Outdoor Fun

Our 2011 Garden "Before" Picture

It seems like we had a very short Spring. It was still a little cold in April, and now in the first week of June we are having days in the high 90s! But we've enjoyed it: we got a sandbox, we've planted our garden, and we have been blowing bubbles like crazy! Edison will run outside as soon as the door is opened, wait by the bubble jug and say "buh-buh-buh!" He makes it pretty clear what he wants these days.

OUR SANDBOX ADVENTURES

So, I always wanted to have one of those turtle sandboxes growing up...I decided that my own children will not be deprived of such classic entertainment, and so I got one and set it up on the deck. It took me several weeks before I actually got sand for the sand box! For some reason I didn't think about getting sand while I was getting the sand box, and it just took that long before the opportunity presented itself for me to go buy the sand. I don't know why I bothered! The kids loved playing in the big turtle without the sand! Poor Edison got a little trampled, but he still enjoyed it over all.

No sand.

Once we finally put the sand in, Edison wasn't as excited about the sand box. He puts his hands into the sand, and automatically shakes them off in disgust! Ginger, on the other hand, loves to play in the sand box. She will spend an hour out there playing with it, and I can be in the kitchen cleaning or cooking and keep an eye on her from the window. We usually end up with sand all over the deck, but I'm just happy that it keeps her occupied! It's easy enough to sweep the sand off of the deck.

With sand. Edison is a little disappointed with the sand.

Sometimes I come out and find Ginger without her pants on. "It's itchy, Momma!"...Once she had taken off her underwear as well because sand had gotten into them. Luckily I caught her right before she sat down in the sand bare-bottomed! (If she thought it was itchy having sand in her pants, she really would have been unhappy with it sticking to her rear-end).

"My pants are too itchy!"

Despite the fact that Edison doesn't like to play in the sand box, he doesn't seem to mind having sand dumped all over him. I let the kids outside after church this Sunday while I was watering the garden, and I walked back up on the deck catching Ginger mid-dump! (of sand...over Edison's head!) He was totally white all over! Look at his face! And he couldn't have been more excited! He loved it! It was so hard for me to scold Ginger because I could not stop laughing. I ran to get my camera.
 

This picture doesn't quite capture how covered he was.

OUR GARDEN
Brandon has taken charge of our garden again this year, and this year he has a little helper! Ginger loves to work with her Dad in the garden. I'm not sure how much help she's really giving him, but it's a great learning opportunity for her. She helped him clear out all of the overgrowth from the year, and then planted a few seeds! She likes to water the garden too. "The plants are soooo thirsty Mommy! We need to give them a drink right now." (Sometimes she just says this to get outside, but for the most part she really does want to water the plants.)

Putting Ginger to work.

Planting the seeds...

Once she saw how cute the seeds were, she wanted to lay them out in a line as a family ("this is the mommy one, this is the daddy one, the Ginger one and Edison one")

 

 

BUBBLE TIME
We bought one of those huge jugs of bubbles about a month ago, and we are already half-way through the bubbles! They are pretty fun, I'll admit it.

Not the best picture of me, but I do deserve credit for all of the bubbles that we blow. Every now and then Ginger can make bubbles, but usually she puts it right up to her mouth so that the bubble pops.

It's hard to get a good picture of him with the bubbles because he runs around really fast to chase them.