The first morning dawned bright & early for Mommy. Colin was sleeping downstairs & as soon as I heard him on the monitor, I tried to sneak out of the bed without waking the two big boys. ARE YOU KIDDING ME????? At the first sign of movement, they popped their heads up & asked, "Is it time to get up yet, Mommy?" It was just before 7 Kentucky time, so just before 6 "our time". Thankfully, Granna was up & getting ready for work, so the coffee was brewed & she sweetly fixed me a laaaaarge cup. The boys wolfed down their breakfast & immediately went off to play. Daniel was a big fan of the playhouse Pap-Paw built & he & Shelby had lots of fun playing dress-up. (Scott, you might want to skip this picture, Honey!) Shelby pimped my little boy out & he was sooo proud of himself. Be sure to examine each body part slowly--you don't want to miss anything--from the shiny shoes to the rings on his little fingers :)
We hit the pool in the afternoon. There is a slide, which Granna calls the best investment money can buy! The kids loved it & everyone took turns so nicely on it. William started to beg for time swimming without his vest since Shelby & Drew are both full swimmers now, but Mommy wasn't ready to take the plunge today. We saved that for day 4 :)
***And, as a side note, if you look to the left in the background, you can see the fabulous play house Pap-Paw built. I swear, you could live in it!!****
When Pap-Paw got home from work, he took William, Daniel, Luke, and Shelby to actually DRIVE the tractors! He had to move some hay bales & let the kiddos ride with him. Daniel was SOOO excited:
William went last & loved it just as much:
As the boys just reminded me as I type this out, that tractor is named "John Deere". They didn't really understand that that is the brand of tractor & thought it was its name :)
While William was having his turn, our budding photog Shelby wanted to take some pictures. Here is one of her efforts! Please excuse the chocolate mouths on the boys--Oreo cookies are a great distractor while over-excited little boys wait their turns on John Deere!
The next day, it was more of the same all day & more Kubota rides when Pap-Paw got home from work. Please pay close attention to the left side of the picture. Yes, that IS smoke you see. Our resident fire expert was getting the flame going for some marshmallow roasting!! All the kids agreeably took naps so they could stay up very late for s'mores, roasted hot dogs, and then firefly catching.
Here is Daniel enjoying his very first s'more:
And, William doing the same (sans chocolate, of course!):
And, here is the post-s'more messiness!!!
I'm now thinking a fire pit might be one of our post-deployment purchases!!
Hot dog roasting:
Once it got a little darker, all the kids grabbed their "captures" (otherwise known as Glad disposable containers) and hit the field to snag some fireflies. William was quite adorable with it all. He insisted on racing over to me for a picture with each & every one & then letting them go immediately. I had explained to him that we'd have to let them go at the end of the night or they'd die, and he was very concerned that if he didn't let them go immediately, they'd be harmed. Here he is with his very first firefly. It was nice enough to light up while the flash was going off, so you can really see it in the container. You have NO idea how hard that is to duplicate :)
Daniel, Luke, and Drew in action:
Mommy & one of my tired little firefly catchers:
William trying to figure out where exactly that little booger went:
And, trying to capture one:
Daniel trying to find one:
Overall, it was a very late night, but the kids had an absolute blast!!
