Oh, What Do you Do in the Summer Time?

With some warm, sunny weather finally showing up (a little more consistently), we have been able to play outside!  Chloe is very aware of the weather and will ask me every day, "Mom, is it going to be hot or cold?"  If it starts off as a cloudy day and the sun comes out later, she notices immediately and will yell, where ever we are, "Mom!! Look- there is our son!" Or, "Mom, look- the sun is coming out, yeah!!!"  She loves the sun and knows that it means we can be outside (she knows I don't love taking her to the park when it's cold, although she would go rain or shine).  She asked me one day a few weeks ago, with dismay, "Mom, why is it raining again?"

   She is definitely an outside girl and would rather be outside doing something than anything else inside.  We are so glad to be enjoying some sun recently and here are a few things we have been doing.

This day, she found her well loved bouncy ball and played with it out back for quite some time.

We love our new grass in our front yard and we are getting great use out of it.  We never spent much time out front before because we never had a place to sit.

This was Mitch's first time every sitting on and feeling grass.  I didn't think he'd like it.  He had to analyze it for a minute at first, naturally.....

And then gave us the approval smile! 

Chloe got a big girl bike for her 3rd birthday in December and rode it a few times here and there during our cold winter and spring, but now is getting a lot more practice in the warmer weather.

Mitch and I like to sit on the grass and cheer her on as she pedals.

Chloe's latest obsession is to take pictures!  She sees Ben and I constantly taking pictures of her and Mitchell and she, of course, wants to be just like us.  When she was not quite 2, she found an old 35mm point-and-shoot camera of Ben's that we no longer used and carried it around the house pretending to take pictures of random objects.  Now that she understands how digital cameras work, her camera has magically become digital and she is even more obsessed with taking pictures.  She now wants to take pictures of people and will tell everyone to line up, to say cheese and to smile (she even counts to 3 and makes a "click" noise when she pushes the button).  After the picture is taken, she will ask "Do you want to see the picture?"  She will then turn the camera over (there is no screen on the 35mm) and "show" us the picture she just took.

Above is a picture I snuck of her "taking" a picture of Nana and Papa when they were here last weekend.  We were in a hurry to get to church and really only had time to get real pictures taken with our camera, but Chloe kept insisting that "You and you stand here and I'M going to take YOUR picture."  Nana and Papa were such good sports (time and time again, picture after picture).  It was really cute and I felt bad that we were in such a hurry.

Another outdoor activity (outdoors in the garage) is Ben's pull up and dip machine.  Chloe has always loved playing on it.  We can do this activity without the sun, but everything is  more fun with sun.

I knew I couldn't do a pull up before I even tried, but everyone watching wanted proof.  (Good thing you can't see my face- I can't do it, but I sure was trying hard and it showed in my face....)

Ben can always do a pull up, effortlessly, every time.  (That's why I married him).

Mitchell gave it a shot too and did much better than his Mom.  (One-handed even.....)

We bought a little pool last week and Chloe couldn't wait to try it out.  She even filled it up.

Mitchell played with Daisy while he waited for the pool to fill.

Chloe would have probably enjoyed a much taller/deeper pool, but this one is small enough that Mitchell can be in it, too.

Chloe enjoying a "water" pop, as she calls it (Otter, water, they rhyme...)

No otter pop for Mitchell.... but his thumb tasted just as good.

Happy beginning of the Summer to all and here's to enjoying the sun and outdoors!