Childhood to do list: play in the mud

I’m sure it doesn’t surprise any of you that we’ve had some mud recently.  Not after our flooding last week.  Actually my kids have managed to find mud for a while, there’s a little bit after the sprinklers are done.

 

They started off making mud homes for the various insects and worms they’d found.  Apparently insects like to live in mud structures attached to stone walls.

 

It progressed to mud sculptures on our outside table.  Featured here are Princess’ mud castle, and Batman’s (though, it’s Superman’s shirt) mud creation.  I may be wrong on that being Batman.  Maybe.

Can you guess which Star Wars Clone Wars characters are modeled here?

Childhood to do list: Eat ice cream for dinner

When I was a kid my Mom had a shirt from Marie Calendar’s, it said:

Life is uncertain, eat dessert first.

We never did that, that I remember.  But my kids did just the other day.


They all had hearty grins, and after brushing their teeth, went to bed quite happily.

Okay, they got a little sugar crazed, but it was a good fun night!

Building forts

My children have become quite the expert at building forts.  While I was laying downstairs yesterday and feeling icky and sorry for myself and burning through the book I decided to read, they were busy.

They eventually had every blanket, pillow, and dollie up in that fort.  Then they spent the remainder of the morning, when I wasn’t pulling kids to read or do school, playing in it.

Childhood to do list: WATER FIGHT!

Step 1: Fill a large bucket (or cooler) full of water and sponges.  If you’re fancy make these from Inner Child Fun (what I originally bought the sponges for).


Step 2:  Grab as many water filled sponges as you can.

Step 3: Start throwing sponges as fast as you can.

You’re guaranteed to be told, “Did you know that you’re my best Mommy ever?”

Of course if you’re participating and trying to get pictures at the same time, that means you get lots of pictures like this:


And after all is said and done, take some time to build with the sponges and swing on your swing.

Childhood to do list: Build a fort

I remember as a kid every fall my Dad would trim back the trees drastically and I’d build a fort out of all those branches.  It was quite a feat.

 

We were trimming the trees in our front yard the other day before the spring growth hits, and we had already completely filled one with branches, when I said, “New plan!  We’re making a FORT!”

 

The kids were now much more enthusiastic to help haul branches.

 

We filled the wagon and hauled branches back to the back corner of our yard.  It’s quite nicely tucked under our big huge trees, “The Mommy and Daddy trees,” as my kids say.

 

Then began the real work.

I don’t quite think they thought it was work.

 

And of course you need a photo shoot afterwards.  With lots of dramatic posing.

Don’t ever forget the dramatic posing.

Everyone needs a tree fort sometime.  Maybe I’ll even dig through my Mom’s photo albums and find a picture of MY tree fort.