The difference between boys and girls

I wouldn't consider Elena a girly-girl. Her favorite color is green (pink and purple are much farther down the list); she hates having her hair done; and currently dresses are only worn on very special occasions. Still, I would say she's far from being a tomboy. Sam is pretty much your stereotypical boy, but he has no problem throwing on a dress if that's all he can find in the dress-up box.

We don't really designate much in our house as "just for boys" or "just for girls." Elena has just as many bats, balls and golf clubs as Sam (although hers are rarely touched and Sam would play ball for hours on end).
Sam plays dolls with Elena (although he usually gets quickly distracted with figuring out how the buckles work on the doll's carrier).
If Elena gets toe-nail polish and Sam wants some, I'll put it on him (Seth's not a huge fan of this, but he tolerates it :)
I've read books about trucks to Elena since she was little, but she rarely asks for them again, and I had never heard a real "truck sound" in our house until we had Sam (if I did, it came from Seth).

I recently bought a box of antique cowboys and Indians for the kids at a garage sale. The only reason I got it was because it included a horse and detachable rider that I knew Sam would love to play with (he loves horses). Anyway, they haven't played with them much - Sam will occasionally have the people on horses run around, but that's about it.

The other day, Elena pulled out the box and decided to play with them. And what does a little girl do with a set of cowboys and Indians?

Well...they do make a great rainbow.

Moving!

The reason I haven't updated this in so long is because the last 2 months have been tied up with putting our house on the market and getting a new home. We're just waiting on the appraisals, but as long as they go well, we should be moving at the end of the month.

Fortunately our house was only on the market for about 6 weeks before we got an offer, and our offer was accepted on the house that Seth has had his eye on since he was a kid. It's quite a bit bigger than our current home. While I will miss the coziness of this house, we could really use the extra space to accommodate for Seth's in-home office. Not to mention we hope to have more kids and are seriously considering homeschooling.

At one point this summer I started to have second thoughts about getting a bigger house, the minimalist in me thinking we could just cram all of our kids in one room for awhile longer. Afterall, we have a great back yard with tons of room for running, playing and gardening throughout the summer.

And then I remembered about winter. It's funny how quickly one can forget in the summer about those 6 months of the year we Minnesotans spend cooped up inside. All day. With excessively energetic children. Some extra running space would be nice. The next 4 weeks will be filled with packing, followed by who-knows-how-many weeks of unpacking - so my blog posts may be few and far between but I'll do my best to keep everyone posted.