It was a beautiful afternoon at the park today. Frogs were caught, frisbees were thrown, friends were carried piggy-back around the field and the kids (and some moms!) were transported back to the 1800s.

We introduced the game of Graces to our friends and, even though it was intended as a game for girls when it was created, it was a hit with both the girls and boys in our group!

As the clock ticked onward into the evening, I started to wonder if I would find something interesting enough to photograph for today.

I should not have worried, though, for at 5 minutes before bedtime, my eldest came into the room with these penguins on parade.

Three years ago I wrote up a funny little post here called Moo! (or Last Minute Cow Costumes on a Budget of Zero Dollars). It documented my creation of four(ish) cow costumes in about two hours in order to get free food.

Yesterday, I noticed a huge spike in visitors to this little record of our lives. Almost 300 visitors had stopped by and then another 600 today. I’d say that that one entry is, hands down, the most popular thing ever written on this site! You might as well go take a look, too! It has some cute pics of the girls 🙂

Tonight we took out those same costumes, slipped them on, answered some awkward questions in the mall parking lot, and then ate $27 worth of free chicken, fruit, waffle fries and drinks. We ran into the same friends as we did 3 years ago (and some others as well!) and had a lovely, cow filled, evening.

Whoever said my compulsive need to craft and to costume my children would never amount to anything?!? (well, no one, actually…)

Such a sweet little mama to wake up to.

To be honest, I had plans to use my sewing machine this afternoon. I tried to put off this kid and her ideas for ‘sewing something’. I tried to put her off till tomorrow, but there was no having it.

In the end I spent the afternoon going through our fabric stash, helping her make a plan and supervising the iron and sewing machine use. With minor guidance from me, Catherine was able to make this sweet skirt on her own. And boy, was she ever proud!

{and so was I}

I caught this sweet scene on the T tonight. It was a long day to begin with and then we added an after dinner trip to the Lawn on D to see the Bunnies.

Everyone had a good time, but by 10pm, and back on the subway, the day started to catch up with us. Even so, it is awesome to live close enough to Boston to partake in it’s culture and quirkiness.

We introduced Aunt Marsha to Candlepin bowling tonight. So fun!

They are back off home on the left coast tomorrow. We were so glad to spend all of last week with them and then a bonus night tonight.

We love bowling all the time, but it is so much more awesome with family and dancing and bowling balls on heads. Yay!

The end result of a spring spent observing the growth patterns of the bullfrog tadpoles at in the pond. (Though I suspect this one is not from this year’s batch of tadpoles!)

Some more craft fair inventory- fancy bubble wands. Here’s hoping they sell!

How better to spend the last night of vacation? Why, with a new costume drama, of course!

Catch it on PBS before they pull the episodes offline and enjoy some of our favorite British actors with us- Warren Clarke (RIP), Ruby Bentall, Richard Harrington, Phil Davis and many others.

And it has a fantastic score, besides.