Park Pics

I must be doing better because for the first time in a long time, I pulled out my camera just to get shots of our kids.

After dinner Marc thought it would be fun to go to the new park that is just a short way from us.

Baby is still small enough that even if she is determined not to go somewhere, she can't really stop us from getting her there.

Now-a-days Brother will go pretty much anywhere as long as we are taking the van.

But Sister has a way of making her protests pretty darned close to unbearable.

She screams at you with fervent effort and kicks the seat she is behind to the point of worrying the seams will bust. The screams are incessant and she can throw out some pretty nasty adjectives while she's at it.

Once we got to the park, we thought she would settle down, but she continued her rant by pushing Marc against the car and telling him to get back in. When she saw that wasn't helping she screamed at the top of her lungs and ran to the play ground yelling about how we shouldn't be there and that we need to go home now.

A very different girl from earlier today when I actually experienced my first UP of the day.

So, I'll reflect back to her field trip with the mainstream class by showing you the picture that my sweet neighbor posted for me so I could see how happy Sister was.

Here's Sister with her neighborhood buddies! It was so neat to think that Sister was able to have her friends with her and have such great peer models throughout the day. I received a text from her teacher that she did so well and was one of the best behaved kids there. Sister had so much fun with her peers!

For this field trip it was the entire 3rd grade—Sister is in 4th grade but the teacher and I decided she does better with her 3rd grade peers. They went to Thanksgiving Pointe for the Tulip Festival. Thanksgiving Pointe is a huge place and usually has a LOT of people visiting the gardens. So I totally understand the Sister was overstimulated and overwhelmed even though she did so well.

I understand why she didn't want to go to the park today, but we thought we'd try anyway.

Luckily, there was something quite fascinating that Sister discovered at the park. She was thrilled to have discovered a "nest" of 3 spotted eggs underneath one of the slides. I've never seen a nest of eggs on the ground of a playground before so I took a couple of pictures.

They were tucked away under the slide. It goes to show you how observant Sister is.

After the excitement of the eggs, Sister was able to calm down enough to allow the rest of us to have fun and she just had a bit of a dreary, yet tolerant look on her face for the 45 minutes we were there.

It felt good to take pictures of my family just because.

I really wanted to try to get a shot of the kids together, regardless of their clothing not being at its finest, but Baby didn't want anything to do with it

But I just LOVE this one! I do wish Sister didn't look quite so concerned though...

I got her to smile after the stress of the 3 of them together was over

It was a beautiful afternoon and the setting at the park was peaceful and serene.

On our way home

It turned out to be a great day at the park and Sister was happy she had come after all.

Day 114 of 365 Days of Up