Size 7 black boots

These sweet little size 7 black boots have been around for a long time. 10 years to be exact. They have been worn by Simeon, Corrine, Ammon & now Rebecca.

And Rebecca at 3 years old is about to outgrow them. 

This has made me quite sad. Very sad. 

I LOVE these boots! 

They have been LOVED and LOVED and LOVED some more by all 4 of our kids. They were used as firefighter boots, puddle stomping boots, bad to the bone motorcycle boots (complete with leather jacket), grabbed as the quickest shoes to put on, and of course became a holder of the many things the child wearing them wanted to stash or carry around.

I know I'm going to cry the day I hear Rebecca is her sweet 3 year old voice say:

"Mom, these boots hurt my toes." 

Because then and only then will I fully understand that our days of having little ones in our house is over. My little ones won't be so little anymore, they will all be "big kids". Right now we have 3 "big kids" and Rebecca. It will stay that way for a while longer, but not long enough.

The days of little feet and little hands in our house is growing farther away already. The 2 biggest kids and I could share shoes if needed to. Corrine has already put dibs on my purple Keens sandals for next summer. I secretly am alright with that because then I can get another pair. From the kids section I might add, because I have small feet!

 Rebecca LOVES these black boots as much as her siblings did. They have seen many adventures, have been filled with puddle water, had socks stuffed inside of them, have been lost under a pile of clothes, been found and been loved some more. They have helped her chase her brothers in the yard, protected her toes, climbed into the club house, played in the dirt with Corrine, been filled with dirt, slid down the slide and have sailed through the sky on the swings.

Oh man I'm going to miss the days of these boots being so loved and all the memories made in them. They will live on someday somewhere on another sweet kiddos feet.

They are the perfect childhood boot to be forgotten.

 Rebecca put them on in a hurry to get outside and play, since mom is insisting that she wears something on her feet so she will stop getting her sweet little toes hurt and she put them on the wrong feet. I hadn't even noticed until I looked at the 1st picture and obviously she didn't notice them on the wrong feet either!

Puddles are part of childhood

Early this morning we had a BIG storm with house shaking thunder, room brightening lightening and pelting rain. Our road has a little dip right in front of our house which always fills with water when it rains. This afternoon the road still had water sitting on it, and Corrine being our concoction girl needed to do something with that water. Corrine, Rebecca and our adopted neighbor kiddo Joe decided to play in the puddle with chalk.
It seems that whenever you combine puddles and a 3 year old that no matter how hard you try-THEY ARE GETTING WET! Rebecca slipped in and got her pants and boots wet. Before I knew it Corrine & Joe also had boots on and were jumping in the puddles. Trying to get Rebecca to watch and not join in was futile, so I decided that instead of fighting to keep her out of puddles in the road, I'd grab the camera and stand in the middle of the street so the kids could play and I could watch for cars. (Luckily our road is quiet with only a few cars.)

Ammon wanted to join in on the fun, but he couldn't find another pair of boots to wear. Joe needed to go home, so I offered the boots Joe had on to Ammon. He didn't want to wear them because they were wet inside and out. I told him after one jump that he wouldn't even notice they were wet, because he'd add water to them. He finally decided to put them on and jumped into the puddle. He tried so hard to keep a grouchy look on his face. He got ready to jump-grumpy face, jump in-grouchy face, then he looked up and grinned ear to ear and took off running to another puddle. The grouchy face disappeared and never returned because honestly how can a child jump into a puddle and not smile!!

After filling their boots with water more then a few times, they settled down and starting filled syringes with the water from the different puddles and comparing the cleanliness. One was super dirty and cloudy from the chalk they added to it earlier, one was oily looking and the 3rd was fairly clean for being a puddle in a street! Ammon was making fireworks with his syringe. These syringes came from the hospital. When Simeon had a spinal tap they would have some left over supplies likes blunt end syringes, sponge mouth cleaners and test tubes that we would take home to play with.

For the 45 minutes the kids ran from puddle to puddle, jumping, splashing and laughing. They practiced backward jumps, 360 jumps, super high jumps and biggest splash making puddles.

Today I got to decide which memories I wanted the kids to remember. I wanted those memories to be of jumping in the puddles and the fun and laughter that went with each splash. The load of dirty wet clothes I'd have to wash and messy footprints on the floor I just mopped will just have to wait while other memories are being made. Before I know it the kids will walk past the puddles and not jump in them and I'll look back and wish for the these years.

Being a kid is so much fun! 

Rebecca and the pretty yellow flowers

Rebecca has an absolute LOVE for dandelions, and the Kickers soccer park has an abundance of them in a field at the park. Rebecca can pick them for half hour and not even make a dent in them. The fields are almost weed free, but this field isn't sprayed so it is filled with them.
Today I had Corrine's game time written down wrong. Luckily it was written down an hour early and not an hour late. This gave us plenty of time to just play in the field of pretty yellow flowers (as Rebecca calls them) without trying to keep an eye on her and watch a soccer game.




Picking dandelions is such a childhood rite of passage that sometimes it makes me feel bad that we don't have any in our yard for them to pick, but then again there are enough of them in other yards they can pick them there.

Isn't this Rainbow shirt awesome!! A friend was given a bag of clothes with a few girl items in it. She only has boys so she gave the bag to us and this shirt was in it. I almost didn't keep it, but I'm glad I did. All day Rebecca would point to the rainbow and tell us about it.