The winding down of Summer

This is what our living room, family room, toy room, bedrooms and anywhere else they can come up with looks like frequently. Every blanket, pillow and stuffed animal has to be in on the fun! Tyler usually starts the 'let's build a fort' saga. He loves when others play with him, but he'll build it alone as well.

 Paige loves being included in Ty's adventures. You can always tell where her little section is because it's full of babies and pink blankets.

 Summer is quickly coming to a close here. This week all the boys wanted to do was play soccer,

 Play in the sandbox and draw with chalk. Tyler loves drawing the footprints of every animal and dinosaur he can think of!

Although I didn't get pictures of it, I feel I need to write about this weekend. Friday and Saturday nights were spent with the kids playing outside until it was dark and they were getting cold. They played in the sprinklers and the pool for as many hours as they could stand. It was so much fun to watch them have a great time together. Saturday night Ben and I finished picking the last of the grapes and whatever blackberries we could find while they were playing. I could barely find 20 blackberries which means they are starting to slow down and that the summer is really getting close to winding down.

When the kids finally came inside both nights they had dinner around 8pm after baths and while in jammies. It felt fun and happy - probably because it doesn't happen that often. We ate so many good things from our garden at those last two summer dinners: the last of the fresh peaches, pears, carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, tomatoes, grapes, blackberries, and of course, grape juice. No one has gone to bed before 9pm this weekend, but it's been a fun celebration of the end of another wonderful summer season.

I love summer and all that that means for our family.

Trenton convinced Ben to stay up even later Friday night and build this train with him. Tyler, of course, wanted to go to bed and so it was a fun night for just the two of them.