Backyard Fun

It’s been such a hot summer this year. We have tried to make the most of it by doing lots of activities with water, including the lovely slip and slide :) Eli likes running onto the slip and slide, but he LOVES when Ben flings him onto the slip and slide, like he’s Superman:

Charlie, however, is still more excited to play with balls than run on the slip and slide. And drink the water spouting up too.

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We live in an area with lots of old, huge trees. Summertime in Chicago wouldn’t be complete without the NOISY hum of the cicadas, especially at night. Here’s a cicada shell that Ben picked up and plopped on our patio table. So appetizing!

Charlie wasn’t fazed by the cicada shell – he was excited to devour slice after slice of watermelon, which then dripped down his chin and tummy -

I love that my lightweight, almost-too-skinny little toddler still has the baby chub in his hands/wrists and cheeks, despite that he doesn’t weigh very much and should gain more. This kid gets so many smooches throughout the day. He’s irresistible :)

I know this is a lot of pictures of my child eating watermelon. But this is to give you the idea of how many slices he ate – it was a TON. Charlie is similar to Eli in that he loves fruit and could eat it constantly if I let him. The problem with only eating fruit all day long… he has many dirty diapers… (he averages about 3 poopy diapers/day).

It’s a little harder to get pictures of Eli these days… he’s not quite as willing to have me stick the camera in his face.

I’m going to resist the urge to comment on Ben’s socks, except to say he had to dress up earlier that day and he gets lazy about changing to white socks :)

After some bubble blowing/popping, Charlie was climbing on the table to sneak more watermelon. He is a very persistent child.

The pieces he grabbed were bigger this time.

Harder to hold…

This one is my favorite :)

I don’t remember why he was crying here – maybe because we told him this was his last piece of watermelon?

And as if this post wasn’t long enough already, here are a few shots from our trip to the zoo a few weeks ago. I initially took the kids to the Shedd Aquarium intending to use my friend’s pass… but I was BUSTED – no photo ID and I couldn’t remember her address. Not an experience I’d like to repeat! I wasn’t willing to shell out $50 for us to spend a few hours at the Shedd that day, so we schlepped back out to the car and drove to the zoo – Eli was really, really sad about not getting to see the sharks, so this polar bear was almost as exciting. However, the day that we went was extremely hot and humid (the heat index was close to 100) and I have never felt so hot in my entire life. Not joking. I thought I was going to keel over pushing the stroller around the zoo. We didn’t last very long!

To finish up this random post – here’s messy Charlie eating his yogurt. He is a mess mess maker.