Things I'm Loving This Thursday: Our New Driveway

Our kids love to ride their bikes & scooters outside. At our first house, we lived at the top of a very steep driveway. They were allowed to ride in a small portion of the driveway and inside our basement, but that was it. The next house, they had a little more space. We had a decent sized flat driveway and our house was on the edge of a cul-de-sac, so it was relatively safe for them to ride in the street. We didn't let them go past our driveway, though, so they were still somewhat limited. 

Not anymore!

Our driveway is huge. We actually have two. They are both flat. There is a standard driveway in front of the house. Connected to that is a sidewalk that leads to the other driveway. The second driveway is more like a street. It starts at one end of the road frontage of the property, goes all the way behind the house, and comes out at the other end of the property. It's very long. The kids have had a blast riding their bikes on it. The picture above really doesn't do it justice. 

It's really nice to not have to worry about the kids watching for cars or cars watching for them. When I take Jaxon outside, it's also nice that he has tons of room to roam without being near the street or a neighbor who might not be watching as he backs out of his driveway. It's a little thing, but we are really enjoying our driveway! 

Picture taken from behind the house (so there is even more driveway behind me)
...the driveway goes all the way down and then turns toward the road 

Barn! Barn! Barn!

Our new house has a barn behind it. 


A big, old, red barn.

It sits just across the driveway, and the kids LOVE it. I don't think I can express how much the kids love it. I always thought the kids would like a playhouse in the backyard or maybe a treehouse or some sort of fort. The barn is all of those things and more. 


For the last week, all we have heard is things like this:


"Let's play in the barn!"
"When we get to the new house, can we play in the barn?" 
"Can you show us how to get up the ladder in the barn?"
"We promise we won't get dirty if you let us play in the barn."
"The barn is awesome!"
"I can climb the ladder to the loft in the barn!"
"I'm not scared to climb down the ladder in the barn."
"We're going to make/build/play <insert idea here> in the barn!"

Barn! Barn! Barn! Over and over and over again for a week.


And then, suddenly there was a younger voice calling out "Bar! Bar! Bar!" Jaxon was pointing with his little baby finger every time he looked out the back window of the house. "Bar! Bar! Bar!" I didn't realize what he was saying, but Jason said "He's saying barn!" We took him outside and that little finger went crazy, pointing all over the place while he yelled out "Bar! Bar! Bar!"


I don't think he knew what the barn was. I think he just knew that there was something very cool out there that his siblings were extremely excited about and he was repeating the word he'd heard more than any other word this week. It was very cute. Jason took him on a walk through the barn yesterday so he could associate his new word with an actual object.  


If you want to thrill your kids, get a barn. I think ours like this barn better than anything we got them for Christmas.