Kindred Spirits? INDEED!!

So here are our new friends the Smiths! Yes, that really is their name:-)
Mrs Smith is a year younger than me, and her boys are 7, 5, 3, a little daughter 15 months, and baby due in September. Mr. Smith is in the army and will be deployed to Iraq again in May, until just before their baby is born.

The little Bugs and I had the pleasure of playing at their house on Wed. and I was tickled to find a knife-throwing range in their basement! (No, as you might sensibly guess, two moms were not a recipe for five boys throwing knives - that will have to be for the Daddy's on another occasion!).

My boys were thrilled to play outside with sticks and swords, they got to watch a... street sweeper (Oooooooh, Wowwww!), and I also really enjoyed some clever ingenuity as they hitched the toboggan to a bicycle and tried to.. ahem, pull it (with one straining all his muscles at the back end pushing!). I'm afraid it didn't want to move much, and while the general consensus was that "we need to hook up another bike", Mrs. Smith was a spoil-sport (did I mention that we seem to have a lot in common?!) and challenged them to try pulling only ONE GUY at a time!
The obvious problem with this solution was JUST WHO gets to be first?!
I was impressed that all these fine fellows immediately threw out the idea as simply NOT GOING TO WORK. It was all at once or nothing at all, and THAT was the end of that.
We had such a great time it was hard to pry ourselves away in the end!

Thursday nights are our night of extending hospitality, and the Smiths were our guests this week.
It was great to meet Mr. Smith, and even more fun to watch he and Daddy Gug enjoy each other! We let Miss Olivia blow out Birthday candles, and then as Mr. Smith talked boy talk with Daddy, and we gals talked paint colors and home-schooling, all the rest of our tribes had a hay- day playing with lego's, and "house" (that was Susanna's contribution, which surprisingly, Brother #3 humored her by joining in).
I was absolutely amazed at the comradarie built between all the little ones - so much that they were literally in a heap at the end of the evening!!!

In summation, I am thoroughly blessed by the Lord's gracious hand on us, that He has seen fit to give us a whole family to enjoy fellowship with!