Fire Balls & Friends

As part of the Mario Birthday Party fun, my mom brought this bag of loose balls to play with in the back yard.  The boys immediately labeled them "fire balls" (Is that a Mario thing?) Anyway, they have remained popular weeks after the first party and are generally carefully picked up each time.  It turns out fire balls are great for all sorts of fun.

First, the planning stage--- see them carefully consdering

Then, they head off with their own ideas of what happens next.  B tends to make up arbitrary rules like.  You can only throw them, not kick them or "only I can kick them." Sometimes the games are by color and sometimes it is just pure chaos.

The fire balls have lots of friends.  The rainbow soccer ball is back in Vogue

M is still infatuated with her hopping ball that Grammie and Granddaddy got her for Christmas, even if she sometimes struggles to stay on.

Ah, there it is.

Then right back to kick, running, throwing, sorting and generally imagining with a simple set of balls.  We have probably a dozen balls of our own spread around the yard and porch and in all the years and all the many alternate toys later they are still the hands down favorites, which I think is a very good thing indeed. 

Side Note-- Yes, these pictures were all taken February 3, 2012 when it was randomly warm enough to be in short sleeves and soppy enough after the rain to make rain boots a very good thing too.