Backyard Fun!

I have to say, I love our backyard. It may not have the trampoline we've been wanting to get or a fancy swing set, but it's got LOTS of nature and a ton of room for imagination. Our kids are happy playing in the dirt, finding bugs and picking berries and flowers from our yard. We live on .98 acre and we love the space and freedoms it gives us. Yes, someday we will have that trampoline (I look on craigs list all the time!) and maybe a fun swing set, but for now the sandbox and nature do. Here's a few fun things we've got going on on the outside... First, the tree house, or "fort". Jeremy has been working hard on getting this done for the kids this summer. For the past month or so he's been building a tree house in the woods on the side of our house. I'm a nervous mom about it, but so far they've been fine and they love it. Almost every time we get out of the car, instead of going into the house they run to the tree house. They've been bringing their snacks up there and making a stick collection (that's mainly Parker). They both have binoculars, so they "spy" on our neighbors and cars that go by.

Here's the trail to get to it. This trail runs next to the garden and off of our driveway.

Here's a view of it from the street. It's hidden in the trees, so it's perfect for their "spying" idea, which Jeremy gave them!

View from the bottom.

Here's the kids at the bottom of the stairs.

View from the top. Pretty high up!

Made it up the stairs!

Say "cheese"!

While building the tree house, Jeremy came across this little guy. A salamander. The kids had fun holding it and kept it for a while. They wanted to keep it, but we have enough critters around here! Here it is, in the house and on the table....Nice.

The other day Samantha and Parker were out in the sprinkler while Collin was asleep. Around the time Collin woke up, the kids decided they were done in the sprinkler, but it was still on so Collin took a try at it. He got to it before I could get his clothes off and this is what happened! He was having fun, so I just let him be.

And last, but not least we have our garden. We were skeptical that it would grow due to lack of sunshine at the beginning of the summer, but it's doing quite well now. We've got a pumpkin patch going in hopes to have a Harvest Festival within our neighborhood. We'd love to get to know them better and have a party! A free pumpkin would be the added touch to the event. It may not work out, but it looks neat at least. We've also got some corn that's growing. I have a feeling we won't get any corn, but there's hope. We already harvested our red potatoes, which were delicious! They were getting eaten by slugs, so we dug them up a little early. They were kind of small, but still tasty.