Muddy Sunday Pictures

 Sunday was gorgeously warm and sunny. One of the first real days of spring. The kids exulted in the springness of the day by getting thoroughly muddy.

Hoyt (in water) and Coyote

Hoyt in action. I love those little bare feet and rolled up pants. 

Lily and Lincoln

It was a Hoyt running kind of day

We forgot to bring Elsie play clothes, so we stole some of Hoyt's pants. 

Hoyt was attached to this shopping cart. It went everywhere with him, including the mud. 

Elsie hopping

By the end of the day, Elsie's shirt was hardly white at all. 

Elliott wasn't that into getting muddy, but he liked being outside. 

Running

Lincoln and his puddle

Running Lily

This is the kids favorite puddle because it is deeper than the others. 

Who knows. 

It was good mud.

Lincoln and his muddy hands

Kickin' it.

Hoyt in the puddle

Hoyt more literally in the puddle.

Gilbert's discarded footwear. He got these boots from his cousin Brylan, and he is in love with these!

Sunday collecting. The sap ran like crazy on Sunday, and has continued ever since. We were expecting a bad year and now we have more syrup than we have ever made. And the season's not over yet. 

Collecting the front trees before heading over to the sugar bush we tap of some friends of ours. 

Elsie helping Hoyt with his shopping cart. 

Hoyt and his mud ball

Lily

Meanwhile, everyone inside was much more civilized. And clean. 

Wood bark platter

Croquet mallets are useful in all sorts of instances. Poor Mom and Dad, I think we owe them a new, lovely croquet set. The kids use these things. and the balls for all sorts of non-croquet things.

Lincoln's accidental mud on the face. Once he discovered he had mud, he had to make the other side match. And then everyone tried to give everyone else mud tattoos. I quickly squashed that idea. 

Sticky wicket.

Red haired girl

These two are so busy in their two and three year old pursuits.

Scooping water

Little gap toothed, muddy girl.

Lincoln with his tray of mud. And Dad having a sunshine rest in the background.

Lincoln camoflauging his mud with dead grass.

The mature girls

We have a pretty good clay content in our soil, so the kids had a lot of fun with mud sculptures. 

Mud spatter grin

Elsie's sculptures

It was quite a little ceramics class

Gilbert was inside watching bananagrams

Geri and Ashley peeled all the dyed eggs for future use.

That one  looks like an eyeball. 

The digginest dog

Abilene came out in the sunshine

So delighted with himself

Cheyenne is getting so grown up!

Elliott being a farmer.

Squint eyed look.

I love this kid

Hahha!

And then he went his merry way, tossing his hat.

Hoyt-mid puddle.

Trying to see the first calf of the season that was obliging enough to be born on Easter Day.

It is hard to see, but that black thing is a calf. We couldn't get too close, since we didn't want to bother poor Mama cow, who had already had to endure one of the horses over mothering her calf and trying to make it run around like a foal. Poor calf.

Owen heading off to tag it and treat its navel.

Hoyt still enthusiastically pushing his stroller around. 

And then, it was evening. And time to get cleaned up. 

A new and improved Elsie had a story with Aunt Geri before we had to say goodbye. 

Such as marvelous weekend!