What Are You Making?

Oh so many things! As Anna told me today: "My favorite things to make are crafts and food!"

Yup, that just about covers it. Anything you can make would fall into one of those categories, right?

Meatballs:The meatball production -first you have to make the mud, in this dry climate. Use a spoon to mix the water and the dirt, collect it in a cup, form the balls, powder them with something white and fancy like crumbled cement, let them dry out of a younger sister's reach:
Sage spoons and acorn top bowls, for a feast in the playhouse:
Brownies, by Anna:

Little acorn people (yes, we collected all the acorns last Fall and made an acorn bag out of them-as opposed to a bean bag- but today the girls requested that the bag be cut open so the real treasure inside could be put to good use):

A surprise for Daddy, energy bars for his bike rides, freezing on plates before being dumped into bags:Anna made them with peanut butter, honey, different chopped nuts and dried, chopped fruit, oats, chocolate chips, and the secret ingredient- ground coffee beans.

Also being made: Squirrel food:

They liked it.

It doesn't count as feeding wild animals if you're just giving them back their food source that you stole for them last Fall, right? Anna wanted to know what the inside of acorns looks like, so she found some rocks and spent a while pounding them open. When she realized that the meat of the acorn is inside, the squirrel's favorite food, she left it out for them. It was amazing how fast they found it. Within half and hour it was all gone, even while we continued to play within 5 feet of the food offering.

Yes, most of these are things Anna made today, as opposed to Josie or Ruthie, although Ruthie helped on some of it. Josie has been sick. We made her a throne to recline on in the kitchen today where she was able to feel like she was an intimate part of all the activity while still getting the rest that her body needs. She seems to be feeling much better this afternoon, and I'm betting she'll be as good as new by tomorrow morning.

Gold Hill

Did I ever tell you that I like camping? Well, I do. In case you hadn't figured that out by now. Getting away from the noise, the lights, the home chores, the screens, the lack of dirt, all the stuff we have, and getting back to the basics of enjoying who and what is real around us. I do love it.

This weekend we went only about 15 miles from our front door up into the mountains past the little town of Gold Hill. We camped on Roosevelt National Forest land where camping is allowed, BYO water and TP. The girls and I left early on Friday and Mitch came up on his bike when he got off of work. Don't you love living so close to the mountains!

We found a great kid-friendly campsite. And the girls were in heaven for the weekend.They had a wrestling house:

S'mores toasted over the fire:

A hammock boat to play in:

Great trees to climb:

A fort (or hospital, as it became in their play) that we built for them to have fun in:

Can you see Anna and Josie in there?

Dinner cooked over the fire:

And lots of time for this little family to spend together without the normal distractions of city life as we know it.

It amazes me how fast these girls can get dirty. I guess it is a camping rite of passage. For the mom, I mean. Getting past caring how dirty your kid's face and hands and clothes are. As long as you clean their little hands before they eat, right?

Although, I have to add, maybe it has nothing to do with camping. Maybe all the dirt has more to do with being a kid, so free and innocent with none of the adult cares and joy-stoppers that we all carry around with us:

Little miss Ruthie. And I thought you got dirty camping! I got out the hose before I let that little munchkin back in the house!

Chocolate Cookies

Gathering ingredients:

Mixing up the cookie dough:

Putting them on the cookie sheet:

Chocolate cookies for Ruthie to eat! (Seriously, you have to watch this girl, 'cause she will eat those cookies!)

The funniest part to me was the fact that we made real brownies the day before and said we were eating mud.

I just don't understand why the piles of laundry seem to grow exponentially in the spring time.


And another fun shot of Anna in her fancy dress, spinning in a puddle:

Spontaneous Hugs and Kisses

Who can resist this cutie pie? Not Anna!

She's a great big sister. She likes to give little Ruthie lots of hugs and kisses.

It makes a Mama's heart glad.

And what was Josie doing? Playing in the mud that she and her friends had made. "Making soup," she told me. That's why Ruthie was in the wagon playing and not on the ground crawling around. She doesn't get the line between real and pretend yet and she really wanted to eat the soup that Josie was offering her.

I do believe Josie was loving every minute of it.

On Vacation

What a concept! When was the last time the Clements got out of town? I mean further than 10 miles from the home base? It's been a while. But we are right now! We made it all the way to Grandpa and Nona's Farm outside of Kansas City and are enjoying a week of relaxing and lots of fun with family. The girls are in heaven with grandparents to dote on them and cousins and aunts an uncles and friends to play with and a whole farm to explore. You have to understand we use the term farm very loosely around here. But suffice to say they have plenty of space to roam around in, a whole swingset to play on, a real treehouse, sandbox, ponds to get muddy in, throw rocks in and watch fish, birds, frogs, crawdads, snakes and turtles in, rabbits, dogs, butterflies, flowers, thunderstorms, ticks, a hammock, a rested mom and dad... Who could ask for more? This blog is on vacation too, until we get home to a faster internet connection. Then we'll show you more pictures of fun on the farm. Have a great week!
Oh, and Mitch wanted to tell you that he did, in fact, do well.

