought it up as an idea for their backyard eight or nine years ago. My kids love to ride their bikes and scooters but I won't let them play out front by themselves and I hate sitting out there in the summer heat to watch them for long periods of time. So we decided to go for it. We got a great deal since apparently the concrete business is kind of hurting right now. A couple of weeks ago we had a warm spell so they came and did it over two days. We got a sidewalk up one side and across the back of our yard, plus a pad in the middle to play in. Of course I had to get the kids' handprints in!

I forgot to get a picture of Duncan, but he and Dayton both did great!

Ignore the extremely unflattering picture of me. I thought it would be a good idea to do Tucker's hands one at a time since his handprints were going kind of far back past the edge and I had to hold him over the cement, but it turns out it wasn't. He did great on the first one, but he discovered he didn't like it and refused to do the second.

My mom and dad came over to witness the historic event (I actually had to pull Duncan out of school to come do it...there's a funny story to that) so my mom held Ellie while I pushed her hand in. Poor thing screamed the whole time, but I don't blame her.

Ta da! You can see Tucker's left hand looks great, but his right hand not so much. I had to force him to open it and push it in. Sadly, Ellie's look more like pawprints than handprints. My mom said that I should have done footprints and I think that she was right. But oh well, it's done and I think it's pretty cute.

So here's the story about getting Duncan from school. I had to go to the office to sign him out and since I didn't have my ID with me and they don't know me they said that they would just check with Duncan to make sure I was who I said I was. His teacher sent him down to the office and the secretary asked him who I was and he just stared the ground. She asked him if I was his mom and again, he just stood there. She asked him a few more times without any success. Finally, she asked him if he knew me and he looks up and just shakes his head!! Seriously, is the kid trying to get me arrested on kidnapping charges? Eventually he admitted that I was his mom. What a punk.