DENIED?

The President, VP, Secretary and Treasurer of the HOA stopped by on our icky Saturday morning.  The house was clean, the coffee was ready and I even had some little blueberry and strawberry muffins for everyone. 
No one left our front entry way.  Ares begged people to come to his room to show them his new walls.  They kept their boots on, and didn't budge (not that I wanted them anywhere other than my kitchen/morning/living rooms, but still).  We walked outside, around the perimeter of the house. 

• They asked if we would put the play system on the right side of our backyard, because it's slightly more hidden from the street. -Heck no.  It's the opposite side of the driveway, there's no windows on that side of our morning room, so I'd never be able to see him play. It would block our satellite for TV and again, I couldn't actually WATCH the kids then.  At least one guy realized that might not be realistic.
• They suggested pulling up the trees in back (we have about  six or seven 15' pine trees, so not tiny) to fit a play yard. What? Really? You just praised us that we are one of the only houses that have trees in our yard, and now you want us to pull them up?  
• 
  They suggested that they might possibly come back with a suggestion to add trees to the top of our driveway, as to block off our backyard from the street.  - We can't afford that! $1K or so to add tall (ugly) trees to block a swing set. Plus, I think that would look terribly gaudy, the way our yard is.  While this is the most realistic option (aside from the price of trees), it's not anything we want to do.   

One guy even went as far as to tell us that it's our fault, because we bought one of the 2 or 3 houses that have a side load garage, and that's what makes having a play system necessary to put in a back/side yard rather than behind the house.  He said "I don't want to say that you paid for it and now you're paying for it, but you did."   This guy is mad, that he moved into his house across the street from mine, 3 months earlier, has a 2 car garage, and paid quite a bit more than I did.  Tough shit dude, we got a good deal, blame the sellers, now get over it.  (Jackie, if you're reading this, I bet you know who this person is!! Your fav. guy! The one person who actually would see the play set from his house, though.)

While we haven't gotten the official denial from the HOA, we're expecting them to say we can have one if we do any of the above options, which we won't do. 

Adam thinks we should go buy a GIANT bounce house with slide and everything available, and blow it up in the morning, and take it down at night.  It's not a permanent structure then. I thought that was funny, but I bet our neighbor Dave wouldn't like that, and he's a cool guy.  Plus, with the wind we get back there, it'll probably blow away. 

A Swing Set? Will it Happen?

So we have finally picked out a swing set for Ares. *ahem*, 'play system'.  I feel like it needs to be said with a French accent -  damned thing costs as much as a couple of plane tickets to France.  It's going to be an Ultrabuilt set.  They are sold all around the world, but they are created about an hour+ away from where we live.  We'll pay for shipping ($65), however, Adam and his dad (and anyone else we can recruit) will put it together.

It looks a little bit like the one below.  Instead of a twisty tube slide (which terrifies my son), we're going with a 14' Hypersonic slide from the top deck.  There will also be a 7' rock wall, and no little slide.  We've got it all picked out, with dark wood, green tent awnings - all ready to buy, and our homeowners association will not approve it yet, because we need special permission to have it in the back of the side yard, rather than behind the house. (We have a stone patio, carriage lights on stone benches, trees and a hill that won't allow it to be back there.)  They had their meeting, and now they want to come over to talk to us.  It's not looking pretty.  But hey, it's worth a try.  If we don't get approved, then we'll just spend the money in NYC!

Ares will be 3 next month!!

This took forever to do because I couldn't find a polka-dot digital scrapbook paper in the colors I wanted, so I manually did each and every dot, line and box.  Also, I didn't like the colors the monsters came in (pink and baby blue) so I changed their colors too, the blue and orange by pixels.  Blech.  At least, I feel good with the outcome, although, I haven't printed them out yet, so I'm not sure how it will look at that point.

I figure, kids party in the AM, before nap time, then cake and ice cream for grandparents and any aunts/uncles that want to come in the evening.

Read at your own risk:

I have been trying to upload pictures (although, not of the following conversation) for a week, and they will not upload. It's frustrating.  Here's a conversation from this evening, when I'm getting ready to take Ares home from Aunt Cindy's house. 

--Ares was holding his crotch, which usually means he has to go to the bathroom.
Me: Ares, do you have to go potty?
Ares: No, I went potty during dinner.
Me: I know, but it looks like you have to go to the bathroom. 
Aunt Cindy:  If you don't have to go potty, why are you holding your penis?
Ares: I'm holding myself because I want to make sure my penis is still there. 

Yes, I died laughing.