Roaming the great outdoors is their favorite place to be!

The weather is finally cooling down around here. It has been in the low to mid 90's and that is cool for our area. This summer was so brutal with the heat. You know it's bad when I won't let the kids go out and play.

But alas we are entering my favorite time - when the kids go out in the morning and don't come back in until the evening. Literally. I put a pitcher of cold water and cups in the morning, bring out lunch mid afternoon, and then a afternoon snack around 3pm.

I love that the kids have a gang of friends that live in our neighborhood and I love that most of the action is centered around our house. All the kids congregate on our porch or lawn and play. I always wanted to be that house and we are.

I do wish, though, that I would have known a few things before we became 'that house'. Like:

The neighborhood kids will eat you out of house and home.

And even though said kids live like 4 houses down, your water and food taste better.

Your yard looks like a garage sale.

Neighbors will ask you if you are a home daycare and how much you charge. I kid you not.

If the neighborhood kids are being unruly, people come and tell you about it - even if it's not your kid!

The kids WILL eat you out of house and home. Really.

When the kids come up with an 'idea' then you are the recruited parent who helps.

And at the end of the day while your house and lawn are trashed, your kids are safe, you know where they are, you were able to be there when problems arose & handle conflict in a Godly way and those hungry neighborhood kids think your house is cool.

Yep, I guess it's worth it!

Today the kids decided to have a lemonade stand. Here they are:

( Doesn't Little Kate look so cute & little?)


Then when they decided that they weren't making enough money at that, they decided also to add car washing too. They really worked hard, check 'em out:

They were outside for seven hours, made $20 and couldn't stop talking about how fun their day was. They were even okay about going to bed early because they were so exhausted!

Good times for a kid!