Playing in the park

Our fall summer weather here has been very fall like. It has been very cloudy in the mornings and as the day goes on the sun eventually comes out and so does the wind.
So our family have been spending many evenings up at the school.

 The hubby is back on a kite trip. He has been thinking about kites night and day since we got back from the ocean. So this weather has been nice since he has be able to get out and fly as long as as it is not raining.

 The littles have fun exploring the playground at the school.

 It is just amazing that in just a short year the little man will be going to school here. *sigh*

 During this trip to the park the little lady decided that the bridge was not scary and spent most of the time running across it.

It just bring such a big smile to my face to watch my children play together and do fun, spontaneous things as a family.

Clothing optional house

If you were to stop by our house to surprise us, you might be the one surprised.
Clothing is very optional in our house and when it comes to the little lady it is discouraged.

When we are home she spend most of the time at least naked from the waste down. This is mainly to help make potty runs smoother.
The little lady like to do most things herself. She knows how to pull down her pants but does not always want to or if she does than she wont want help pulling them up and she ends up getting very frustrated. We have had a few times where she has sat down to go potty and ended up peeing on her pants so we just decided to do away with pants in the house. We will go back to them once she understands the concept a little better.
She does still have accidents every once in a while but not many.
I even found her in the bathroom the other day, sitting on her little potty, in the dark, going poo. She was very proud of herself when she was all done. She only needed my help to wipe her bum and dump the potty. Over this past month I dont think that she has had one accident during nap and when she is waking in the morning her diapers dont seem to be as full.
Hopefully we will be on track to be out of diapers by 2, just like the little man was and a little less laundry for the mama.

Playing house

I spent most of the afternoon going through our bedroom.
It looks better but I am still not done.
Five garbage bags of stuff have been filled to be given to the thrift store. Thats just from my bedroom and the laundry room and neither one are clean yet. Yikes!!
I have always felt the need to collect, hoard, pack rat, keep stuff. I dont really know why. All this stuff does not make me happy and I dont feel lost with out it. I feel way more lost with rooms and closets in my house with piles of stuff in them.
I was always the kid growing up that had the pig sty for a room. I guess I thought I would just out grow it. When I got married the stuff followed and when I had kids the stuff multiplied. I have not out grown it yet and with another birthday coming up in just two weeks, I dont see me out growing it them either. I think that this is going to have to be something I am taught.
I have read many books and seen many shows on getting rid of stuff. Now it is time to put them into action.
So I am asking myself three simple questions; Do I love it? Do I use it? and is it beautiful? If I can answer no to any of these questions it gone.
Tomorrow is day number two and I hope that more bags get filled full of stuff and make it out of my house because it sure feels good.

Sunshine and rain drops

Today the sun was out, just like it has been for the past few weeks (Maybe summer is really here).
So after out morning get together with some great mamas we came home, stripped off our clothes and played in the water in the backyard.

Filling up the little pool Rubbermaid tub is one of the only ways that I keep the little lady from digging in my garden or whats left of it. She has already pulled out most of my starts that were in the garden. Between her and the slugs we have only enjoyed some spinach and a hand full of carrots and radishes. The little man loves to help in the garden. He is always asking me if it needs watered but he wont anything out of it.
We were not out in the sun for very long before the clouds started rolling in. Just before they opened up and started dropping these huge raindrops we pulled in all the clothes that were sprawled all over the backyard.
Once inside the littles did an amazing job playing. The little man chose to play with a toy computer (a hot toy in our home). I was so surprised that the little lady did not try to take his but walked down the hall and found the other one.

The little man likes to play the different activities that are on the computers while the little lady just likes to sit on it our pound on the buttons.
We had a great day living life and I am loving every moment of it.

Getting back into the swing of things

We have been back from the ocean for 5 days but I feel like I am just starting to get back into the swing of things... but lets back track to the ocean for a little while longer.
Most of our days were spent on the beach.. well I guess that was one of the only places I remembered to pull out my camera.
WARNING very photo happy post.

 We showed up at our camp spot at about 1 and headed to the beach shortly after.
This was the first time that the little lady was able to really play at the beach. She loved it.

The little man loved running around in the sand bare footed. As soon as we would come to the top of the dunes and you could see the ocean he was pulling off his flip flops.

While the littles played in the sand the hubby had a blast flying his kites. He was a little unsure that he was going to be able to fly since he hurt his shoulder just the week before... But he was able to fly just fine.

We spent most of out time at the beach playing on this little hill just outside of the dunes. The hill helped block most of the wind for me and the hill was fun for the littles to play on.

One day just before we were headed off to the beach the little lady face planted off the picnic table and scraped up her head pretty good. I really did not want her to get too much sand in it so I put a band aid on it and tied a bandanna around. I did not know how well she was going to keep it on but to my amazement she left it on and no sand made it into the cut.

While the little lady napped in my arms in the warm sun the little man build a 'boat' and went off 'sailing and fishing.'

On the evening of the fourth we drove down to the beach, built a little fire and enjoyed the evening.

It was a great camping trip. Relaxing and low key.
The drive home was twice as long as the drive down thanks to traffic and road work. Not having A/C did not really help the drive either.
It was nice to be home. Our house felt so BIG. It was kind of eye opening for me to realize that we could fit everything that our family needs into a 8X18 trailer but yet out 2,000 square foot house is crammed pack full of STUFF. So I feel the need to start operation de-junk.
I have read may books on simplifying but its way more than just reading it the DOING part that I need to work on. Hopefully this time I can go it since it is really starting to get under my skin.