Yesterday ... Today.

Was too tired last night to post much, so here's our day yesterday.

The girls woke up and immediately started playing with their cats and rats.

Cats can be a bother at breakfast, though.

It was 35 degrees Fahrenheit early in the morning. It was 47 degrees when the girls were ready to go outside. They chose to stay inside, so we read for two hours.

Hannah even took a turn reading to Gray.

I've had these tactile type of books for both my girls, and they've liked them ok, but they are essential for Gray. I've doubled the number of books with interesting textures since he's started showing interest - he loves them.

Sometimes they even require getting up close.

When it was warm enough, the girls went out to the trampoline to play - with the cats and rats of course.
It was a game with rules to complicated for me to understand. Two rules I did get were 'If you jump on a rat, you have to sit down for an hour.' and 'If you jump on a cat it becomes rat protection for the next rat you jump on.'

Then cousins (different cousins than the day before) came over to play. All of the kids got two pony rides. One in the afternoon without saddles and a much, much longer one later in the evening with saddles. Very exciting stuff.

Lots of cousin play. My kids see these cousins every time they come to Grandma's house and think of them as an essential part of the visit.

Popsicles are essential.

That's as close to 'sit down to eat your popsicles' as you're going to get four kids.

Then, as a bonus, the cousins spent the night! So this morning they've watched some PBS (Sesame Street is not as good as I remember, but the song still makes me happy.) Now they're playing Bambino Dino, Harvest Time, and Granny's House. It's cold outside.

Glimpses of our weekend in Wyoming.

Head over to my other blog to check out our praying mantis discovery.

Snow day.

A week or so ago we went to visit my husband's family in Wyoming. We have cold here and we have wind here, but they have lots of snow. Want to see what jumpin on a trampoline in Wyoming looks like for half of the year?


Most of them quickly gave up and went on to more exciting snow activities.


But little Zee just kept on jumping. She never got much bounce.


The uncles decided that the four-wheelers needed to come out to play and one of them *cough Matt cough* got the four wheeler stuck in four feet of snow. They spent the next few hours trying to get it out.




Meanwhile, the kids had fun playing in snow.











Reaching for an icicle.


There was a lot of really fun, really fast sledding going on on one of the drifts, but this is the only picture I got since I was mostly helping children get on and aimed right and then helping them get back up.


We built a snow cave in one of the drifts for this cousin.


Ainsley ate snow.

About the four-wheeler - they finally did get it out. It took a tractor.


It's too bad the snow was too hard and crusty for making snow people. Hannah's been wanting to do that all winter.

In the Wild.

Have you ever been to The Wild? We went to The Wild, my children and me, last weekend. And ate snow.


Well, Ainsley ate snow. Snow's cleaner in The Wild.


And it wasn't so much The Wild as it was just off the road and up some hills in the forests of Wyoming. But to a four-year-old, that's The Wild, so that's what it was.


Their dad was cutting firewood and we were looking for a Christmas Tree. The girls found a tree for their room and a tree for the family. I found Beauty.



Lots of Beauty.


Do you ever wonder where Grayson is when you see all these pictures of the girls? Wonder no more. Here he is.


I've been showing Hannah pictures of baskets that Bee-leaf is making. She wanted to test the willows to see if they would work to make her a little basket.


"Where do you want to go now?" I ask the girls. "That way. Past the shadows - into the sun. Into The Wild again."
















What a beautiful day to be in The Wild.