Brilee 2.22.11

Brilee's getting better at getting up on her knees, though it's hard to catch her in action!  We got a couple of good ones in this video before she gets distracted by Sean & Lilly



 

Toothbrush T's

Today we finished up our seeds lesson and moved onto T's.  I had some old toothbrushes, and the kids enjoyed painting watercolors with them.  I had to keep Lilly from trying to brush her teeth, though!



Sean's T



Lilly's T



Their "watch how seeds grow" sheet...Sean made sunflowers and Lilly wanted to do Marigold



We traced their feet and measured them using band-aids...Seans was 2 3/4 bandaids and Lilly's were 2 1/2...I must admit I thought there would be more of a difference than that!  (Brilee's were 1 1/2, but I forgot to take a picture)





Our little corner of planted seeds!  Can't wait till it's warm enough to transplant them into our garden :)

4 Mile Creek Greenway

We are absolutely LOVING the new 12 mile creek greenway entrance to our neighborhood!  They have been working on the greenway in general for a couple of years, and I think our neighborhood is the LAST entrance they've put in!  Prior to this, we've had to walk down to the entrance from other neighborhoods, which takes a lot longer, but our wait is finally over!

The kids had so much fun this afternoon exploring and finding things to put in their "observation container"  aka- a used baby food container!  Below are the pics from our walk:

Brilee ready to go





The view of the entrance from the sidewalk:



Sean asked, "where did the big digger go?"  He's going to miss looking at it as we drive by every day!

The first of several "bridges" that the kids enjoyed leaning over the edge to throw rocks into the creek





continuing down the trail...





















I know this one is blurry, but I love that he enjoys jumping off the sewer drain cover so much!



picking up a sweet gum ball to put in their "observation container" :)a









The bridge in the distance is as far as we could go--they are still finishing up the bridge, but it connects all the way to Squirrel Lake Park!!!  I can't wait to get bikes so we can ride as a family to the park! So exciting!

This is the last picture my camera would take, and it is a tree we found where a deer had been rubbing it's antlers.  Cool science discovery day if I say so myself! (On the way home, Sean saw a shed in someone's backyard and asked, "Is that where the deer lives?"  haha



I'm sure we will be exploring back here almost every day this Spring/Summer--such a great area to have literally in our back yard!

Park 2.17.11 & 2.14.11

Some pics off my phone of our time @ local parks this week soaking up this spring like weather!  Its been good for me to be out of the house in fresh air...its much easier to entertain kids when they have wide open spaces to get out their energy!  I'm going to do a separate post soon on the Greenway that has just opened up the new entrance in our neighborhood!  We went walking on it and the kids love the little creek the trail parallels and the exploring they're going to get to do.  I feel so blessed to live in our neighborhood!   We might not have a large house and there are projects we want to do that will have to wait....but the location makes it priceless to me!  We're going out again this afternoon, and I'm going to bring my camera to hopefully catch some great shots of the kids having fun on another walk.  SO thankful to God for this weather this week!  It is truly a blessing!  I pray this trend continues without any major cold coming back the next couple of months!

S, Seeds, & The Parable of the Sower

The letter S, Seeds, and the Parable of the Sower are our focus this week.  This morning the kids enjoyed reading our Bible story, coloring their own picture of the Sower, and covering their S's with bird seeds (I kept my sanity by reminding my self we are going to vacuum after!)   Sean kept saying, "Mom, there's no plants growing inside me!" after the story...yes, the parable went right over his head, but atleast he's learning and hopefully his heart is being cultivated and being prepared to receive seeds in good soil rather than among rocks & thorns!



For now,  he's enjoying real planting and looking forward to our garden again this year!  We went to Renfrow's Hardware and picked out some seed packets.  This is the BEST place and FAR surpasses Lowe's or Home Depot.  Renfrow's is the small town hardware store where you can go look at crickets and baby chicks and smell the rustic air and receive the best advice on gardening, etc.  This is one of the reasons I love living within walking distance of downtown Matthews!  We came home and poked holes in some egg cartons, filled them with soil, and planted our little seeds.  They are staying inside for now until they are ready to be transplanted into our garden when the weather STAYS warm!  We are being spoiled by this beautiful weather this week!

Woody follows us everywhere...uppercase & lowercase!

Lilly was more interested in playing on the swingset than planting seeds, so she isn't in any of these!  Next time!



We moved a bench inside to keep the plants in the warmth until Spring...yes, those are Rubbermaid lids to keep water from dripping everywhere...couldn't think of anything else that would work--I had a metal pan rust on me once when we used it under the Christmas tree, so not wanting to ruin another pan!



He's really excited to watch his seeds grow!  When we planted the Marigold seeds, he said they looked like "bombs" and said, "This one is going to grow me some bombs to play with!"  Bless his heart--he will be so disappointed to see little orange marigolds instead of huge bombs!  He is in desperate need of a haircut!  And I'M not going to do it again this time--it still looks like a disaster in the front where I couldn't cut it straight due to his squirmy-ness!