When kids get the camera

The kids love to grab the camera and take it around the house to take pictures.  They have their own kid one, but for some reason they really love my super expensive one.  I'm trying to let them be creative with it, but I'm also keeping my eye on them to make sure they aren't breaking it!

Here's a picture Olivia took from her bed.  Luke was playing on the computer...luckily this shot doesn't show you how messy it is!

Self portrait....

Olivia took this picture of Brad holding her when she was a baby.  Luke is usually really good at taking pictures, but all the ones he took were of me before I dried my hair...so they were deleted. 

We're LOVING the playground in the backyard!  The kids have spent everyday outside playing on it for the past week.  They are getting a little innovative playing on it.  The other day they dragged the hose up and pretended to be firemen squirting out fires and rescuing people. 

I was inside dong the dishes watching them through the window when I saw something funny going on...They took their LLBean sleds up to the top and were sledding down the slide!

Combining their favorite spring and winter activities!  Since the sleds weren't that great in the snow, at least they are getting used here!  In other news, the black tire swing Olivia loves so much is not loving her clothes.  Her bum is looking a bit black from it!  Her best uniform pants are now totally ruined from a black butt and a hole in the knee!  The price we pay for having fun!

New Playground!

A few weeks ago we decided it was time to upgrade our playground in the backyard, so we headed to Kloter Farms up here in CT to find a new one....on one of th coldest days of the year!  We had them deliver it at the beginning of March when the ground would still be solid...or so we thought!  Turns out we had a lot of rain in the meantime, so the ground was actually mushy and wet, but they brought it out anyway!  Luke was REALLY excited yesterday waiting for the truck to arrive...from 7 am to 10:30!  When they finally came he grabbed the camera and headed outside for the next 1.5 hours to watch the man set it up.  The truck was really cool and Luke examined every bit he could to figure out how it worked.  I could tell he was memorizing it so that he could explain how it works to everyone.

Here it is coming in the backyard between the two houses.  Unfortunately some dirt and plants were injured in the process...but they'll grow back before the neighbors get home from Florida!
Once it was assembled, Luke stood in front for a few minutes trying to figure out what he would do first.

He eventually chose the rings and then spent the next 4 hours playing on it.  When I went to get Olivia at school she threw her snack in the trash and ran out of the room so we could get home and play on it super fast!

Hopefully the investment was worth it (I'm sure it was!).  They are looking forward to having snacktime at the top "clubhouse" today, and picnics up there in the summer!  Now we need to invite some friends over to break it in with us!

Good bye old swingset

Well, we decided a few weeks ago to upgrade out backyard swingset to a real wooden one.  I tried to get someone in town to buy our blue Little Tikes one, but no one wanted it...so I put it up on Craigs list...which totally freaked me out.  Not that I thought some serial killer was just sitting around waiting for someone to post an ad for a playground so he could come out and get me, but you never know what to expect!  On a whim i put it up for $200.  In a matter of an hour I had two replies back, and in a week it was sold! It just set off with a nice set of grandparents with four grandkids who I know will get good use out of it!
It was a great first experience selling something like that...and we actually made some money back from it.
One thing I didn't expect was the barage of tears from Luke when he saw it driving away.  "Bring it back!!!" he was yelling from the doorway.  He was not appeased by the fact that the new larger one would be here in just 5 days!  I'm sure he'll be excited when the new one arrives!

Here is Olivia on the slide the day I put it together (which I made Brad do with me in the dark while they were still sleeping because I was so excited for them to play with it!)  I will miss it a little since it was so well loved over the years!

Sledding

I admit, I have not taken the kids sledding other than in our backyard...until today.

They had SO much fun. Luke wasn't even a bit apprehensive (shocker).  I even built them a little starting platform and then Brad and I put a little mogul in their run to give them some air.

via thought the mogul was the best thing ever! She was so excited to keep going down the hill. Luke didn't like the bump very much, but we made him go over it anyway!

Cooking in the kitchen

Luke loves to help out in the kitchen (just like daddy), and I am always amazed at how long he will stay on a task. He and Brad made pork dumplings a few weeks ago, and he helped make about 40 of them. He was pretty proud of himself. But, he wouldn't eat any of them...so much for "if they make it, they'll eat it".

Reporter

I always joke that Luke is going to be a reporter one day because he asks a lot of questions of people, but he may be a lawyer because he has a habit of badgering people to death.


Here he is at our favorite museum reporting the exciting sports news (always about the Yankees winning...they win every sport according to him) with his buddy Mallory. He spent about 20 minutes in the booth pretending to read the news...before moving on to the voting machine.



Judging by the amount of voting he did that day, he may become a politician...He voted for his favorite thing to do outside: run, favorite vegetable: peas and favorite animal: walrus. I know two of those are true...I wouldn't trust him about the walrus.