Ben likes to "bow" like this. He has such fun hiking with the big kids, running down the trail despite slippery leaves and mud.

We had a great time on the trail today – it’s spring break for Hawaii kids, so time for mud and fun! We had a little impromptu “snowball” fight today with leftover marshmallows. I don’t know why, but I get such a blast out of doing silly things 🙂 Mischief! The boys and I talked about nasty snacks we can provide for our friends at another gathering on Friday. Maybe boogers (nuts), scabs (dried apricots), skin slabs (dried mango),

All the kids got muddy knees on the hike, along with lots of laughs and fun with friends!

beetles (raisins), ears (dried apricots). Yuck! But such fun to think about. Sam and I had a good talk today about things on his mind, chief of which was being leader while out on a hike with other kids. This is a constant challenge – all kids want to be leader, and try as we moms do to make it interesting to be “sweep” (an important job, truly!), it just isn’t very compelling for a kid. There’s no substitute for being up front. So we have the kids take turns, but then it gets into comparing number of turns in front. So we talked at length about how true leadership doesn’t require being in front. In fact, it’s often easier or more effective to be a leader from the middle of the pack or circulating among your team to ensure all are ok, sharing knowledge, etc. It will be interesting to continue this dialogue as he grows, but in the meantime I guess we’ll continue helping the kids learn about leadership by sharing the responsibility of being up front, mid-pack and sweep. Any other ideas out there?