The Best

The best kind of friend is one who listens to you, plays with you, gives you real hugs, and laughs at your jokes.  And it's even more of a bonus if they happen to be your family too. 

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Chris,
Evan loves you more than words can express. 
Thank you for loving him so purely and deeply.
You are the best.
And you are his real friend.
:-)

Bits & Pieces :: August

These super long ribbon headbands are what the kids use when they play Flynn and Rapunzel.  Even though Evan is Flynn he still wears the hair...  Anyway, they run all over with this hair trailing behind.  Thanks mom for all the ribbon you have put on their gifts over the years. ;-)

We rarely go to playgrounds anymore.  The kids really don't like the structures so much as they do the beautiful surroundings, so we start out on the play-things and end up in the woods.  That's why we usually just... go to the woods.

We had the kids' friend Bella over to play one day and I actually took pictures (I know!!!!).  She is a lot like Chloe in how strong-willed she is so there were several um... struggles throughout the day.  Having two Chloe's is more difficult than having one Chloe.  But they had fun too.

She and Chloe played horses, dress-up and fort-building:

Bella also likes climbing ropes, sword fighting, playing chase, and making mud.  Girlfriend really likes mud.

Someone is always on a rope or swing when we are outside.  I am so grateful for our backyard tree.  We literally would not have bought this house (or any house) without a backyard tree.  Deal breaker.

At my mom and Greg's new place there is a 4-wheeler to be played on.  Todd has taken the kids for a few fun rides already.

Evan plays with the speedy RC machine all the time. 

Chloe has learned to steer Evan's old rock crawler so they play together in the yard now.  She will do anything to be like him.

She does stand apart in her love of glitter and sparkles though.  That's all her.

Chloe brought her horses to Aunt Bryce's house specifically so she could build a horse barn out of her old Duplo blocks that now belong to Ajay.  The same exact barn she always made long ago.

Evan still builds legos nearly every day.  He alternates between wanting to follow directions and just creating on his own.

These little party umbrellas are something of a treasure here.  The kids covet them and use them when they play monster trucks.  Apparently the trucks do not like sunshine or sweating.  Who knew?

Chess.  Chess.  More chess.  I will play chess every day till I die....  Maybe I'm exaggerating a bit, but really, it's a lot.

This little tub in the backyard is great for all kinds of fun.  Lego boats for Evan and lego horse-house-boats for Chloe.

There are so many little stories I know I'm forgetting since I don't take as many pictures anymore.  I really need to start keeping my notebook out again to jot the cute stuff down....

Mystery Playtime

Want to try to figure out what this scene was?? 

The kids had this stuff set up on the floor for two days (in the main walkway of the living room...) and played for hours in a row both days.  I still have no idea what in the world was going on.

They were not happy when it came time to clean up, since there were dozens of categories of things that needed separated and put away.  So now it's in their room set up next to the wall.

Backyard Bugs

 Chloe is the great moth catcher, but I have stopped trying to grab a camera for every bug these two find every single day.  Evan really loves the stinkbugs that are everywhere this summer, but they are just kind of ugly in my opinion.


However, last night's katydid was too cool not to photograph.  Evan spent most of the time being the handler as they both inspected it from head to toe.  Chloe had a turn too, but my camera battery died.

Sparkly 6 (part 2)

Birthday morning.... such excitement for presents!!  This year a package from Gramma was added to the fun.  After breakfast we went over to visit Granny and Grandpa for a birthday celebration in the morning and then Aunt Bryce came bearing gifts in the afternoon. 

Chloe weighs 37 pounds and is 44-1/4" tall -- that's 1-1/2" taller than Evan was at six.  (She was over the moon with that announcement!)  She is wearing size 10 shoes and size 5 clothes.

Evan was feeling a bit jealous today, as all the attention (for an entire day) was showered on his sister.  It was alleviated greatly by Chloe's generosity.  She shared so many of her gifts with him, giving him portions of whatever she had lots of.  So sweet.

It was the year of glitter and all things sparkling for Chloe.  She loved every single gift: a wooden chess set, Breyer horse books, a box full of sparkly gems that made her eyes bug out, a sparkly headband, sparkly nail polish, a sparkly notepad, gel pens, bright colored markers (her favorite colors), paint by numbers set, and lots of velvety art color pages. 

Thanks to everyone who loves our precious little girl so much and enriches her life in so many ways!! 

Sparkly 6

Those are not gang signs she's showing but rather six pretty sparkly painted fingernails.
Her first nail polish :-)

Well, I'm having issues with photobucket again this afternoon, so the rest of her birthday pictures will have to wait.... 

Six sparkly things about Chloe:

1 -- her eyes
2 -- her clothes
3 -- her voice when she's not mad
4 -- her hair in the sunshine
5 -- her church shoes
6 -- her mud shoes

Okay, that was just filler... I'll have a real post as soon as the pictures are available.

A Morning at the Beach

Blue skies, lots of sunshine and a lovely breeze.  Perfect.

We went out to the beach this morning with Bryce and Ajay (who amazingly don't appear in any of my photos) and just watched the kids do their usual thing.

They built some small sand castles, and dug some pretty decent holes. 

 They tried making one into a waterfall....

After that I only saw Evan and Chloe together if they were in the water.  They love jumping waves and never seem to tire of it until they are cold -- and the water actually was cold today.

Evan went back to his hole, and this time he wanted it to be DEEP.  

I asked him if he could at least smile as he popped up to fling sand :-)  So he did.

Chloe is usually running all over the place chasing birds and collecting the feathers they leave behind.  My zoom lens usually can't focus in on her since she ventures so far.....

 
If she's not running around, she's usually alone, far from where I am sitting.... just digging.

But usually she just wants to have her own time to enjoy the beach....