Last year, I blogged about indoor child storage. Well, during cousin Ryan’s recent visit to our house, Aiden discovered some very cute and effective outdoor storage for children! These three bins are usually full of toys and stored in the garage, but Brian had dumped them out so we could use them at Aiden’s party as beverage coolers. Aiden decided to pick up little Ryan, put him in one of the bins and then climbed in another one himself. I added Brady to the mix (he’s not so happy to be there) and tried to get a funny picture:

In other news, here is a shot of the neighborhood crew (most of them anyway) wearing their shirts from Aiden’s party! I had dressed my boys, per their request, in their tie-dye shirts one morning. About 10 minutes after we had gotten ourselves ready for the day, our door bell rang. There were Ella, AJ, Ryan and Mackenzie in their shirts as well yelling “surprise!”. funny. I think they all turned out really well!

And finally…an observation:

Lately I’ve noticed that my kids do “better” when I’m not hovering around them. Sometimes my presence tends to induce 1. the need for me to come up with a game or activity 2. requests like “find me / make me / get me something” <—food, beverages, toys, cloths…whatever! I swear that my boys could be having the greatest time playing together in the toy room, but as soon as I enter, it’s all “we need this…I’m bored…he’s being mean…” blah blah.

So…I’ve learned a couple tricks this summer. The first applies to our clubhouse pool and it is: that it’s best for me to sit on the side of the pool (close enough to get in and help if necessary). If I’m IN the pool, they hang on me, pull on my suit, seem less confident and more easily distraught (Brady). If I sit in a chair on the side, they make up games, swim where they know they can, play for hours and seem generally happier.

The second thing I learned is to try and let them play 1. without friends from the neighborhood (at least sometimes!) and 2. without mommy sitting right there with them. The first one is only because I feel like they need to come up with their own games once in a while…and play like siblings really do. I didn’t have a slew of friends on my block growing up. I think it encouraged my imagination plus collaboration, and therefore a closer friendship, with my sister.

I set up a bunch of water stuff in the back yard the other day and, at first, sat down at the outdoor patio table to read/keep an eye on everyone. That didn’t work because every 2 seconds, someone needed something. I went inside, shut the door and sat at the dining room table where I could see them. They played for an hour straight without needing one thing & without one fight. They did request a bucket of soap and rags to clean the fort…and then I heard the three of them chanting together “scrub the club, scrub the club” as they were up there soaping the floor boards. I grabbed my camera and took some shots. Unfortunately, they saw me and started in on the requests. :)

For a while, they set up an obstacle course between the slip n slide and the big inflatable pool. It was run, run, slide, run, run, jump, splash, repeat. To me, it was beautiful because I feel like that’s what life should be all about when you’re 2, 4 & 5 – running and moving and playing…without the need for so many toys all the time (ok…except maybe in this case a slip-n-slide and a pool) ;)