Kids, Kids and More Kids

Last week Thursday and Friday I just played with kids.  Thursday three brothers came over for the day making five kids.  We hadn't made it to our park yet, so after lunch we headed out and went to see the Peace Arch State Park.  It is a park that sits directly on the Canada/US border and is a symbol of peace between the two countries.  It's a beautiful park, but not very kid friendly unfortunately, as I was hoping it would be. 

There were several fun sculptures around that the boys did leave alone once I explained why they weren't toys.

They really, really wanted to have a ride on this sculpture.

If you look closely through the arch you can see the American flag in flowers.

On the inner walls of the arch.

On the opposite end of this field is the Canadian flag in flowers.

I was hoping to get some more pictures of all the amazing flower arrangements, but the boys just wanted to run so my eyes had to be focused on them.

And this is the extent of the "playground".

On Friday the same three boys came back for the day and we were joined by two other kiddos.  We had seven kids that were over that day.  What a blast we had!  We walked to the park in the morning and played in the sprinkler in the afternoon. 

Running to the park.  I love the way Sam's legs are pumping so hard!  He was really booking it.

Micah is starting to become braver and more exploratory.

Hmmm...I know those move...

I wonder if I can make it move too...

My rule with Brandon at the park is he may climb on anything, as long as he can do it himself (otherwise I would spend the whole time getting him up and down and he wouldn't learn it on his own).  I'll stand underneath and give ideas on where to put his hands and feet, but I won't physically put him up there anymore.  Well, I turned around and saw his head poking up out of these tires.  I could hardly believe my eyes.  If you know the park, you know that underneath is a tire swing, but it's at least three feet from the top of the tire to the floor of the platform, with one step in between.  It takes muscle for someone this small to get up through there.  I asked Brandon to do it again cause I didn't believe he could pull himself up there, but he sure did!  He is sooo strong!

Matthias cracks me up.  He decided with a leaf in each hand that he would be a "walking" tree.

Micah watching all the goofy older kids having a water fight.  He had his own bucket to play in, but I'm pretty sure that got stolen within the first five minutes of the fight.

These two decided it was getting a little intense so they decided to go play in the sand box for a while.

As the afternoon was winding down, I looked out the screen door and there was Micah drinking the water in his bucket.  He is so funny.  He refuses to drink out of sippy cups, will only use straw cups, but if there's a real cup around that's what he wants to be using.  I guess he decided his bucket was just as good and it had water in it so he may as well drink it.  :)

They were two very fun days of play, but I will admit to being rather exhausted by the time Friday evening rolled around.

Next up, our de-stressing evening...