Mud.

Max woke up eager to use his new word "raining" again.  But, it wasn't!

So I put on Totoro with its awesome rainy scenes, and he could use his word again.

Buddy needed to go build a gate on the back of the property, so he could get to the dirt he had dumped on the other side of it.  (Here's Max, sitting on the big yellow tractor, and also holding his toy yellow tractor.  He is a tractor fan.)

Gabe and Joe followed them to play in the dirt.

Three large piles of dirt with a high content of clay + 1 day's rain = guess what.

Sorry, Brian.  I asked Joe if those were his school shoes first ...

Their shoes were soon so caked with super-sticky mud that they didn't want to play anymore, and both just wanted to clean their shoes.

Did anyone notice how nice Fidget was smelling after this morning?

I taught them a few ways to get the mud off (the basketball goal idea did not come from me though).

Joe did such a nice job getting the mud off the outside of his shoes without getting them wet inside.  But when Gabe got the hose to do his, he totally wasn't paying attention and sprayed water all into Joe's shoe.  Joe got mad and went home.

Then, while no one was looking, Max went and picked up the still-spraying hose.

Gabe got his pay-back immediately.

But he enjoyed it a little too much.

Take that!

Now he could say "raining" again!

This was followed by a warm bath and a full apology to Joe.  (Sorry, Brian.)