Saturday, August 30, 2014

Soaking Up Summer

We tried to make the most of our Summer by doing something fun everyday. I only had one class during the Summer semester so we had a lot more time on our hands than we were used to. I think Shasta really enjoyed having her mom home all the time!
We did water balloons about once a week.
One of our favorite activities was "painting" the house with water. We did this weekly for sure. And the neighbor girls loved to join in the fun. We only had two paint brushes, but they were good to take turns

Shelby didn't get in on the action very much because she wasn't walking and I didn't want her crawling around outside in her clothes. But I let her throw some water balloons from the doorstep. And most of them didn't pop when they hit the ground so Shasta picked them up and had a turn!

We played in the pool pretty much daily. I loved having a little pool this year. I loved having a reason to be outside that kept us cool. Of course I didn't play in the water with them, but I got splashed plenty!
One of our favorite Summer activities was going to a friend's farm and feeding the baby cows. Shasta LOVED it and talked about it for weeks after. There were two calves that were outside the gate standing next to the fence so it made it more real for Shasta. And it was so funny because one of them moo'd and Shasta laughed so hard, but then the other one moo'd immediately after and she thought it was so hilarious. I loved watching her experience being on a farm. She always surprises me with her bravery. Sometimes she hesitates to do things in the beginning, but she usually always gives new things a try and ends up loving it.
And once the calves were done with their bottles and buckets of milk, she started throwing hay in for them to eat.
We had a family reunion with Nick's extended family here in the valley. We went home so the girls could take naps and while we were gone all the kids got to take rides on the ponies. Shasta had been looking forward to it all day and was determined we weren't going to leave until she had a turn. I asked Nick's Aunt Cindy if she would mind letting her take a turn so we could go home for the night and she was more than happy to do so. And of course Shasta loved it! Again, her bravery always surprises me.
I decided to let the girls paint the house with shaving cream. It was actually kind of funny because I got Shasta started and then ran upstairs to get Shelby up from her nap. When I came back out, the neighbor across the way poked her head out her door and said, (while I was sitting on the doorstep right next to Shasta), "Do you realize your child is painting your house?" Um, no. I'm completely oblivious to my child getting out a bucket of paint, a paintbrush, and standing right next to me smearing it all over my house. I wish I would have been more quick on my feet to react in shear surprise, but I didn't. I was just nice about it and told her I was aware. Her concern was legit, but it was a little offensive that she would think I that out of touch with parenting my kids. Anyway, it was a fun activity, but when they switched to doing the fence and sidewalk it left a big greasy spot that took a long time to wash away. I didn't notice it on the house, but I'm sure it was there too.
Of course we ate TONS of watermelon all Summer long. We love Summer fruits!
And we spent a lot of time using sidewalk chalk and bubbles.We had a really good Summer and I'm sad to see it go.

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