Naturally good Natured

Sometimes.

But most of the time I need to keep my boys entertained to help their sweetness shine through.
Especially Isaac. He loves to DO stuff. Which is why I was surprised when one morning I announced we were going on one of our nature walks and he complained.
He told me it was just "boring, boring, boring, just walking, walking, walking."

He loves the word boring so I ignored him and we went anyways. Of course he loved it and found many treasures to bring home.

Luke especially loves our Nature walks and plays with his treasures for hours, sometimes days.

Until they magically find their way into the bottom of the trash can:)

I wonder who would do such a thing?

As for keeping busy...
If you know me well, you know I am always coming up with the next "system" or "chart" or something to keep us organized, productive and happy!

Here is the latest--our weekly calendar
We have been doing this for about 3-4 weeks and love it. Every Sunday night we plan out our week and the boys get to choose activities to put on the calendar.
Pros: I can change it easily
Cons: My kids now see what we are doing so they remind me if I FORGET:)

I have about a 100 little pictures (I just printed them from the computer and laminated them) that tell us what we can or should do. I even made one for Isaac that shows a kid picking out his clothes so that we could compromise. Isaac gets to choose 2 days a week what he gets to wear and the other days I get to give him choices. It is a Win-win:) There really is less arguing since the calendar since all I have to say is, "oh, but look at the calendar, it says we are doing this so we better get our chores done so we can!"
We also started doing mini-devotionals in the morning...that is why there are the letters (K,E,L,I,R) because we each get a day. We all help Ruby when it is her turn.
I hope we can continue this long term. It really has been fun and a great way to plan our week.

This is what my house looks like when my kids "play" so yes, they keep themselves busy (thanks to Luke and his genius creations) but it messes up my house COMPLETELY! So, I try to have activities for them to do from time to time so I can keep my house sorta clean sometimes.

In other news:
We did a lot of crafts this summer. One of them was painting these animal figures. They loved it but it only lasted a couple of minutes...dang!

Luke learned how to do thumbs up. He was very excited to show us.
The way he used to do thumbs up.
The right way to do thumbs up.

Ruby continues to be our favorite baby. Very snuggly. Here she is just chillin with G-pa Fillmore.

Isaac starts Kindergarten next week! Wow!
(he got this hat from his Cousin Nathan and wore it literally for 48 hours straight--good thing it rained those days!)

We came in the kitchen one day and Luke was trying to slip on a banana peel. This kid is hilarious.

Ruby is officially a bottle baby.
We were bored
~This one is my favorite~