The Rosy Life: Rainy day play

We had the most delightful play day in the rain this week. We woke to a dark, cloudy sky. One that might appear to be gloomy at first sight. But after looking again I realized it was rain a comin'. Rain to water the garden that desperately needed it, rain to fill the pond a bit for the cows. Glorious, summer rain. I was even more delighted to realize there'd be no lightning or thunder! That meant no scared little girls, but enjoyment of the big drops from the sky instead.

At first thought, we were going to stay inside. Surely a day like this one needed cozy blankets and lots of cartoon watching. Then I realized it was only sprinkling and once Anna Ruth figured this out she excitedly exclaimed that we could go play in the rain, because "I love the rain!"

So that's just what we did. We loaded up and drove down to the Log Barn place, one of our main cow pastures. We have a certain little path we like to follow, the girls and I. We drive along spotting every minute detail we can, listening hard for cows, owls, and birds (just to name a few).

We don't like to simply observe our surroundings from the safety of the car, the pasture is our playground. We always like to take a walk around the pond and this day most certainly didn't disappoint. The rain drops hitting the pond were just magical looking.

You know how my heart adores a good web...

Another reason I like playing so freely outdoors is that I can catch my girls at their happiest. This sweet, spunky little smile is most definitely Anna Ruth at her happiest! She was probably talking about Thomas the Train, Rainbow Dash, or "Care Dear" (Care Bear). She talks to and about these characters all day long. They do everything together, including singing, taking care of each other, and dancing. If you're wondering if she really cares the stuffed animal versions are-nope. Just all in her head. She takes this very seriously and has even tried to argue her way out of chores by saying "But Care Dear's doing it!!" It's one of the most ridiculous, silliest, funniest things I've ever heard of.

So if you're around my Anna Ruth and she's pretending-don't rain on her parade. Perhaps we should all do a bit more pretending?!

This sight really stunned us! We walked up on this bee, which got Betsy Grace very excited. We obviously were able to get very close to capture such a shot. The busy bee was so busy it didn't even stop to say "hello".

Anna Ruth delights in picking me flowers. Whether we're out on the farm or in the yard, she always brings me a pretty flower and especially likes it when I put it behind my ear. This reminds me of being in Hawaii, pre-Brett and kids, and we'd always tuck the beautiful flowers from the yard behind our ears.

We also have a deep place in our heart for the dandelions, the most despised little flower (or "weed") there ever was. No one else seems to like them a bit, but we sure do.

After traipsing through the hay pasture we loaded back up in the car to finish visiting with the cows. I always get good pictures of the cows from the car and they were especially lazy this day! Most of them were laying down and took forever to get out of the way of the path when I needed to drive through. Of course, looking at the black cow above, you can see why! These are the friendliest bunch of cows and I just love talking to them and making up little stories about them.

There is a bull we've just moved over to this pasture that I am NOT so friendly with. He's huge and mean-looking and frightens me!

After our little rainy day jaunt we came back to the house to dry off, seeing as the rain was really starting to come down. We decided to paint and I joined right in with the girls. We drew pictures with crayons and then watercolored right over the drawings.