Sunday evenings

Jim's entry while Beth is at a Sister's Retreat - After a very long, yet rewarding, Sunday afternoon and evening I can post a message. Small successes count for so much. All the kids are in bed. Keeping an active four-year old entertained and listening to his chatter left me exhausted today. Isabel and Olivia played games as you can see in the photo. Lamont finally played besiege the castle, inspired from a library book. He got out all the chess pieces, built a caste from the chess board, the boxes, building blocks and the building block cart so that I could storm the walls with the white pieces, while he defended the keep with the black pieces. It was not chess, but the plastic pieces of chess had never had such an active role in strategic play. Monty didn't like it when I used small white pawn to sneak under his wall, so then we had to discuss the rules of medieval siege warfare, according to his Genghis Khan tactics.
Eventually we cleaned up and I read stories before bedtime.