Cherry Tomato Cheeks

And also, she's a bit wet after "swimming" in the pool. Summertime summarized in one picture.

It's a bit hard to tell what exactly what is going on here, but I'll summarize. The kids were playing nicely together. So this is a rare picture of sibling love. It looks pretty tame, but what started out as Alex kissing Gabey's cheeks while he giggled hysterically turned a bit ugly when kisses turned into face squishes. And more giggling, so I guess not too terribly ugly after all. Gabey tolerates many semi-violent acts from his sister when they're delivered with smiles and laughter. Not sure how I feel about that, but for now, it works.

The rest of their afternoon was spent on the slide - they pushed each other down, taking nice turns and generally having a good time until Alex decided Gabe could go down head first. He protest for a minute, crying to mommy, then went back for more. Feet first.

Then, tomato picking and eating. A perfect mix of wholesome entertainment and mild sibling-on-sibling violence, or as we call it, a day that ends in y.

Tomato!

Petunia Pickin'

Cricket Tamer

I think this sums up a large part of our Summer activities. No crickets were harmed in the making of this picture. But the cricket did end up a little dirty by the end because Alex needed a reason to give him a bath. He had a lucky escape before he saw any water.

Birthday Girl and Summer Fun

I confess that I've been away from the blog for far too long, but in my defense, Summer has been crazy. Alex has been going to camp, Gabey has been running in all directions, and the adults have been busy around the house and at work, so there's not been much time for sitting.

That rule definitely applied to Alex's fourth birthday party, which explains why every single picture is a bit blurry. She had a great time with her playgroup friends and didn't stop moving until after the party was over when she took a five minute siesta. She then drew on her reserves and ran around like a fool until bedtime that night.

As I mentioned, she's been at camp. Mostly the highlight of each camp day is playing in the mud, or possibly covering herself with shaving cream, but she's also taken the time to learn that "butt" is far more funny than she previously thought. So we're working on ignoring that particular word in the futile hope that it will go away. Because disciplining it away has the opposite effect. Fun times.

Gabe is going through a language explosion right now, using fancy words like popsicle, maybe, balloon (baaaawoooon), and pool. He's also full-on working on shedding that pesky nap, which is the downside of him growing up so fast, but it was bound to happen since sleep is not the kids' favorite thing to do. One of his favorite things to do is pick berries, so I'm on a mission to remove all questionable berries from the property to leave him with only blueberries and blackberries.

The picture of Gabey was meant to capture the entire Summer he's been having, and I think it pretty much sums it all up, minus the berries.