Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Visit With Friends


More pictures of our visit with Susan and Allison, or as Connor called  them, "Sue and Al" or "Her and Al."  Or, CC called then, "Sue and All-wee."


Looking a little rough before our Zoo Visit

Seriously, nothing cutier than a little kid in the morning

Connor really loves Allison

Me and Allie by the alligators

Susan and Allie by the elephants


Connor and Allie rhino riding


Allie and Jeff
  
 We had fun at the Zoo, the kids were pretty good even though it was so hot.  We tried a group picture, out of 8 this was the best. 


Yeah... best of 8



Our final breakfast together

Vrrommm, VVRROOMM!!!

Wagon Rides in the bumpy backyard

They giggled and giggled!
 The kids played as Susan, my Mom and I chatted on the patio.  They explored in the woods, played in the sand, and acted like a three year old, a 2 year old and almost 2 year old should!  I am so happy we were all able to visit! Hopefully we can all meet up again in October in the hills of West Virginia.


The End
(as Allie is pointing out)






Friday, September 2, 2011

Kids at Play

This was not my scheduled post for today, but I was so excited I had to share.

Some smart ladies I know turned me onto a new to me website, Play At Home Mom.  It's very fun! Honestly, I hate messes. I don't want to play and know a mess will be made. The making the mess is fun, it's the clean up that I hate. All I feel I do is clean up...after meals, pick up toys, put away clother, etc. UGH.  Like I used to make fun of watching those Kate Plus 8 kids never being able to make a mess. Then I realized I was like her, I hate making a mess that can be avoided.

BUT, thanks to Play At Home Mom and their ideas, I realized I need to settle down and get messy. Although, our first play date looked messy, it was pretty clean. More importantly we all had fun.

Here is what we needed:
Food Coloring
A messy Patio with Water Galore

Oh, and 2 cute kids that like to playand be silly
Here was my "invitation" for play:

Colored Water and Containers
So, did they like it? You tell me....
Squeezing and Pouring

Drinking it a little...

Mixing colors

More Pouring

More Squeezing

CC gets into pouring

Mixing colors (with a bubble wand!)

Fun had by all!

Oh,
This is a piece of chalk - I keep thinking it wasn't chalk.
Bad choice of color, chalk people.
The kids and I played with water and food coloring for almost two hours. It was so much fun, Connor is already asking for it again today.  I just used 1 drop of food coloring to color the water.  Doing this kept everything pretty diluted, hence no tie-died kids!  We used containers from the house, once we were done, off to the dishwasher they went.  I learned the kids enjoyed creating colors in clear cups then mixing all the colors together in a big tub. 

Best thing is, it looked messy, it felt messy, but it was just water. When we were done, all I had to do was clean my containers.  It was really easy! Seems I need to try and roll up my sleeves more often to let them really play and explore and you know, act like KIDS!!!

Maybe this will inspire you to go and PLAY!!!!