You Are My Sunshine

Luke loves new friends.
Are there minnows in this creek?
Faster! Faster!
L climbs a tree.
Circle of friends.
The boys are picking up trash @ every place we adventure in!
Niki is swinging on her own for the first time ever, thank goodness I had the camera! Do you see S and E running as fast as rabbits in the background?
Sarah and Mady talk about pet sitting!
I adore all the pix I got of the adults chatting with the kids.
We were finally able to celebrate Mady's birthday this past weekend. All the kids had a blast. Mady and Niki were both able to have a friend or 2 over and they played ALL day. I won't go on and on instead I will try to quickly add some of the pictures of all these rays of sunshine. Enjoy!

I lied! As I was perusing the pix I saw the ones of the "Butterflies in the Garden" we went to see this weekend. After all the ticket hassles we finally got in. Anyway, Niki picked up a dead butterfly from the ground and we got yelled @ by an older lady wearing a bright yellow shirt with Botanic Gardens embroidered on the shoulder. Niki stood on one of the rocks in the rock border and up pops another yellow shirted older women, Niki touched the huge leaf of a plant to see if there were any bugs on the underside of it and yet a third yellow shirted lady converged.

Niki was very upset.I was holding Niki's hand the whole time but each of these ladies felt they needed to tell me why Niki shouldn't be doing any of these things. I never said a thing, I turned away before they could complete their speeches and went on to the next park of the exhibit.

I thought the place was a garden for goodness sake not an ancient museum with irreplaceable artifacts.
Once we were outside in the garden, instead of the Butterfly exhibit, we had a much better time. The kids ran through the door and began examining everything around them asking questions and enjoying nature. They ran, played in the mud, tried to climb in all the fountains, and smiled and laughed the rest of afternoon. Isn't that what a garden is for?

We also had a milestone moment this week: Niki can swing on her own-completely! Not that I will stop pushing her...