"i did it!"

madelyn and i spent the late afternoon playing in the front yard. we (she) played golf, watched bees, rolled in the grass, did somersaults, drew with chalk, and discussed "birdberries". mason was taking a long nap in his swing (4 hours plus) so i could keep and eye on him from the front yard.

we started with golf and i was trying to teach madelyn to use both hands to hold the club and line up with the ball. she tried for a while and when she hit it she would yell triumphantly, "i did it!", as shown in the picture. mainly she just wanted to retrieve balls i would hit. it isn't that easy to hit a plastic ball, smaller than a real golf ball, in tall grass.

once she tired of that we talked about our collection of pumpkins on the front step and she drew a "train" with chalk on the step. before watching the bees gather pollen off the flowers for at least 20 minutes. the video is just showing her concern about the bees not stinging her. she got stuck on that point but she had been telling me all about pollen and what the bees were doing.

our next stop in the yard - a tree. we can't remember what it is called and i am too tired to look it up right now. it is sort of like a crabapple tree, but with small cherry like fruit. any way madelyn just noticed the 'cherries' hanging from the branches for the first time today. she was jumping around the tree trying to touch them. during our conversation about the 'fruit' not being good for her to eat, i told her that they were for birds to eat. madelyn named them "birdberries" - one word.

to round out our trip around the front yard i taught her how to barrel roll down the incline and to do somersaults properly. she gets a little scared doing them in the house because she landed hard on the wood floors once and now does a little side land instead of going all the way over her head. i told her that it was good to practice in the grass because it was softer than inside. now she does a mean somersault - even inside the house!

here are some more pictures from our front yard adventure.

the two smaller pumpkins are from our garden.

check out that impressive form!

so i mentioned that mason took a long nap in his swing today. he did wake up twice for about 5 seconds each, but it was at least a 4 hour nap. and he did the same thing yesterday too - sleeping in his swing for 3-4 hours. i thought that he was just getting into a napping routine, but then i noticed that his cheeks were a little red this evening and took his temperature. yep, he has a fever. i gave him some tylenol before bed so hopefully that will take care of it. he was also spitting up a lot today! he is either catching something or getting his first tooth. madelyn used to get warm and spit up a lot when she had teeth coming in. he has been drooling excessively and licking his bottom gums for the past two days too. only time will tell... at least he doesn't seem bothered or uncomfortable by any of it. love.