Outdoor Fun {Family Connections Summer 2012}
Once again I’m joining Aurie, Lisa, Amy, and Connie to share ideas for fun, family activities for the summer. We hope you’ll stop by every Wednesday to share in our theme or link up your own posts about great summertime fun for the whole family!
This week we’re all sharing ideas for Outdoor Fun. Hot, sweaty, fogging up the lens of my camera, outdoor summer fun. {smile}
As I mentioned before, it’s been really hot around here. I thought it was so hot that it was evaporating the water from our bird baths, but it turns out there was a different culprit there…
It turns out “Fee-Wicks” the Great has been lapping from our bird bath under the butterfly bush on a regular basis!
But does that stop us from getting outside?
Oh no, not this crew!
It also doesn’t stop us from wearing boots–with our shorts!
We spent a recent weekend digging potatoes like Almanzo Wilder. Well, maybe not exactly the same.
What simple outdoor activities do we enjoy as a family?
We enjoy blowing bubbles and eating popsicles on the porch.
We enjoy walking the dog, seeing turkeys, and hunting for bird feathers that don’t belong to chickens.
Our garden seems much small when you put a hoe in everyone’s hand. {smile}
We enjoy reading books on the porch with a glass of ice tea, and playing cars in the dirt.
We enjoy weeding the flower beds…umm…well, we enjoy hunting up fresh buds and examining new blooms while we weed the flower beds anyway!
We enjoy horseback riding. Well, I don’t know if Hokie necessarily enjoys being riding when it’s 100 degrees out, but he doesn’t mind the wash down afterwards with cool well water from the hose.
I don’t know what’s up with the Cowboy’s sock there, but I love this picture!
And you know what else? Our kids love to help us with work outside. They’re not crazy about having to do their own chores–but they really enjoy helping us with ours. Working as a family. Being together. Especially when the work has serious rewards for completion!
Like your very own fried potatoes and onions and steamed green beans for dinner.
Those are happy faces! They had to stop just to come show me this big one.
And it never hurts to offer a little time to run in the sprinkler afterwards!
When our kiddos put in a full afternoon outside and are headed straight for the shower, I love to offer to spray them with the hose for 5 or 10 minutes first. The laundry already has to be done and they earned it and it ends the whole afternoon on a good note!
Ok, I just love this one too. This is Speedracer’s “can I have fruit snacks?” face.
What summer fun have you been up to lately? Link up a new or old post about your great summer family activities. Please keep it family friendly and link to you post, not your homepage.
And be sure to come back next week and join us. The theme will be Around Town Fun and I’ll be sharing about some of our Summer Plan field trips!
OH,I LOVE THESE PICS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
They are adorable!!!
Yes, I’m not the best photographer, but I think there’s just something special about any picture when you capture a moment or an emotion or a personality like these do! 🙂
I love the way you all get outside together. I had to laugh about the difference between doing their own chores and helping you with a task. Mine do the same thing. Why do they see them so differently? 😉
Especially when half the time, it’s the same job! I guess it’s just living proof that family time really does touch the heart and soul of a child. 🙂
Sounds like it’s fun to be a kid at your house. I think when working as a family, kids see that as fun! Love that!
Amy
I think there’s really something great for them in having such a direct reward too–like eating their own potatoes or hearing someone comment on “the lovely flower beds” and then hearing me say that I couldn’t do it without my big helpers. They really soak that up.