The Magic of Forts, Dress-up, and Capes...

I love our new rule of "extremely limited television." The kids do genuinely have more fun. They actually get creative and use their minds and also play together better. There has been less fighting and more smiles.

This day they decided to get out the dress-up box and make a huge fort out of my piano and bed sheets in my living room. It had been a while since they had used the dress-up box, and Jack asked me to help him put on Immanuel's blue dragon costume. It was way too big for him, so i rolled the sleeves, and he was as happy as could be. He even insisted on eating lunch while wearing it and it was too cute to oppose really, especially as he kept growling while eating his hot dog.

Then the kids asked me about the extra fabric i had in my closet and before i knew it i was measuring capes for them. Nothing fancy, just cut and safety-pin around their necks kinda stuff, but the result was priceless. In fact it's two days later and Eden is still wearing her cape now! (they have to take it off when we leave the house of course, but Eden i found out later on in the day yesterday, carried hers in her purse while we were at the store, just in case!)

Jack was a dragon!
For some reason he kept putting his hands in his mouth
(perhaps he was feeling his "scary" teeth?) and then he would growl!

Group shot! They all had names:
Immanuel was "Toothless" (from the how to catch a dragon movie)
Jack was "Jackie" (so creative!)
Eden was "Zoe" (so cute, as that's her new baby cousin's name)
Sarah was "Layla" (again really cute, as that's their other new baby cousin's name)

Brothers! Immanuel is so sweet to his younger brother.

Jack was on day four of no real nap....he was SOOOOOOOOO tired!

The Girls totally wanted a photo shoot!
They kept arranging themselves in various poses and
asking me to take another picture.
As you can see they LOVED their "capes."

When i cut the capes, the girls specifically requested "trains."

Each pose was directed by Eden...

Except for this one....

Then they wanted me to get in on them too...

Climbing trees....

Despite our earnest efforts to camp this summer, it hasn't come to pass and so this is as close as we've come...a camp-out lunch on top of the "Ridge" at the England's farm. The site really was absolutely amazing and of course the company was fabulous too. Jeff made hamburgers and hot dogs over the camp fire and Lorraine had made cabbage salad, which was really thoughtful as a couple days before i had been talking about how much i loved it and didn't have a recipe for it.

Jeff talked about his childhood growing up on a then tobacco farm and how much hard work it was and even showed the kids a great place to play up there. As you will see below is was this awesome tree that was perfect for climbing. It reminded me of better days when I was a child and would play outside ALL DAY! We had trees in our backyard growing up that my sister, brother and i would climb. I don't actually think Immanuel had really climbed a tree before this day, which is somewhat sad to me. We've become a society that depends on technology to entertain our children, instead of them going out and finding it for themselves. Counted our world is different in that it's not as safe as i remember it being, however i believe we'd have healthier, happier children, if we'd let them out or rather pushed them out the door and told them to explore.

John and i have recently talked about how different our childhoods were from that of our children and i have been making a conscious effort to not allow the T.V. to be put on or computer games to be played. It used to be a daily thing for the t.v, which i was better about when they were little, and the computer games were several times a week, but now we are in a technology famine and i have to say it's FANTASTIC! Eden actually said to me the other day, "Mommy, i had so much fun today because we didn't watch the t.v.!" I pondered on that and how it sounded...almost like i enslaved them to watching t.v. instead of it being a privilege...and you know what, i don't think she's too off on that one. Anyway, this was a day well spent and the kids throughly enjoyed the "Ridge" and we all enjoyed spending time with good friends. Thanks Jeff for showing them the trees!

Gorgeous view! Man, i just LOVE living in Tennessee!

Jack & Brayden, great buds!

Johnni giving the kids rides on the 4-wheeler. So sweet, they loved it!

Trying to catch June Bugs! They were EVERYWHERE!!!

Poor little Maddison, so tired! My kids NEVER did that!

He doesn't smile like that when watching T.V. or playing computer games!

Priceless!

Jack even tried to climb them too...

Brayden helping Sarah after she got hurt....so cute!

A Frog Immanuel found, it totally looks like the bark of a tree, so cool!