Dirty Much!!!

I spent my childhood in the great outdoors, building forts, climbing trees, digging tunnels, crawling in ditches to catch horny toads and riding stick horses.  I was a filthy little thing and must have smelled like a little puppy dog but I never remember my mom thinking it was a big deal that I stay clean, she just wanted me to have fun.  She has recently encouraged me to let go of my cleanliness freakiness and allow my children to just play and be dirty, which I am trying to embrace wholeheartedly.
So anyway, we have a lovely expanse of greenery out our back door but it seems that right near our patio the mud has taken over the greenery.  My children of course think this is amazingly fun and have spent many hours digging and digging until the giant tree roots are so exposed we may be in trouble. . sshhh don't tell management, but we did do a restoration project trying to fill in the holes!!  I recently caught my girls making "dirt angels"  yes this is exactly what you are thinking, like snow angels only in the dirt. . . I was trying to be relaxed and allow them to experience all the dirty and mud but it became ridiculous. . .everyday I would literally carry them from the back door straight to the bathtub in order to save me from an OCD panic attack. . .and when Avonleah decided that they would play thunderstorm by raining dirt on each other's head I snapped and said, "NO MORE DIRT EVER AGAIN."  Okay that was extreme I understand but srsly. . .so Scott helped me make a sand box on the patio to allow them to be kind of dirty and still dig without all the mud. . .we'll see how long it takes before Avonleah comes up with another "cool idea!"