Sun Babies

I grew up loving the winter, and day dreaming of spending cozy snuggly winters with my future family. We'd do things like pop corn over the fire, and read aloud together whilst snuggled up in homemade quilts, and drink cocoa and eat hot cookies fresh out of the oven while the snow fell down around our little cabin in the woods.

I seriously thought that's how winter with my future children would be.

I did not imagine that winter would be the time of puking-every-week and slipping on the ice whilst holding two children, and being unable to leave the house due to the freezing cold- forcing us to watch ridiculous amounts of television every day.
Although, to be fair, we did eat a lot of homemade cookies this winter.



But it turns out that my ambivalent feelings towards summertime weather were unfounded. Summertime, simply put, is the best time of the year with children.
We have hardly watched any television in the last three weeks. We haven't been sick. (Nope. I forgot, Grey did throw up yesterday and the boys both had double ear infections a week ago...)
We spend all of our time outside. Running around with friends. Eating all our meals as backyard picnics. Singing with the windows down in the car. Putting the boys to bed when it's still light out!
The boys get so worn out from being in the hot sunshine that they take a four hour nap and still sleep for 12 hours at night! The buzzing of the fans in their room lulls them to sleep and drowns out all the noise in the rest of the house.



The only down-side that I've found is that the mud and popsicles create a sticky grime and my children need to be bathed constantly.
Since this can be done just as effectively (and with much more delight) by either the hose or the rain, baths are no big deal, and since I try to keep my kids shirtless as much as possible, even the popsicle/mud laundry isn't overwhelming.

Hello, summertime. You are welcome to stay as long as you please.



Seriously. I love looking through these pictures from last summer.