Family Home Evening Soccer Game

For family home evening one night at the end of summer, we had an outdoor family game night.  We started out by playing a game of family soccer.  As you can see from the pictures it was very noncompetitive.  Many of us were in sandals or even barefoot.  Ashley really got into it, but didn't get the "no hands concept".  Also , when we first went outside, Don showed her how to kick it in the net, but he was doing it on the opposite side of where we were going to be playing.  So everytime she got the ball she would pick it up and run around to the backside of the net and throw it in.  Then she would jump up and down excitedly yelling, "Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!"  We worked in a team of all of us girls against Daddy.  Even at that he still made more goals.  He would always go easier on Alexis and Emily if they worked as a team passing it back and forth.  And we all figured out early on the easiest way to get a goal was to give the ball to Ashley and have her run it up to the net.  ;)  After soccer we all played hide and go seek outside.  We have always played it that we all hide until whoever is it finds us, and the last person found is the winner.  Tonight we taught them about "base" and played that way.  We designated a small slide as base and we had fun trying to make it back before we were tagged.  It was especially fun when Daddy was "it" and decided to carry base with him!  After that we all went back inside and had ice cream.   Then we sang some hymns together while Daddy played them on the guitar.

Little Pig and Goldilocks

One of Ashley's favorite things to do is to act out little fairy tale stories we tell to her.  One evening she was acting out the three Little Pigs.  She would have me be the big bad wolf.  I would say, "Little pig, little pig let me in!"  Then she would say in a high pitched voice, "Not by the hair of my chinny chin chin!"  Then I would respond, "I'll huff and puff and blow your house down!"  Then I would blow her house down and she would run squealing through the house and climb onto Grandma's lap, who was apparently the brick house and she was safe.  Then once we started to do this and she decided the piggie would blow the wolf down, which she did and I pretended to fall upon the sofa.  She then ran up and asked with concern, "Are you OK, Mommy?"  After that game, she decided to play Goldilocks and "Who's been sleeping in my bed?".  In the picture below, she was showing how baby bear's chairs were broken.  It's so fun and reminds us of how Alexis and Emily used to play the same games with us when they were teeny tiny.

Little Artist

Emily is a little artist.  She loves to spend most of free time at this little table I recently moved into the living room.  There she draws all day long.  She has most recently been drawing and stapling together little picture books.   She tells us she's going to make lots of little books for her children to have one day.

Velvet Ice Cream Factory Tour

We went to the Velvet Ice Cream Factory in Utica for a tour.  We had never been there before and we really liked it.  The tour was very interesting, but short.  However, there were lots of fun things to do there.  We walked along a trail through the woods, played at the playground, had a picnic lunch, toured the little museum, treated ourselves to ice cream in their little ice cream parlour, and fed the ducks.  The temperatures were perfect and it wasn't at all crowded so it was a very nice day. 

Rain Rain Go Away!

The girls love playing in their Elmo Sprinkler.  Ashley's favorite way to play is to put up her little pink umbrella and dance around under the sprinkler singing, "Rain Rain Go Away!' over and over.  It's really cute.  She also loves drinking the water that comes out of the sprinkler, as well.  Emily and Alexis like to collect the water and create little streams and "soups" using leaves and other items they find outdoors.