Kids like dirt

Awhile back we got rid of our old play set, bought a new one and moved it to the other side of the yard.  So we were left with a big mulched area that I used for my garden earlier this spring.  Now we want to clean up, seed and turn it all into grass (moving my garden next spring to a spot with a little more sun).....anywho, that work should be done later this week but in the meantime the kids have had a field day 'gardening' and throwing dirt at each other.  Yesterday they (along with their neighbor friends) played outside for a good 2-3 hours....making rolly-polly farms, erecting a shrine to the good ole USA (obviously) and general good dirt fun.   Remind me again why we're getting rid of this?

A guide to drawing

Clearly Ryan has been watching some You Tube lately.  The girls find the most random stuff....PG of course, but random Barbie tutorials and play-dough how-to's.   It must be rubbing off b/c the other day I caught her in the midst of production.  This video is only one in a series of 4 or 5.

A few notes.

1.  She uses the word 'persevere' - slightly incorrectly, but adorably placed nonetheless.  It happens to be in her school creed so it is used daily.
2.  Emerson's choking on cauliflower halfway through sounds worse than it was....love Ryan's quick dismissal of it.
3.  We were in the midst of organizing the room so hence the random placement of items.

I will leave you as I'm sure you are anxious to learn how to draw flowers....

Outside

I guess it's been awhile......I finally got out the 'good' camera, recharged the battery and took it out in the yard last night.   The ladies got a new swing set about a month ago after the one we inherited with our house was becoming a death trap.   I've now discovered that we basically just purchased a new death trap.  But the girls love it nonetheless....

 Never missing a moment to make a fashion statement...

 Emerson loves being outside.  From the time she rises, to the minute she goes to bed, she stands by the door, points and yells 'out' - she'll bring me her shoes and she'll throw amazing tantrums when you try and bring her inside.  Yet, she is still unsure of grass.

 But one thing she does love is her tire swing.  This is the first summer the girl gets to enjoy it - she and Ryan make crazy cute riding partners....

 Speaking of Ryan, she has officially turned 16.  Where did my baby go?

 The legit baby in the house also loves, loves, loves the swing.

 All my babies:)

 So....we were really behind the ball with teaching Ryan how to ride a bike.  We should have tackled it last summer, but we didn't and she showed zero interest in learning.  This year, the hell if we were going to have her turn six and still not know how to ride without training wheels....Grant worked with her and with a little peer pressure help from our next door neighbor Amelia, Ryan mastered the bike a couple of weeks ago.   On Sunday we decided to take off Reese's training wheels for the hell of it.  She had been doing awesome on her glider bike and we figured she would take to riding a bike pretty easily.  Little did we know it took about two minutes.  Off she went and hasn't stopped since.

 Apparently wearing as many colors as humanly possible is appropriate biker gear this season....

 Multi-tasking:  bike riding while belting out Katy Perry

 Double trouble...

 Perhaps I'll do better with the blog posting this summer.  And perhaps I won't.  Time will tell:)

Let It Go!

The girls are obsessed with Frozen.  Obsessed.  We've watched it no less than 50 times in the last week or so.  I've downloaded some songs onto my phone, we blast them, the girls dance, we repeat.....like 30 times in a row.

You can basically here the words to 'Let It Go' coming from their mouths, right?

 Collaboration....

Another round but this time they wanted their hair back to start so they could dramatically pull out the rubber band for effect.

 And this child just chums it during the concert....

 Or she's saying 'my ears, my ears, stop the madness'....