GRRR!!!

Does anybody have kids in their neighborhood that your children are friends with, but who you just don't like much? I hate to say that about any children, but there is this one family on our block that is socially retarted. They are disrespectful, destructive, and lack manners of any kind. I just hope and pray that my children are polite and respectful when they are at other people's homes!

Here's what I found them doing this afternoon when I went outside to check on them:

This was my grandpa's chair. It was on the back porch because the legs were loose and in need of repair. We hadn't decided yet whether or not to keep it, but I think now it's going in the trash barrel. They like breaking things, especially things that don't belong to them.


This is a desk lamp that Austin put outside so he could point some light in a specific direction while doing yardwork after dark. (Sometimes that's the only time it can get done, right?) Well, he forgot to bring it back in the house. These kids decided to rip the wires loose, pull the top of the lamp off (it's out in the grass, conspicuously missing from this picture) and loosen all the screws. I'm pretty sure it's ruined. Our trash pile this week is going to be larger than normal.


This is our porch railing. Notice the missing rail? Gee, that's safe. One of the boys kicked it out so he'd have room to climb through and hang onto the rail from the OUTSIDE, leaning out and over the yard doing some kind of acrobatics. Keep in mind that the rest of those rails are 20 years old and never weather sealed... they're a little weak and rotting in some places. Just what I need, a lawsuit from the neighbor mom who doesn't teach her kids manners because one of them got injured at my house.



I especially like the closeup of the rusty nail that came so close to scraping the top of this boys head. What if he decided to stand up underneath it while climbing through to the other side? *shudder*


What do you do with neighbor kids who have no manners or respect? I have set some ground rules, but they manage to find new ones to break every time they're here. I don't want to offfend any parents, or upset my kids who like to play with them, but I need some more control here. Any suggestions?

To top off my afternoon, here's where I found my dog: she climbed into the bathtub while I was outside taking pictures of the destruction and started chewing on the kids bath toys. Great. Maybe I should just go back to bed.