A few weeks ago, Shelly put her self on time out at Grandma's house. I love this about her. I love that she's able to recognize when she needs to go calm down, and then she separates herself from others and takes a break. This particular time, an unfortunate thing happened. She went into Grandma's room and laid down on her bed. The wallpaper in that room is starting to come up around the edges, but only right by the head of the bed. This proved irresistible to Shelly (I'd love to blame her, but I've stopped myself from doing the exact same thing more than once when we've come up to visit and they let us sleep in their bed). I don't believe it was a malicious thing, and I'm not even really sure she knew that what she was doing was a bad thing. She saw something that looked tempting, and it didn't occur to her to not do it. I confess, this is a problem that we need to work on with her. She was super quick to show us what she did, and the attitude in which she showed me what she did makes me think she didn't realize it was a bad thing until after I talked to her. She understood by the end of the day. Since Shelly needed to do something to fix it, and she's a little bit to small to help re-paper a bedroom, we decided to let Grandma decide what work she could do to help make up for the ruining of the wallpaper. Grandma decided that helping clean up the hoses in the garden and getting other debris out of the way was a good age appropriate chore for her. Well, the weather finally warmed up enough that we could fulfill that obligation, and we went over to help Grandma in the garden.
Shelly had a lot of fun at first, and Emily decided to 'help'
Finding the hooks that hold the hoses down
Now to pick up the hoses
Emily found a gopher hole (or some other kind of fresh dirt) to play with
How can she bend like that?
Her hands got a bit dirty...
Both of them
Shelly taking a break and finding a bug. She started to not like the work after a while.
I was glad she got to that point. I was worried that it would be a lost lesson if she only had fun. She kept working even when she didn't like it because she had to help Grandma. I was proud of her for the good attitude she kept up.
Jason didn't do much helping, but he did help distract Emily
Shelly showing off how many hoses she helped clear off the garden! She didn't pull all of the hoses off, but she did help pull most of them, and get hooks off all of them. She was proud of herself for helping, fulfilling her obligation, and doing so much work!
Mark tending the fire.
Me and the kids - man, my belly sticks out!
Just waiting for the fire to get hot enough to cook food!
Emily had some Doritos...
Cheese! (both for the picture, and all over her face!)
Judging by her face, the roast was a complete success.
Emily watching the boys work on the 4 wheeler
Ethan and I played catch
Shelly played in the grape arbor - one of her favorite places to be
Jason, also in the dirt...
Mark and his dad getting the sprayer hooked up so they can spray the weeds along the fence lines (to prevent the cows from trying to reach over the fence to get the food, and thereby ruining the fence)
Me, waiting for Ethan to throw me the ball.
Ethan playing with Emily while she eats her sucker
They pulled out almost every blanket in the house!
Crazy kids!
Jason loves blankets, and suckers....
Party time!
This picture makes Emily's hair look intentional instead of the result of 3 different tries at doing her hair 3 different ways, the first with water, and the rest without...
Settling down, in theory
Poor Grandma lying on the floor! I think she enjoyed it though
Good night?
Like make funny faces and then ask you to take their picture
I have a hard time making this picture out every time I see it... Ethan's head looks disembodied, and I think it's because Jason's body is the obvious one in the back... But it still throws me off
One shoe off and one shoe on. Diddle Diddle Dumpling, my son John (or daughter Emmie sue)
Where's Emmie?
Peek-a-Boo!
She has WAY too much fun with that game...
Shelly the purple dinosaur. No, not that one.
I have no idea what she's doing here...
Or here
Not here either
I think she's smiling in this one, but I can't be certain
Jason is going through a phase where he sometimes notices the camera is out and doesn't want his picture taken, so he hides. I think he failed this time, but only a little.
Ethan makes faces too!
And then you can catch Jason off guard and get some fun faces out of him too
Shelly's trying to be a Jack-out-of-the-box
Pop goes the Shelly
Ethan, Shelly and Emily are ready and waiting
Emily makes the funniest faces these days!
Come on, let's go!!
Ready to roll
Heading out
Forward....
And we're off!!
Shelly had a lot of fun at first, and Emily decided to 'help'
Finding the hooks that hold the hoses down
Now to pick up the hoses
Emily found a gopher hole (or some other kind of fresh dirt) to play with
How can she bend like that?
Her hands got a bit dirty...
Both of them
Shelly taking a break and finding a bug. She started to not like the work after a while.
Jason didn't do much helping, but he did help distract Emily
Shelly showing off how many hoses she helped clear off the garden! She didn't pull all of the hoses off, but she did help pull most of them, and get hooks off all of them. She was proud of herself for helping, fulfilling her obligation, and doing so much work!
