keeping busy this week

Violet rocks the harmonica. she was playing along to the Black Keys here while Clover informed me that "Violet is singing the blues!"

unfortunately I had my hands too full to get any good photos of it, but I took my kids on a walk around the historic section of Leesburg this week. we parked and walked up and down some of the streets, looking in windows, eating carrots, discussing what we saw, eventually making it back to where we started.  I might do this again with them.

I let Violet out of her stroller for a bit to run around here. It reminded me of the time when my parents  came and visited us in our first year of marriage. must have been in 2006? they walked Leesburg with us and we parked in the garage next to here. it started raining on us, and my dad took some video of me dancing like a total nerd in this grass. 

 after some hard play, Barbie needed a bath. originally I was going to do this outside, but my efforts led to the reason Violet is naked. our sandbox lid blew off in a storm, and the box filled up with water, eventually turning to ice, melting back to liquid in the warm weather, and still currently sits there. as soon as Violet got to the deck she bombed towards the pool of water and dove in. soooo, we took off her wet clothes and did bath time in the kitchen. 

Clover gently bathed Barbie, and Violet was a bit more.....violent. we ALL took a bath from her flinging.

clover ordered me to draw specific letters so she could fill them in while violet was off someplace eating some blue chalk

she may be tallying all the times I told her she was "driving me crazy" that day

this little lamp is from our nativity set. Violet took out outside sometime after Christmas and lost it. today I heard her by a tree excitedly saying "liiiiight liiiight" and then she brought this to me. then she lost it again near a fence. then Clover found it. Clover smuggled it out of the house today in her coat pocket and left it on a play structure. Violet found it and ran around with it for a while and lost it in the playground, which I noticed when we were partway home. so, having gone through so much already, I decided to turn around and find it again. there you go. way more information than necessary. 

Violet throws tantrums by collapsing onto the ground. in response to my taking the blue chalk that was currently being used as an edible treat, she very carefully placed herself on the ground to protest. she happened to lay her face right into a chalk sine and ended up with....

some warpaint. next she started yelling "freedooooom!". ok, not really.

I've been comparing tree bark texture with the girls, so now they eagerly start patting down trees in the area. 

we've been doing some climbing too. 

and jumping!

"where's Violet?"......ooooh. (this shot was taken with full zoom on my DSLR lens)