Fun With Fairies

There's not a whole lot of things the boys want to do that I'm actually interested in doing......that sounded bad*, but really, they don't even like to color!  Dig in the dirt, build castles, hit each other in the face with swords, yes--sit nicely and color for more than 2.45 minutes, no.  So when David expressed an interest in something that I too am interested in I jumped on the opportunity :)

He wanted to make a fairy house, so make a fairy house we did......... 

First we gathered up some nature treasures and then we (read I) hot glued them to an oatmeal canister that I cut a door into--we ended up mostly just using bark off of one of our trees and a lot of sticks.  Then we made a door out of popsicle sticks with a brass button for a door knob.

The big boys stayed busy hunting for sticks for the roof.  The baby stayed busy attempting to eat every leaf and rock in sight.  Don't worry, I'm pretty sure he only actually ate one leaf.  Well, I think it was a leaf anyway.......

We even made a little ladder and a swing for the fairies.  Fairies love to swing.

David loves his fairy house.  Well not enough to make sure he brings it in under the covered patio at night so it doesn't get rained on but that's pretty much standard here and it's only mildly water logged.....

 

Our backyard is a leeeetle out of control right now.  We pushed our rock pit over to the sides and filled it in with sand.  I personally don't recommend putting this much sand right next to your patio without so much as a patch of grass to walk through to stop the sand from going straight from the sand pit into your home but we don't have a lot of options living on base so I'll just have to up my level of sweeping.......or lower my cleanliness standards :)

We've pretty much just given over the whole back patio/yard to the children--when you want to encourage good old fashioned outdoor play you've got to make sacrifices somewhere I suppose......

Maybe one day we'll have land enough of our own to put the children's imaginative play a little further from the house.  Until then......

.....I guess we'll just keep on being that house in the neighborhood........

In the mean time, I hope the boys will continue with their interest in fairies--it's so fun (for me)!  Last week at dinner Henry turned to David conspiratorially and whispered that there were no such things as fairies in this world.  David replied that you have to believe in fairies so Henry turned back to me and said "oh, then I do believe." Peter Pan would be proud.

If only all their disagreements could be solved so peaceably!

If the interest is still there by Christmas time, I think one of these fairy doors may be in order....they're so much more water resistant than oatmeal containers :)

*I still do all the things they are interested in even if I don't like them--well, maybe not hit them in the face with swords.......