More Sibling Fun

Another day of made up fun in the backyard -- using a "pool," flip flops for boats, grass clippings for seaweed along with some Lego Star Wars droids and plastic dinosaurs.... 

How do they come up with this stuff?

No Shirts

Every day as the kids dress in the daily uniform for summer, I wonder how much longer Chloe will imitate her big bro....

Nice Day for a Swim

We enjoyed a family gathering at my mom's this weekend where some cousins found good times in the tiny pool :-)

Ajay was super intrigued by the squirty hose trick Evan was doing.

Chloe just swam around the 3.5 inches of perimeter space she could find in an effort not to get water spray on her face.

Amazingly she managed to attain this goal over the course of a half an hour.

I wish I had more photos of the epic battle that ensued before and after swimming.  Uncle Chris kept all the boy cousins on their toes, swinging pool noodles (which don't fit or have any use in the mini-pool, but I digress) as weapons-of-intense-hilarity for hours on end.   

Does every family have an uncle like this??  We are really blessed.

Nests

These two play their own made-up games all day long.  Pictures don't help in the explaining and usually I can't find the words to tell what exactly they are doing.
Nests is pretty self explanatory, except that they were actually being Flynn and Rapunzel and both of them own chameleons living in the folds of the nests as well as a few birds....  And some supplies.... See what I mean?  I have no idea what they were doing. 

But when they ask if they can take up the entire couch and every multicolored blanket in our house to play Nests, I say yes.

Here is a brief list of some other unexplainable games and supplies needed:

*Egg Rain (window ledge and couch and the ability to fold up in the fetal position for free-falling)
*Cavalry Fort Capturing the Snakes (using cushions and snake stuffies while being indians/soldiers)
*Cushy Avalanche (large cushions, a staircase and a mom not afraid of you getting seriously injured)
*Glugger (mud patch in Car City)
*Leopards and Baboons (tree)
*Egg Mode! (scooters and friends who play along whether they understand entirely or not -- Ackerman girls ;-)
*Rears (Thomas trains and tracks)
*Roly-Poly-Bounce-the-Boulder (a ball)
*Flynn and Rapunzel (a backyard, chameleons, stretchy headbands which they call binders, capes, rope swings.... different every day)
*Chess Boats (a book, decorated paper scraps, chess pieces)
*Cooties (folded paper)
*Maximus Poop on Guards (?????? consists of loud thumping, lots of laughter, played downstairs with no parent around)

{If my new camera took videos in a file size that was manageable I could share more of these lovelies in visual form, but alas.... vimeo doesn't like 37M movies. }

Outdoor Chess

We had our annual yardsale today and the kids did mostly okay with not much attention until 4pm.  Chess is a lovely way to pass the time.  And in true fashion of the shoppers of our neighborhood, one person actually asked me if the chess game was for sale.  Serious.

A Flood in Car City

It's been in the upper 80's for several days in a row, so the kids have been playing in the shade and also with the hose a lot.  It never takes long for one of them to ask if they can flood Car City and get dirty.  (These photos are from today and yesterday.)

Back to the Creek

More fun in the water today.....

We were lucky enough to be invited for an outing by my sweet (pregnant) sister this morning.  Ajay has never been to the creek, and of course, he is a huge fan now!

Meanwhile, my kids are starting to really own this place after years of coming here.
They just jump right in to adventure.  Wading, wandering, wondering.

Bryce is one busy mama with a little boy who literally doesn't slow down ever except for snacks.  It's hard to believe that was my life not so long ago.

Now my kids are so independent I don't even have 10 pictures of them from today (most of which are blurry).  They explored so far without me that from where I stood, they looked about 1 inch tall!
Big kids, those two.

Bathtime

They still like to take a bath together and play with toys in the water. 
We tried showers, we tried separate baths with just me sitting in the room with them, we tried quick baths with just a hair wash-scrub-dry off routine.  None of these ideas went over well.
They missed each other.
And they like pruney toes.

Ice Cream

A great way to celebrate Father's Day :-)

A Day at the Creek

{Click on a photo to open a larger slideshow of all photos. Click the box with the X to return to this blog page when you're done.}

:: Highlights according to Evan and Chloe ::

:: we watched damselflies mating
:: we found a dead fish and held it (even though we were grossed out by it)
:: we swam in the 'pool' by the small waterfall
:: we wandered really far from mom to explore
:: we found walking sticks
:: we discovered rocks that turn to clay when they are wet
:: we jumped from rock to rock (and only slipped twice)
:: we navigated slimy moss-covered rapids
:: we declared our own spaces as islands
:: we floated our flip-flops in the water but always caught them
:: we squished our toes into the stinky gooey gunk
:: we played in the water until we shivered and then went back in again
:: we found old bricks, a feather, pretty rocks, and a fork
:: we ate a picnic on the rocks (where the fork came in handy)
:: we found a dead bumblebee
:: we found pretty flowers
:: we didn't want to leave -- five hours wasn't enough