Peonies & The Last Day of School

Today I have fresh cut flowers from my own yard on the table! How awesome is that? I think this may be only the second or third time that's happened. This wild bush was out of control last year and had NO flowers on it. We honestly didn't even know what it was. This spring I cut it back to nothing thinking we'd just pull it out in the summer. When I went around the side of the house yesterday it was full of these HUGE blossoms. I believe they are peonies. They smell amazing and there are tons more flowers still out there. What fun!

Today is also the last day of school for our kids. They had school from 8 to 9:30am today so it was pretty much a no school day. They came home so hyped up with excitement that I had to call in reinforcements this afternoon. This morning the chaos was so immediate and intense with the entire neighborhood out of school for the summer. I had nearly a dozen kids in the backyard and had 3 more calling my kids on the phone to see if they could play. Within the first 3 hours of summer vacation they had consumed nearly 2 dozen popsicles, went through almost 100 water balloons, woke Mikey up from his nap and tracked sand all over the kitchen. (Who doesn't love summer?) After a few hours I sent the crowd home and Jeff took the afternoon off to take the older three kids to the movies. (The new Disney/Pixar movie "Up") After they were gone I decided to stem the flow and made a sign for the front door to let the neighborhood kids know when my kids can play. I had zero knocks on the door when the sign was up. 5 minutes after I took the sign down, the first knock came. I guess the sign works!