It’s our first day home from our Colorado trip, and before the bags were unpacked (or even unzipped) the girls were begging to play with friends. Then I got a text from our next door neighbor that her boys were looking to play with our girls. My oldest dropped her American Girl Doll in flash, threw on her boots and hit the backdoor.
Wearing a cute Matilda Jane dress and a sweet mama made skirt, these girls are not afraid to get dirty. I like to provide my girls with cute clothes. With that, I have learned the art of holding my tongue from telling them not to get those cute clothes dirty.
It’s been a strange winter here, with thunderstorms, lots of rain and zero snow. This has turned yards from soft grass into lots of mud. But mud aside, I love that my girls love to play, and get dirty with the neighborhood boys. We are mostly, always surrounded by girls. These boys who they have known since we moved here six years ago, are almost like brothers to my girls.
After making rounds pulling each other around the block in a vintage Radio Flyer wagon, the kids migrated to the boys’ yard to jump in the leaves, dig in the dirt and play football. All the while us parents were texting back and forth keeping up with their whereabouts. It’s a newfound dynamic of old school play mixed with modern technology to keep up with the kids as they enjoy the freedom of running through neighborhood semi-unsupervised.
Then I got a text from the boy mom witnessing the kids jumping in leaves, saying, “LOVE that your girls get down in the dirt in boots & tights.” And I couldn’t help but think, yeah me too!
When I went out to spy, trying to get some pictures of them in action, I found them standing on bales of hay and flowerpots amid many bushes, figuring out how to jump the fence back to our yard. The boys ages are 10 and 6.
I had just been thinking earlier, that maybe we should put a gate in the wooden picket fence between our yards. But when I witnessed the problem solving skills and sweet actions of the bigger boys helping the younger girls over the pointed top fence – I thought nope. This is much better. Just like girls in pretty dresses getting dirty.
Here’s pic of my oldest daughter, picking leaves out of her hair, with muddy boots and a cute dress – just after she took her turn down our backyard zipline. 
