Sandbox Fun

One of the parks near our house has a sandbox - lots of fun right? And it is stocked with cast-off toys, so there are always shovels and buckets, a kitchen set, some assorted trucks etc to play with. And there is a water fountain. Yes a water feature for kids in a sandbox! I have no idea what genius thought that up, but Ally sure does love it. On a hot day like this past weekend the water runs a lot and creates a giant mud puddle in the middle of the sandbox. The breakthru for us was that Ally actually went barefoot in the water and sandbox!" See I can play with my shovel in the mud - I am even squatting in the mud, and I don't care that my diaper is getting all mushy from the dirty water and mud."
" I am so engrossed that I don;t even notice that the fountain is dripping water on to my hat! Aren't I the BEST little girl for wearing my hat the whole time I was at the park?"

As a side note the funniest thing to me is that in order to turn the water on you have to tap the round cap on the column in the picture above and water comes out of the spout for about 15 seconds. Then you hit the spot again. The catch is that Ally is too short to reach the top of the column so she says more more more until Becky (or some other kid in the sandbox) takes pity on her and touches it so she'll stop saying more more more more more. Even funnier is if you ask her to say please she signs please by rubbing her dirty muddy hand on her chest!

My mom should appreciate this one - here is Ally stomping in the mud puddle in the sandbox - without any shoes on! (Some of you might remember when we went to Florida in March Ally screamed and cried if we put her on the beach without shoes - so this is huge progress, and hopefully bodes well for our beach vacation in a few weeks on Cape Cod.)