Day #17: The things we did today ...

We did a bunch of stuff today, but ... my head has ached all day ~ I woke up in the middle of the night with a headache and I haven't been able to get rid of it all day ... so I'm posting these pictures without much comment. It takes terribly long to upload pictures via Blogger at Ft. Bliss!

All of us enjoyed about two hours of painting this morning. Christopher did three pictures, Matthew two, and Ems and I only got one each finished. We girls are a little bit more meticulous with our painting ... the boys just let loose and really enjoy themselves with less perfect, but equally beautiful results! Here's what some of the pictures (above) turned out like. We talked about each Bible story as we painted and it was a really good time.

Christopher was the first one finished with his paintings, so as he took a little TV break in Emma's room, Grandpa Jones snapped a few pictures of him ...

This is Sophie. She is a much loved dog. Diana bathed her this afternoon and this is what she looked like afterwards. Very cute. She barks a lot if she is excited or if she doesn't know you, but she has calmed down and gotten used to Grandpa Jones and me.

We played down at the playground again this afternoon. We made four castles and joined all of them by windy roads ~ there were two "good" castles and two "bad" castles. One had a moat surrounding it and the kids used little stones as pretend alligators inside the moat. We played all kinds of pretend stories, Bricyn joined us for quite awhile, and we just had a nice time being outside together.
We also played with playdough for quite a long time this afternoon, until it was dinnertime. I took a ton of pictures, but I'll have to post some of those when I return to Grand Rapids.

After supper we took a long walk around the neighborhood, and then we got out the sidewalk chalk set Diana had bought for the kids. We used some of the drawing books I brought with me to make cool fish and shark and whales and even an octopus on their front sidewalk. All of the kids took their turns making chalk drawings and we pleased with what we'd made.

We have plans to visit the zoo tomorrow afternoon. I'm looking forward to that very much. Hopefully, I'll feel in better shape by then. It takes an incredible amount of energy to keep up with three active children, and so far, we have done very well. God has given strength to us and much gladness!