An Afternoon at Our House

Last week (before the onslaught of illness) we spent an afternoon in our front yard, whiling away the time until Daddy got home from work. We meant to meet him out front, but by the time he actually came home, we'd all eaten supper and the girls were in the bath... Still, we had fun.

Madeline played on a quilt on the lawn. Although she hasn't quite figured out crawling, she's quite good at scooting and wiggling around on her bottom. She kept moving herself to the edge of the blanket so that she could snack on the lawn. She had a whole basket of toys to entertain herself with, but she prefered the lawn. Eventually she settled for munching on a bug toy. At least it was a toy!

Kathleen "painted" the front walk for me, with an old paintbrush and a little bucket of water and foodcoloring. (Good thing it's just food coloring, because she prefers to paint things pink, which might not be Jim's first choice!) It's one of my favorite distractions for her, and one I loved as a little girl. My sister and I spent hours "painting" the patio in our backyard. When Kathleen announced that she'd finished, we decided to water the flowers and the lawn. But Kathleen can't resist a sprinkler, it turned into a little more waterplay than we'd first imagined. Still, you have to love the good, clean fun of a sprinkler!

We're grateful that spring here is more like summer, so that we can sit in the sun and run around in wet clothes in the beginning of March. There's a good chance there won't be much of that next year, wherever we wind up!