backyard picnic
one of the definite highlights of our new home is having a backyard again. the kids love being able to run in and out as they please and i love being able to shoo them outside whenever they get a bit too rambunctious inside.
of course, they all come screaming back inside as soon as one of them spots a spider, or a mosquito, or a moth, or a roly poly, or a bee, or a fly, or any other small black spot that sort of resembles an insect.
it does not appear that entomology is in any of our kids’ futures.
ok, if i’m being really honest, that comes as a huge relief to me. one time as kids, my cousin and i stayed up most of a night roaming the house and being completely freaked out because we saw a daddy-long-legs in the room we had planned on sleeping in and couldn’t decide on which other room to take our chances in. so now i inwardly scream anytime i see a bug that should not be in the house in the house. then i arm myself heavily to rid the house of the offending bug and pretend to be brave in front of my kids and deal with it with a stoicism even a spartan would envy.
and if i’m being completely honest, phil deals with bugs in the house the exact same way when he’s home and i defer all bug duties to him. i know this because i have actually heard him scream (in a manly way, of course) when caught off guard and confronted with a particularly largish specimen.
you could say we tsais are not what you’d call bug enthusiasts.
ooookay, so that was completely off-topic but something i felt the need to share. whew, i’m glad we had this talk. š
so anyway, one fine day, mikey asked me if the kids could eat lunch in the backyard.
i did him one better and made it a picnic lunch with individually wrapped sandwiches and snack containers for each kid. when you’re one of a bunch, having your own personal lunch instead of eating everything out of communal containers is a pretty exciting discovery around here.
praying before their meal.
our backyard is rather jungle-y. we would like to change it up to make it more kid-friendly, but that project is going to have a wait kind of a long while. mainly because we have no idea how to do a backyard reno. or any kind of reno for that matter. but that’s ok though, the kids seem to enjoy it as it is for now too.
“i’m going to squish you like this grape!”
this one in particular enjoyed having her very own lunch wrapped up for her.
my mikey boy. so many ways to describe him…
typical 8-year-old boy being one of the ways.
looking for cloud shapes while digesting.
oh and this guy? he joined in the fun after he woke from his nap.
this is how he talks on the phone. you know, the way everyone does- by placing it on the back of his neck.
big sister gave him bites of her lunch.
but then he swiped one of their goldfish cracker containers and decided to feed his own self.
he really, really wants to be considered one of the big kids. but i’m afraid that’s just not going to be possible with this one though.
and oh yeah, remember our dog daisy? she was there too.
big sis trying to pull little sis like on a sled. turns out brick floor is not the same as snow.
then they decided the plants needed some watering.
jonah liked supervising.
and pruning, too. š
