Olivia has a new orange and black soft soccer ball, a POOF ball that she got at the store with Daddy. She has formed quite an attachment to this ball, carrying it around with her, taking it with her in the car, sleeping with it at night. One day she was looking at it in the car and saw the lettering on it. She asked me, "What does p o o f spell?" And ever since then she has called the ball Poof or Poofy. Last night for the first time she decided that Poofy needed to wear a night shirt too, so Poofy wore some pajamas to bed with her. And then this morning, Olivia made sure to get Poofy dressed too, including a necklace (at the breakfast table) and later a hat (when she was supposed to be getting ready to take Cora to school - Cora took the picture).
We've spent a little time working in the garden lately, we have tomatoes, corn, and strawberries planted so far. We were replanting some corn seeds that didn't grow up in between the other stalks and watering the corn when the girls decided to get very involved in the watering. They were extremely muddy (they had been swimming before that and they were in their bathing suits), but leave it to Daddy to make sure they get REALLY muddy and dirty. He decided to "help" them out by starting a new muddy area in one of the raised beds that doesn't have anything planted in it yet and they actually wallowed in it this time! They were swimming in the mud, covering each other in mud, and having a wonderful time! Daddy cleaned Cora off before I could run in and get the camera and he had started to hose off Olivia, but she was still a little muddy for a picture. Her hair is actually covered in mud as well, that was definitely a bath night!
Just this afternoon we had some seriously different weather -- it's been warm most days, sometimes even hot. But today around 1:30 we had a downpour, the kind of downpour that seems like someone's just pouring buckets and buckets of water. Cora, Olivia, and I decided to venture out into the rain. The girls were playing with their umbrellas and getting very wet and I started trying to bring all the chair cushions into the garage (although they were pretty soaked already). There was thunder and lightning and we were having lots of fun until we heard an extremely loud boom of thunder that sent us all running into the house, and Olivia back behind a chair! I can't remember a time when I've heard thunder so loud and apparently so close, and perhaps it hit something nearby because our power went out as well. The girls and I spent some time indoors playing games and painting until the power came back on and the sun was bright and shining in the sky again. It's overcast again now, a little cool and windy, and it just started to rain again, but not nearly as hard as it did before. The second picture above was taken on a very warm day when the girls decided to pretend it was cold (how do they do that?!). Olivia is wearing the overalls that she got in the mail on her birthday from Grandma and Grandpa Ford in Georgia.
