A few more things from the past several months...

David started work on a triple bunk bed for the boys... 

hurray for old wood-working tools, along with all of the modern, plug-in ones.

We do keep some strange characters around our place. Sometimes it's like watching a regular ol' parade when they decide to get the mail as a team!

They do things like eating homemade ice-pops while dressed as secret service agents (even packing some heat under there!). Actually, the flower makes me think more of something mob-related. Then there are caped princesses in the bunch. Actually, I'm not sure what they are exactly. Same with the cowboy dude in the arctic explorer coat.

And as a bonus, there is the baby who takes his tea out of a sippy cup and eats goldfish crackers with a spoon off from the little china plate. The doily was provided by one of the caped ladies. Duties are over, I supposed, when one falls asleep at the table and the aforementioned flower falls aside.

Meanwhile, outside we have Northern Hibiscus bushes that bloom out front... sort of like being in Hawai'i. Sort of, right?

Then there are the late-summer Colorado sunsets (and this isn't even the view of the west end of the valley- just the colors on the clouds). The sunsets do all sorts of neat things west of the Rockies, especially when there are clouds in the sky. Sometimes there are just areas that glow in the setting sunlight on the Bookcliffs, Mt. Garfield, or the side of the Grand Mesa, while the sky overhead is shadowed by clouds.

Our backyard is constantly a work in progress. We had a LOT of tomatoes growing in the side yard. I haven't added another picture of their current states, but a couple of plants went bonkers and took over, climbing to the top of the fence and every which way in the narrow space. The kids were delighted at the end of the summer to find somewhere between 20-30 tomato worms. Some were big, and a week later they found a variety of small ones. It turns out that they bite if you don't hold them right. Who knew? With the exception of their evil-looking eye spots and nasty-appearing (but soft) horn, they appear like overgrown, green worms with a mix of suction cup feet in back and sharp, pointy, front legs- pretty harmless.

We also have some flowers in the space, but most of them were really were significantly overshadowed by the crazy tomato plants.

Our back neighbor's grape vine makes its way over and through the back fence every year. Perhaps these are wild? They are not like table grapes, and they are not as sweet and juicy as wine grapes.

The kids (well, one girl in particular) enjoy having special tea parties. All of the finery comes out, and the mom finally had to MAJORLY ration the sugar being used. I think it's very apparent that too much sugar was added to the cup when there are granulated crystals remaining on the bottom AFTER the tea has been drunk!

This was a first- a nighttime play with a solar yard light as the spotlight. It was the Biblical account of Rahab and the two spies. Thankfully, the story was stopped before the walls of Jericho came down!

One final photo to creep out the folks with myrmecophobia. It was reported that one of the kids had dropped a piece or two of Chicago-style mixed popcorn at the garage door. I'm assuming this would have been a caramel piece, as opposed to a cheddar-coated piece. Either that or they were using the power cord to electrify their rock concert, and this was the mosh pit gone wild. Yikes!

That's all for now! Thanks for stopping by. :-)