Beautiful Fall

We've had a beautiful fall with really great weather. And the kids have taken advantage of it for some nice outdoor time.
Aiden and Aleah both love playing in the sandbox.

Notice the white dress that's not so white anymore?!?!
(Thank goodness for bleach!)

I was a little worried with the spoon that she would start eating the sand.
She did! Though it didn't bother her much, she didn't particularly love it either. But that didn't stop her from trying it again on other days. Silly girl!

Not to be left out, she also plays with the trucks!
Whatever Aiden plays, she wants to play too.

We had this great big poster mailing tube that Aiden decided to make a rocket out of. When it was finished he decided to take it outside, launch it off the deck and see if it would fly with the parachute attached.

Unfortunately, it was a little too heavy and plummeted straight to the ground. So we made some modifications ... smaller rocket and bigger parachute. This time it worked marvelously! Especially when there was a little breeze in the air. We flew his rocket every day for weeks! I would let it go from up on the deck. The breeze would catch it and blow it around as it slowly came down to the ground. Aiden would chase it all over the yard. One time it even went up over the roof! We had a blast!

One afternoon a few weeks ago, Parker got bored. And we all benefited from that boredom!
Creative as he is, he made us all a 'snake cake'.




We're all about nature here, so when I saw this fabulous bug, I grabbed my camera.
I wish I had camouflage as good as this guy! If he'd been on a leaf, I never would have seen him. Fortunate for me, he was climbing up my sliding glass window.



Normally we're a 'catch, study, then release' kind of bunch. However, this beauty didn't get the 'release' treatment. Those vibrant colors just screamed "dangerous!" We had some friends over playing in the backyard 'creek' where they found it. The friends were so frightened by it that they killed it right after the picture.