It Takes a Village

I love our little neighborhood. We live in a cul-de-sac, which is so nice for letting kids play. We have wonderful neighbors who are good friends to us and to our children. It's really a nice place to live and we are very happy here.

Today was a good example of why we love where we live so much. The morning was cool and rainy - really rainy. It cleared up this afternoon and by 3:30 pm was nice and sunny. Most of the preschool kids were out playing - riding their bikes and scooters, climbing on the rocks in our front yard, watering my friend Melissa's flowers. By 3:50 or so the older kids were all home from school. In one yard we had a mini-baseball game going on. William decided not to play baseball so we ran around playing with a water toy and hiding behind a tent in another yard. And Melissa (she's the fun mom in the cul-de-sac) opened up the back of her van and put on a video for the preschoolers to watch. She even popped popcorn.

I love that she found mini-camp chairs for the kids to sit in while they watched their show:

She even put the popcorn in little plastic nacho trays so they could all have their own serving:

After the video was over and the popcorn was gone, the little kids all got out of the van and ran around the yard, squirting each other with water and having a blast. I hated to break up the fun at 5:30 to feed my minions their dinner, but all good things must come to an end. Luckily we have whole summer to have fun with our friends.

When we first moved into our house, we only had one neighbor. Within a year the other houses in our cul-de-sac were built and occupied. There were only a few kids (we only had 18 month old Henry when we moved in and had William a year later) around. Now we have lots, with lots kids in each age group available for fun and games.

It's so nice to have good friends and neighbors. We all watch out for each other's children and help each other keep an eye on things. I'm a big believer that "it takes a village to raise a child". Thank goodness we live in such a wonderful village.