The Magic of Play!

While I may be a little bit biased... my kids are amazing!  Yes, we have our days where they whine, complain, fight, and do all the other things that (almost) 3 and 4 year olds do that drive parents crazy... however, they are at an age that I am loving right now.  It is bittersweet when your kids get older, and I always think, I wish they could stay this age forever... until they get to a new age.... then I think this one is the best... then the next one etc.  I love babies, I loved having my babies when they were babies, but right now I am so in love with this age and all the things they can do and that we can do together as a family.  I am also really enjoying watching their imaginations blossom, their type of "play" changing and evolving and seeing them play all these elaborate games together.  I think in this day and age we are all so obsessed with achievement, and activities and "my kid is better than your kid because they do 126 activities and speak 13 languages" that we sometimes forget to just let kids be kids.  I am working on taking a step back and letting my boys figure things out on their own.  Find their own games to play without always leading them to something, and while I am totally happy to jump on board and play with them, I also enjoy sitting back and letting them play on their own.  I am finding that sometimes when I let them "be" they come up with the most amazing things!

Wil is becoming quite a little artist and is starting to draw more complex pictures.  He likes to look at books and try to draw things he sees.

(Hopefully he will get some of his Daddy's artistic ability, as mommy is not very good at drawing)

The boys got some new gardening supplies and were practicing planting their seeds for when we do it outside.

Playing "Kings"

(Wil is making his royal face)

Ummmm.... I might have left them alone with markers for too long

(excuse the reflection of me in the mirror, I had them cornered in there and had to get the picture while I could!)

We saw a deer on our lawn one night after supper!!  It was so exciting!!

Pretty much every night the boys and Daddy wrestle... this is usually how it ends up.... Carson on top and Wil on the bottom.  Carson may be smaller, but he is scrappy.  He also likes to run full tilt and launch himself at Daddy... it's pretty funny!

 

This next set of pictures was a whole story the boys created and we played this "game" for a long time. It started with looking in our art activity book and Wil deciding we should make pirate hats.  I didn't have paper big enough to make hats that fit the boys, so we made some for the stuffies.  Then we started playing pirates, until Carson decided he didn't want to be a pirate because pirates were sometimes mean (like Captain Hook) and he thought he should be Santa to come and tell the pirates how to be nice.... and it went from there!

The Animal Pirates

Wil and Elfie making their best pirate faces

Santa taking the pirates on a "magical" sled ride with the reindeer to show them the magic of being nice

On the sleigh ride we ran into some chickens and dinosaurs.... they were being nice and playing pat-a-cake together... so Elfie the pirate could see how special it was to be nice to people.

Then They buillt a dinosaur museum (Wil's Mighty Dinosaur Museum) and they did some tours and Wil taught Carson about the different dinosaurs.

(I'm not sure what happened to pirate Elfie at this point, but they played dinosaur museum for a long time and then we had to run an errand so the game ended)

(I was so hopeful when we had the boys close together in age that they would play together and grow up to be good friends.... things like this make me feel really happy.  I know that they may not always be best buddies and there might be tougher times, but for now, I could not ask for anything better)

 

The weather is getting nicer... so we are outside again!

Colour hopping!

Wil (in the white) during a really cute relay race in his hockey class

Hockey class is hard work... SOOOOO sweaty!

(we had to change his underwear too... I asked if he was changing them because he had an accident, but he said, "No, I need to change my underwear because my bum was so sweaty")

 

Return of Cadillac season... ready to cruise for girls again!!

Hanging out in the sunshine!

Having bike races

Drawing Rainbows!