Buddies

We continue to swap older kids weekly with our friends down the street. By this point, Mateo and his friend, D, have been hanging out at one house or the other for going on two years! They are such buddies and it is a ton of fun to hang out with them. And, it's even more fun now that Talia is on the scene. She just trots along after them, like all little sisters throughout history, and they do a good job of playing with her, at least at this point.

This morning, we played at our house. The kids played upstairs while I got dinner going in the crockpot, and then we went downstairs and tore the basement to shreds. Good thing we have company coming this weekend - guess I'll have to clean it up!

Then, we went upstairs and got our rain clothes on and went on a puddle stomping adventure. We found a huuuuge puddle around the corner. It was right at the bottom of someone's sloped driveway and D, being nearly four years old and quite a big boy, taught our two how to jump off the driveway into the puddle and make a gigantic splash. This opened up a whole new world for Mateo and Natalia. Mateo could jump on his own and Talia seemed to enjoy having me lift her up and then splash her down into the water. We didn't stay for too long, as the little one gets cold pretty quickly (especially when she is soaking wet), but we had a blast.

We capped off the morning by opening up the care package my mom had just sent - full of cookies and brownies! Thanks, Mom! Yum.

Above is a photo of the two boys in their rain gear. They looked like this afterward, too, just drenched in water and mud from head to toe.