day 142: colorful

Never would've thought that taking a bill out to the mailbox this morning would add splashes of color to our day.

The temperature for 9:30 in the morning was shockingly cool...well, for an Indiana summer morning, under 80 degrees is cool. I called a mandatory hurrying of finishing up breakfast (it's summer, remember? late breakfasts are ok), getting dressed (still summer), and brushing teeth. It was time for some bike riding.

As the sun slowly traded places with the shaded front yard and sidewalks, the girls tired of pedaling around, and someone plopped down the box of sidewalk chalk by the front door. The front patio and sidewalk leading up to our door were still shaded. And a brand new package of very bright chalk had us mesmerized....

Here's where we started. It's where we usually start with chalk. The kids love to turn our patio stones into disco squares (where'd they come up with that anyways?). The sidewalk began beckoning us....

aka Reagan's Rainbow Dog

My flower garden....wait.

Hmmm.

Wonder who added that very red flower to my pastel flower garden?

(McKinley) I sure didn't notice it when I snapped the picture.

I was too worried about the sun creeping up on me.

Kennedy's penguin, in orange and pink

Kennedy's beach scene

McK's rocket ship, with a fireball blasting off of it

(the kid's got a slight bit of an imagination, I tell ya)

Our family initials, which I had a good color plan for,

until McK insisted that she help.

And I learned long ago to not be picky about

help from kids. So I let her.

And what you cannot see are a birthday cake drawn by Reagan, which turned out too light in the pic. As well as a very lovable looking green dinosaur with blue spots and blue teeth and blue claws, saying, "Roar!" which did not flip vertically, and I hate to put pics not flipped the right way for all to see. So imagine, if you will....

Last night, in the usual hour it took me to finally clear my head and fall asleep, I found myself going back to "Ugh. Two more months. I cannot do this for two more months. I'm done. I want him home now." The fresh air, the laughter, the creativity, the color, they were all what I needed.