Summer is finally on its way! M spent the weekend at his grandparents’ house in search of tree frogs – his current obsession (I mean interest).

What is it that makes children want to put every small creature they come across in some sort of container? The tiny frog he found spent a terrifying hour in a plastic sandwich box with a handful of grass before we convinced M that his family was probably missing him and that we were pretty sure he didn’t eat grass. He finally agreed to return him to the wilds of Nana & Grandpa’s front yard.

Soon the fields will be twinkling with lightning bugs (those are fireflies for those of you not from the south) and M will spend many happy evenings filling old Mason jars with them. (Don’t call PETA on us though…mommy has a soft spot for all of God’s creatures, and we practice catch and release lightning bug hunting!)

It isn’t quite lightning bug weather yet, so I had a little fun in Photoshop…

M lost his first tooth last night. It has been loose for a couple of weeks, and he has been wondering when it would finally come out. Well, the answer to that is about 4 in the morning. And of course he had to come wake Mama & Daddy up to tell us the exciting news! I was just thankful he didn’t swallow it in his sleep. What he was doing awake at that hour wiggling his tooth, I will never know.

He had lots of offers of assistance with the loose tooth, both from his Daddy and his
Grandpa. My dad loved to trick us into letting him pull our loose teeth when we were
little. “I’m just going to wiggle it to see how loose it is,” he’d say. I’m not sure how many
times we fell for that…more than we should probably admit. What is that old saying?
“Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me!” We did eventually learn
our lesson though, so M knew better than to let Grandpa wiggle his tooth.

Grandpa is pretty sure he’ll get the next one though…

I came across this picture from summer before last while sorting through my digital files. It made me smile. I think it is the picture that should be in the dictionary beside the entry for “little boy.”

I had taken M & G (still a tiny baby) to the park with my mom & grandmother. With a whole park full of slides, swings, monkey bars, & jungle gyms, M homed right in on an old can someone had left lying there and had a blast kicking it around the park. One man’s trash is a little boy’s treasure…

{Note the tongue – this is the only proper way to kick a can…}

Like I said, old and rusty or not, kids still love this wagon! Is she a cutie or what? Look at those curls!

This is my absolute favorite time of year. The leaves are starting to fall, the sky is blue, and the temperature is perfect.

We enjoyed the weather this weekend on a trip to my parents’. Better get out there and enjoy it while you can – it won’t last long!

G thoroughly enjoyed her first chance to get out and play in the leaves. She and M collected corn cobs from the field. He was much too busy to stop and let me take his picture, but G is slower and can’t get away from me so easily!