Let's play!

I'll be honest.  We watch our fair share of TV at our house.  The kids like it, we try to keep it on more "educational" programming, and sometimes I just need a break from all the questions and "Hey Mommy look at this!".  However, we do try to keep it to a minimum, or else we get this:

AAAHHH!!!

So we've been making a concerted effort to GET OUTSIDE, especially now that the weather has been darned-near perfect for the past few weeks. So we've been visiting many parks!  Some of them are strictly walk/run around on the grass parks:

Tyler Park, around the corner from our house

Some of them have great climbing structures:

Aurelia in the tunnel that used to freak Dashiell out

Some of them have awesome sandboxes/sandpits:

Oh how they love to dig!  And oh how I love to empty sand from their shoes for 30 minutes after going to the park...

And some of them are not parks at all, but are the play structures in our friends' backyards:

Aurelia navigating the slide (and it's ladder) like it was no big thing.

Of course there are days when we either need to or just want to stay inside and play, and that's okay too!  We color:

Dashiell was at the "big table" coloring, so 'Reels grabbed her crayons and plopped herself down at the kid table.  Gotta be just like big bro!

We paint pottery at birthday parties:

All the kids were SO focused

We find our own indoor "climbing structures":

 

 

Yeah, the chair at the sink is a favorite.  I'm not sure what prompted the naked chair climbing, but I guess they don't need a reason to lose their clothing!

And of course we help ourselves to snacks, directly from the fridge:

Grabbed a whole apple and went to town on it!

Or cereal box:

Ditto with the cereal...'Reelsy likes a good snack!

 

We won't be getting rid of our TV anytime soon, we're not that good. After my bout with the stomach bug from hell last week in which I laid on the couch most of the afternoon while the kiddos contentedly watched Disney Jr., I firmly believe that TV can be a mommy's savior if used under the right circumstances.  But on those days when it seems like ALL the kids want to do is watch TV, it's nice to be reminded that they have the ability to have fun without it!