An Early Birthday Present

Though it kind of feels like my birthday since I got to sleep in and the boys and Alan are currently making breakfast, the title is actually referring to the trampoline we set up yesterday.  Due to the amount of toy bins Jared dumps out on a daily basis and the corresponding number of bins we have to tortuously make him clean up (the torture goes both ways, let me just tell you...trying to get him to clean up is nothing short of torture on most days), Alan and I decided we weren't getting our boys toys for their birthdays next month.  Since we both feel they need to spend more time outside, a trampoline became the winning idea.  We put it together yesterday.  They spent almost all day bouncing.  This morning I got to sleep in a little and woke up to the sounds of two very happy boys on the trampoline.  I went out to the following scenes:

still in pajamas (Jared slept in yesterday's clothes since at 6pm he fell asleep due to pure bouncing fatigue and I carried him directly to bed.)

 They decided they needed a picnic.  Did I mention above that Jared likes to dump things out?  They were so cute and happy that it was hard to be frustrated about the amount of food on the ground.

 They also picked flowers and delivered them in a water bottle to our room.  

Why didn't we buy this thing earlier?!  :)

Just in case anyone is wondering, we decided on a medium-sized trampoline.  It is 8 feet around and only about 2 feet off the ground.  I love it!  It is big enough for both of them, but doesn't take up the whole backyard and Jared can get in and out easily.  I am going to be teaching preschool to a bunch of Jared-aged little boys and wanted it to be easy.  I figured the life of a trampoline is short enough here in rust country that if we still want a trampoline in five years, we can upgrade to the full-size version.  :)