Swings and sand say summertime...

The weather has finally gotten just a bit cooler here lately - for most of the summer it seemed it was either to hot or humid (or both) to really spend much time outdoors at least during the weekends and evenings when I was home with the kids. Our neighborhood seemed to be almost as deserted as it is in the depths of winter, and we're a neighborhood that tends to be alive with kids playing, walkers, joggers, dog walkers, and bike riders - when the weather's decent anyway.

When my girls are outside, it seems like usually other kids just tend to appear. I don't generally mind this as it keeps the girls busy and gives them someone to play with other than each other - and they spent the last half of the summer fighting with each other, so any kind of distraction is welcomed.

The other night the girls asked to play in the backyard after dinner. So we headed outside.

Like usual, a couple of neighbor kids showed up and they all had fun playing in our sandbox - which is huge, covers a large portion of the flat area of our yard, is full of weeds, twigs and pebbles, is horrible to keep maintained and hopefully at some point will be gone as soon as we find a way to get rid of all the sand.

Want some sand? :)

And of course they spent some time rolling down the hill as well. I have a love/hate relationship with the hill in our backyard - it's awesome for sledding and rolling down, but it gets annoying that there isn't more flat space in the backyard and the kids have a tendency at times to roll things down it that we don't want rolled down.

Here's something I don't mind rolling down it...



The thing I like the most about my backyard right now is this:


Which was my Mother's Day gift, bought with proceeds from the garage sale we had back in May. I love that I can sit outside on the swing and watch the kids play, close my eyes and just listen...

to the kids play...

the birds...

the sounds of the backyard and neighborhood...

There is just something so relaxing about sitting on a porch swing. And taking pictures of my kids, of course!


And then it's time to join in and get them swinging on their own swings...

(Notice those dirty little feet? Bath time! LOL)

See little Becca down on the bottom left? She wants so much to swing on the 'big girl' swings with her big sisters:

So I tried sitting her on one of them. It didn't work terribly well.



I did actually have her sitting on it for a split second before she slid right off.


Playing with her shoes seemed to keep her busy though.


Oh yes, one very dirty little girl! :)

We have so much fun playing outside when we can - I've missed it this summer.