For Cousin Jack

Jack was disappointed not to have seen any new pictures for a few days, so I figured I had better upload a few from our day at the park today. The girls played hard all morning at the park with their friends Kaatje and Brody while Rachel and I had a great time talking. We left Mitch at home to study for his exams. (He had one internship interview today, too, which he said went well. One more Thursday. Both would be great internships, but Thursday's is much closer, less commute, more time at home with us!)

Here the girls are digging in the pebbles making popcorn and a cake that they eventually put 4 shovel candles on:

There must exist some sort of magnetic attraction between little kiddos and muddy creeks. It seems to me that if there's a creek and mud nearby the Clement girls are sure to find it! The water and mud must be calling their names to be sloshed around in. (I hear the same is true of a certain Jackson and Caroline Fike! Hoses on a rainy day? There just wasn't enough mud!) Here the girls are mucking around with Kaatje and Brody:

Anna wanted to show everyone her HUGE wormy squirmy that she found among the decaying mucky leaves. It rates up there as one of the biggest earthworms I have ever seen:

Josie's fishing:

A big grin on a little girl. Who wouldn't be happy with their toes in that kind of mud:

Josie in her kitchen with Brody coming to check out what she is concocting:

Anna slid down "that spiral thing" (as she called it) I can't tell you how many times. Josie's about to shoot down the slide in the background:
Here she comes! As she told Mitch later: "I want you to come next time, Daddy so you can watch me go so fast down the big green slide!"

Good friends. Good times.

Playdate

We had some friends over to play this morning. It was fun for me to hang out with my friend Monica and fun for the girls to get to know Ella and Liam better. Here's Anna and Josie showing Ella and Liam the intricacies of making soup in the bird bath:

Two Things I Love

besides my husband and my three girls, of course! Which would be 4. I love that kids are born with no inhibitions and with a ton of creativity. You probably already know this if you have been following this blog much at all since I talk about both topics a lot.

I love watching both of these things in my girls and I hope that they can keep these two qualities even as they get bigger. They don't have any of those social inhibitions that it seems the rest of us learn so quickly. They feel the freedom to be themselves in the moment and do whatever comes most naturally for them. They don't think about what other people will think of their dancing in the aisles in church, they just dance! Yes, this is what happens every Sunday and is one of the reasons they love going to church, live music to dance to! It is one of the reasons I love going to church! They don't think about the aftermath of their actions, the consequences, they just live absolutely in the moment and enjoy it. They don't think about getting too cold if they jump in a mud puddle when there is snow on the ground outside. They don't think about all the cleanup later if they make mud soup in the bird bath:

This is a lesson I am learning from my girls. So much confidence, so much fun, so much freedom in their actions when they aren't plagued by all the fears and future thinking of us grownups. I hope that my grownup side never squelches this side of them, but rather nurtures it as they explore the world around them with all their senses and no inhibitions.

The second thing I love in my girls is their creativity. Maybe this is even a part of having no inhibitions. They are a blank slate without all the social inhibitions that stifle our own creativity. WE know that there are specific uses for specific things, you have to do it the right way. But I love surrounding my girls with objects and toys that are open ended in their use for their play, objects they can dream up whatever use they want for it. Sometimes I have to resist the urge to rescue them, the urge to show them how to play with something, to show them what to do with their time. They have to get through their own periods of boredom and transition in their play themselves in order for their minds to expand and begin to flow creatively. But when this happens the results are beautiful, so full of life, so unique to who they are and their own individual interests and ways of interacting with the world. It is a way of letting them find themselves, a way of knowing themselves and the world around them. This afternoon Anna made snow castles (yes, this is the same girl you saw dressed in a snowsuit, boots, hat, mittens and big, poofy jacket yesterday):

That's her snow castle she's showing off just to her left. I had never heard of snow castles! Mitch asked her how she did it later and she replied "I fill up my big cup with a lot, lot, lot of snow and then I go bop-bop-bop with my shovel. But one time it didn't work and I went bop-bop and it made a mess, a big mess!" (lots of gesturing and big grin to match!)

So there you go, a creative afternoon with no inhibitions. And to top it off, for your viewing pleasure here's a little video of them doing/singing "This is the way the way the ladies ride", and then "This is the way the cowboys ride" (Those are my snow pants Anna is wearing all the way up to her chin. It was quite hilarious, sometimes when the horse bucked her off she had no hands to catch herself and she face planted amidst lots of giggles):