a mud party...

 the thought came to me spontaneously as i was writing out our summer list this year. i wasn't really sure how, when or where we would do this, or if i reeeeally wanted the mess, but it just felt like the right thing to do so i wrote it up there anyway. :)

and then one afternoon it just happened. out came the hose and puddles formed, sticks started mixing the gooey goodness, toes got splashed and i realized that today was the day! off came shirts and madeline's fancy dress and in they went.

squishing fingers and toes in the fabulous mud...

smiling and splashing...

building canals, dams, bridges and pools...

 throwing out inhibitions...

and looking more and more like amazonian natives...

 then ben woke up from his nap!

oh joy! oh bliss! he could hardly contain himself! his little baby dreams were coming true!

it was a great, great day! we recommend everyone having a mud party of their own...in fact there's talk over here about a birthday mud party for a certain soon-to-be 7 year old. so, so fun.

summer list

well, since today is officially the first day of summer i thought it would be a great time to post our summer list. a week and a half ago we got our little family together and had a summer list brainstorming meeting. here's our list last year

i finally wrote it up on the chalkboard yesterday and now we can begin crossing stuff off...just in time for Target to put out school supplies. does anyone else feel a tad robbed of their summer when this happens so early? grrrrr. maybe i'm just overly sensitive to the big blank spot in the bottom corner which should have written on it: "PLAN SCHOOL". oh well, for now i'll just focus on the fact that today is "make ice cream" day. woohoo ;)

i'm linking up with sweet Alicia for her "happy day project." go check her happy challenge for today. :)