Poncho

It is raining. It has been raining all day. 

Attison wants to go outside.

No, I'm sorry. It is raining. 

But Attison wants to go outside.

Still raining bud. Sorry. You won't have fun. 

Mom! Wook! 

He is wearing a poncho. An orange poncho with dinosaurs on it. 

Eh. 

I laugh.

But...

You need shoes.

I look at his feet. He is already wearing shoes. 

Ok fine. 

Have fun!

Jenny rushes past. 

He stands at the edge of the patio. 

Jenny does a lap, comes back inside. 

You want to come in buddy?

silence

I shut the door.

He goes in the house.

He doesn't really do much in the house, although I can't really see. He is wearing a bright orange poncho though, and it isn't moving much.

He comes out of the house and stands still. 

I can see that he is talking. 

I go out to take a picture. 

Mom! Jenny pooped here!
Clean it up!

Clean up the poop Ma!
OK. Thanks.
I clean up the poop.

Mom! Jenny poops in the yard. Mommy cleans up the poop.
Yep. Mommy cleans it up alright. Even more frequently now that we have a dog poop monitor to alert us of infractions in his yard.

I go back inside.
Shut the door. (Because it is cold)

Maaaaaaaaaaa!
Ma!
Ma!
Ma!

I open the back door.
He throws the poncho in.
I want to come inside.

Dennis makes for the door.
Slam.
BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!  AAAAAAHH! AAAAAAH!

No Dennis. It is raining.

spring cleaning and planting

We planted our little house gardens!

Cilantro and Basil above. 

Impatients below (I always get a free tray of them when we go pick Strawberries, so I figured if he tears them out then I can just replace them.)

Sunflowers to the far right (covered in plastic until they sprout so the squirrels don't eat the seeds.)

A blueberry in the box. The blueberry probably won't produce this year because it is the first year, so we're going to plant a cherry tomato in front of it. 

 The tomato cage and pitchfork are to encourage Jenny the dog to dig somewhere else. I already had to chase her out of that box. She hates newly planted things.

Dennis cleaning up the kitchen. Thanks for your help bud!

These cars all got pushed down the slide. Yes, even this giant car with the handle. Occasionally I put one of our chalk sandwich boards at the bottom of the slide so the big dump truck doesn't go flying out into the road.

House supplies

Every trip out of the house now includes 5 or so rides down the side. 

 Dennis shops at Home Depot. He also really investigated the quality of everything at floor level.

This is an experiment to see if this video works. It might just jump through some photos. Usually I upload videos to Youtube and then post them here, but that takes more effort and obviously isn't happening lately.

more backyard fun

A little house AND a hammock!

A roof with a small overhang and a teatherball. 

This is the back window, the brick patio and a little garden. We are going to plant tomatoes and blueberries in the garden so they can eat them while they play.  I also made two little rows for herbs, just to see how it goes. I'm not particularly optimistic the plants will survive, but I have good intentions.

Tim mows the grass around the little house!

As a information item, the house directly behind us, above the little house, has 3 windows across the 2nd floor.  That is where Katy and Kristin live. They shout to us in the yard sometimes.

Pallets and a little house

From the basement of the church, we retrieved these pallets to make a little house. We had to have some snacks because the boys couldn't figure out why we were ignoring them and not letting them come close to us. 

Before it was even secured together, the boys started dragging in their toys.

A temporary shade covering, the turtle from the not-a-sandbox.

The zoo with our neighbors

D could not get enough of these fish. Neither could his buddy O. The older kids were not quite as interested. 

The polar bears put on quite the show for us. There is one in this picture, the other one was to the right in the water.

This diver was cleaning the shark tank (with the sharks in it too!!) and came down to give the kids high five and play peek-a-boo.  This is our neighbor Nicky who stays home with her two boys and two girls that belong to our neighbor.

Big kids watching the sharks. 

SophieTessa's house

Habishack 2015

Hail to Pitt

Some dinosaurs

Pitt Habitat is building the Habishack this week so we stopped by to say Hi. The boys and I found some cool things to get our pictures taken with too.