244/366

Day Two Hundred Forty-four.

Ellie showing Owen what was once her favorite part of Goodnight Moon.

He loves this book, but his favorite part is the red "boon" and the "moooooo" jumping over the moon.  :)

243/366

Day Two Hundred Forty-Three.

The rain from TS Isaac finally showed up. Gavin wanted to go out (in his much beloved bone jammies that I wash literally every.day so he can wear them!) with Ellie to test out my new umbrella (they are fascinated that they can see through it and still not get wet!) ;)

242/366

Day Two Hundred Forty-Two.

Wion and blankie(s) are never too far away. They were keeping Owen company while O played with his current favorite toy, The Little People barn.

241/366

Day Two Hundred Forty-One.

It's supposed to rain/storm for the rest of the week thanks to the Hurricane, so we went to the playground this morning to run out some extra energy!

240/366

Day Two Hundred Forty.

As part of a daily Instagram project run by one of my favorite photography blogs Shutter Sisters, I took a picture of what summer reading has looked like for us. I've been introducing the big kids (Gavin mostly) to some of my favorites from childhood (Chronicles of Narnia and here, Charlotte's Web). It's hit or miss, lately he gets distracted by the black and white drawings ("Did they not have color crayons to color with when you were little Mama??")

239/366

Day Two Hundred Thirty-Nine.

First, she played hopscotch (with her shoes on the wrong feet, like always) and then helped me look for pretty flowers and bugs.

238/366

Day Two Hundred Thirty-Eight.

It rained most of the day while we were out shopping but we came home to find that it hadn't rained at home, so everyone enjoyed swings before bed.

(An Instagram using the slowshutter speed ap).

237/366

Day Two Hundred Thirty-Seven.

Reliable old sidewalk chalk. Guaranteed to cure grumpy moods, until the chalk breaks anyways.

Ellie wanted me to draw her a ballerina (she's counting down the days till she can start ballet!) and then proceeded to show me her very interpretative dance with chalk ;)

236/366

Day Two Hundred Thirty-Six.

Someone has pleased he got to snuggle with me this morning.

The big camera just didn't make it out today so thank goodness for Instagram :)

235/366

Day Two Hundred Thirty-Five.

Art was the activity of the day. Here they were thoroughly enjoying the window markers that can only come out while little brother is taking a nap. Owen is kind of forbidden from art activities, this morning he colored half the carpet on the stairs pink with sidewalk chalk (secretly, while I was helping him up the stairs, he had a piece in his hand- and I didn't notice it till we came back down...a chalk stripe for each step he climbed up!)

234/366

Day Two Hundred Thirty-Four.

Today the tunnel that usually serves as a "washing machine" was a hideout from monsters and a place to listen to songs together. :)

233/366

Day Two Hundred Thirty-Three.

232/366

Day Two Hundred Thirty-Two.

Gavin rescued a toad today. He reluctantly let it go after I told him that he couldn't live in the house with us, but not without a lot of warnings about being careful, staying away from his daddy and the lawnmower and to head home to it's mama :)

231/366

Day Two Hundred Thirty-One.

Rainy day macros.

And of course, all the rain lately means lots of little mushrooms popping up everywhere!

230/366

Day Two Hundred Thirty.


Tunnel vision.

Although if you must know, generally the play tunnel is used as a pretend washing machine that they all three crawl into and then attempt to roll across the floor while "getting super squeaky clean".

229/366

Day Two Hundred Twenty-nine.

She was quite a handful today, but ended the afternoon sweetly, curled up with a stack of books.

228/366

Day Two Hundred Twenty-eight.

I really didn't want to capture this with just instagram, but I forgot to charge the camera battery. They got new tooth brushes and it was super cute how excited they were. Gavin's is a light saber one of course, and Ellie got a hello kitty one. (Owen's is the penguin that he calls a duck ;) ).

227/366

Day Two Hundred Twenty-Seven.

Wion was hanging on at the Com today...

226/366

Day Two Hundred Twenty-Six.

Hooray for no cavities! Doodle and MeowMeow included. No pictures of Owen, he was wild running around chasing his balloon and celebrating the fact that the dentist told him he was about to be the proud new owner of about 6 teeth in the next few weeks!

225/366

Day Two Hundred Twenty-five.

Proof that it's not always princesses and tea parties around here. Some days she likes nothing better than climbing trees and making scary leaf faces with Poppy.

224/366

Day Two Hundred Twenty-four.

There was some serious nesting going on today. I cleaned out the entire garage :) In the midst of all of it, I reorganized baby clothes to prepare a little bit for peanut four. The big kids loved finding the outfits they each wore home from the hospital :)

223/366

Day Two Hundred Twenty-Three.

"Fwowers!"

Big sister taught him to sniff the flowers too, so he enthusiastically went around smelling them all afternoon.

222/366

Day Two Hundred Twenty-Two.

After it rained all morning and half the afternoon, the clouds disappeared and the puddles just begged to be jumped in.

221/366

Day Two Hundred Twenty-One.

Sometimes the best things in life are simple. Like the giant box that arrived today. Plenty of fun for everyone :)

220/366

Day Two Hundred Twenty.

Oh Tumpty. She's been missing for over a month now.

 I've torn the house up looking for her, found more things that I didn't realize we were missing. And today when I was just about to give up and order another Tumpty from amazon...I found her in the most obvious place (where almost all of Ellie's stuffed animals "live" inside the storage tent  which is designed like a circus tent complete with a sign and arrow that say...Elephants This Way...irony??)

So she's found and Ellie is thrilled and not willing to let her out of her sight again.

219/366

Day Two Hundred Nineteen.

A rainy morning turned into a mostly cloudy afternoon and Gavin only wanted to play with Legos. These were his dad's, and thanks to a genius at Lego who thought to put old instruction manuals online, he's slowly able to rebuild them all! He's really big into pirates right now, so of course his first choice in the rebuilding efforts is the pirate ship. He's also really excited about the knight's castle (complete with horses, much to Ellie's excitement!).

And if you're curious what baby brother was looking at, check out the family blog. 

218/366

Day Two Hundred Eighteen.

Admiring the "sunflowers" was Ellie's favorite thing to do at Nana's today. Plenty of butterflies and even giant grasshoppers joined her. When we first went outside she stopped and said, "Oh I hear nature!!!!" She missed  big brother and kept finding grasshoppers he would've loved, little brother can't be trusted with grasshoppers just yet, but I"m sure it will not be long before he's out there catching them too.

217/366

Day Two Hundred Seventeen.

Ellie had lots of fun at her friend Raegan's princess birthday party. Lots of princessy activities to enjoy, especially rock wall climbing!