Friends, Fruit Flowers, and Family Fun

We invited a few of our friends over earlier this week. We got the sprinkler and pool out and had a splashin' water party.

Clayton and Lucy's family are some of the first friends we made after moving here. Brandon and their dad are in the same class. Brayden and Clayton have played together since they were a few months old.

These two little bruisers may look all affectionate towards one another in this picture, but they just got done taking turns hitting each other. The one thing I love about this boy is that one minute he's screaming and crying because of a blow from another toddler, and the next minute he's laughing and giggling about it. No drama! It makes discipline hard sometimes. It's hard not to join in with his giggles. After the pool they played with the sand table and made a nice mess...then we hosed them off and came inside for a snack. We put together fruit flowers made of pineapple, a grape, and an apple slice stuck on a stick.

I got the idea from Family Fun magazine.

Brayden loves it when I do this.

We practically ate a whole pineapple that day.

(on a side note this also worked great with a burger. I cut a hole in it and put a cherry tomato in the middle and then a chip for the 'leaf.' That may sound gross but it's what got her to eat her dinner one night.)

Later in the evening when Brandon came home we had Family Home Evening. We watched parts of an old City of Joseph video and talked about the Pioneer children (and how quick they were to obey). We set up a 'camp fire' afterwards and made S'mores. Just a little FYI. These new Nature Valley Granola Thins are great for making S'mores. They come with a thin layer of chocolate smeared on them. They were really good.

The kids liked them too.

(Brayden is my messy one. That's why she is the one with no clothes on.)

Later we played the "stick pull game," an old pioneer favorite.

(Photograph courtesy of Brayden. It only took about four tries to get us all in.)

And it quickly became a family favorite.

We had a lot of fun.

(Please excuse my unclothed child)