The kids and I had a lot of fun crafting this Father's Day gift. It just so happens that we needed a new mail box...and mail boxes are a great place to stash little gifts for Dad. We wrapped them all like mail, addresses and all. 
Just for fun, and because Daniel is awesome, we set out the china for dinner! Why not? It's finally accessible, after all! I snapped a quick picture of the pretty table despite Eliza's clear opposition.
A fun day! My kids are lucky to have such a wonderful Dad!!
It was time for another primary activity and we couldn't help but want to use the yard! We had all kinds of activities set out for the kids to play. But first everyone made a paper visor to put stickers on (stickers earned at each game). Abby was in charge at the welcome table.
We had ring toss, catch (football, baseball), hopscotch,
lawn bowling (bocci ball),
jumprope,
bean bag toss,
a game of whiffle ball,
frisbee,
and to end on a note all together, we played "jump the river". Here are some great action shots. Getting ready...
Each time everyone makes it across the "river" it gets wider. Much like the limbo stick gets lower.
It was fun and competitive there at the end.
Ahh, let's show you a bit of the yard. There are so many amazing flowers blooming. Every few weeks we get new surprises. This is the side yard...the house lined with various bushes and flowering plants--a few are in bloom here--some hard to see.
A little section in the back yard against the house. These pink ones have really gone crazy (much fuller than this picture)--they are so fun to cut and put in vases.
The front/side of the house. This bed of flowers has had so many blooms not pictured. Amazing.
All from the yard. We grow little girls too.
And these critters. Our big oak tree out front was covered with these caterpillars from the base up to about 4 feet high in the tree! There were caterpillars everywhere!! Hundreds. I thought they'd have made cocoons but they look like they are just frying there. What's up? We probably need an exterminator. Or a boy to go kill the rest. He poked one with a stick, trying to nudge it into a container and catch it. He said it exploded. Literally. With brown liquid inside. He showed me the explosion splash in the container. Gross.
In the waaaaay back corner of the back yard there is a small bunch of trees and shrubs growing randomly. We found it to be sweeeet grounds for a fort. It was easy to hollow out inside. It even has this tree with a branch arching over the kid-size entrance--so cool. Now will someone get my fraidy cat kids to go play out there?? I would be spending all day in that fort if I was 10!! They hardly touch it. Do they need a few years? Or just someone to show them how it's to be used?...let me know. If you ask me it's too far from the house and they are scared. Pooh.
Ah, we found that we have a raspberry bush!!
Oh, I wrote about the evil tree. Well, here it is in all its evilness. Check out those babies.
This thorn is longer than my longest finger. And I've seen even bigger thorns.
Daniel burned a TON of branches and yard debris with some help from our terribly generous (and experienced) neighbor. After all the burning (where we had stashed many thorny branches) he noticed a thing bothering his foot as he walked about the yard. He took off his shoe and a thorn had punctured through his entire sole and was nudging at his sock!! They are evil, I say!!
These were some fun flowers we'd never seen before. Earlier in the spring we watched the tight little perfectly spherical buds open with great anticipation! Now they are known as the purple puff-balls.
A clematis, now growing wild and beautiful.
And here are the baby birds I mentioned a while back. They nested under the clematis pictured above. Can you see their red mouths open wide? It seems as though only one of the five babies survived. I think the rest got taken by predators. A few weeks back I saw the survivor hopping about out of the nest, still getting food from Mom! It's surely off flying by now .
Last, but definitely CUTEST. Bunnies. I know I mentioned them before, but this is new. A while ago when I was mowing, suddenly 3--4--5 baby bunnies hopped in a panic out of our flower beds!! They were about the cutest thing ever!! So tiny, and so many of them! Scampering all over. I put on the brakes and just watched them figure out how on earth to escape the big green mowing beast. It was precious. The kids and I spotted a few of them again briefly. They are adorable.
Last fall Eliza took gymnastics. Though she loved it, she really wanted to take ballet next. So we did, at real dance studio. Well, they sucked every penny from me and when they had picture day I just couldn't give another dime to dance stuff!! So I made myself feel better by taking lots of pictures on my own. And isn't she adorable. These are recital day except the last one was at dress rehearsal (less stage makeup).
Eliza was screaming-jumping-up-and-down-excited to perform at the recital. And she did great! Though she was just a little bashful she did the dance and loved being on stage!
When each of my kids was 3 or 4 and hadn't begun preschool, we did some kind of alphabet chart and "school time." Andrew's was large single letters we taped above our crown molding in our NYC apartment. Abby's was a poster, and Eliza's was done in a similar fashion. Eliza and I finished her poster just before summer! When we did, the kids kept asking, "Is she going to have an alphabet party!?" I don't know where they got the idea, but we went with it! I knew a visit from Grandma and Grandpa Stewart was fast approaching, so we whipped up this little alphabet party!
Eliza and Grandma preparing our treats ahead of time.
First we played freeze dance to my favorite alphabet CD (ok, our only), Here Come the ABC's by They Might Be Giants. Which I recommend if you want spunky quirky kids music.
Our next game was "Race to the alphabet puzzle pieces, grab one out of the bowl, race to the puzzle, put it in, tag the next person on your team, continue until puzzle is complete." Andrew and I used to race each other in this fashion (however non-relay with just us two) in our apartment when he was little and he had to burn some energy inside. We used to love it! And now it's a party game with our alphabet puzzle! Go Grandpa (the running ketchup bottle) and Grandma--they were tough!
(Oh heavens, is that Abby kicking her Daddy's tooshie in the background!?)
After the races we used our classic letter building blocks and divided in two teams. We raced to see who could put all their 12 blocks into words, with no leftover letters, first. A nice way to slow down the heart rates.
And while you slurp up jell-o, decorate a few cookies! We did dip and drizzle icing for a change.
