Catching Critters

O was very excited to catch a large grasshopper when we were at G & G's house last week. Luckily, my mom saved my sister's critter box, and it was the perfect temporary home while O observed the grasshopper. She also planned to catch a few rolie polies for the critter box, but she couldn't find any. She was satisfied with filling the box with leaves :)

Harvesting Sunflower Seeds

Our Sunflowers have died, so it's time to get the seeds. O and I have been working on gathering the seeds from the sunflowers. This is a great fine motor activity, and it's also a great activity for increasing concentration. Unfortunately, O lost interest rather quickly :) She decided she'd rather go for a swim than pick out seeds from the sunflowers!

Hammered Leaf Prints

O LOVED making hammered leaf prints this morning! (She loves anything involving a hammer. I guess all those hours spent with with Elliott fixing boats and cars have paid off!) To set this activity up, I found an old board in the garage (there's a never ending supply out there!), 2 tacks, and strips of an old sheet. I cut the sheet into small rectangles and tacked them to the board. O and I collected leaves and flowers this morning after our morning swim. To make the print, place the leaf or flower under the cloth strip (the leaves worked better when they were upside down), cover the leaf with the fabric, and hammer the leaf! It smells like freshly cut grass as you hammer :) We took turns hammering, and we were happy with the results!

Growing a Sunflower House

O's sunflowers are growing fast, too! We planted them in a square to make a sunflower house. We hope that we'll have flowers soon. O was excited that the sunflowers are already taller than she is! The Sweet Pea teepee and Sunflower House are right next to each other, and we decided to do both so O and her cousin, M, will each have a house and be neighbors :) Now we just have to get M to come visit!

O's Sweet Pea TeePee

O's sweet pea tee pee is growing and growing! She was thrilled to find tiny flowers inside her tee pee. To make the tee pee we bought bamboo poles (5) from Lowe's, stuck them in the dirt in a tee pee shape, and tied them at the top with a rope. We then planted several sweet pea plants around each bamboo pole. I am amazed by how quickly the sweet peas have grown!

Collecting a Rainbow of Nature's Colors

This activity was on many, many blogs last summer, and I've been wanting to do it ever since! I painted a cardboard egg carton with different colors of the rainbow. O and I went on a nature walk/scavenger hunt to find items of various colors to match the colors in her box. We had a great time, and I'm sure this will be a summer long activity :)

Magnolia Leaves Crown

When I called to check on O while I was at work on Friday, my mom told me that O was really enjoying playing with Magnolia leaves. I suggested making a Magnolia leaf crown, and they did! O calls it her "marrying hat" because she loves to pretend to get married. (She also gives birth to multiple babies each day!)



To make the crown my mom cut a piece of cardboard to fit around O's head and stapled it into a circle. She then stapled Magnolia leaves all around the cardboard circle. It doesn't get any easier than that!

More Fun in the Dirt!

O loves making rose petal and mud soup and cake!

Earth Day Fun

I had to work on Earth Day, but luckily Guh-guh & Grandpa do lots of earthy activities everyday!
The girls planted lots of sunflower seeds.



They played in the dirt, and they even made lots of mud. O is wearing her daddy's outfit. Can you tell we grew up in the late 70s? :)

Arranging Flowers

O and M LOVE to pick and arrange flowers at Guh-guh and Grandpa's house! This will keep them occupied for hours :)

Fun Outside

The weather has been beautiful this week, and we are really enjoying it. I love to spend the day upstairs with the doors open (we have 3 sets of sliding glass doors upstairs) because when the doors are open it feels like we are outside. Eventually we made our way outside for a few hours.
We fed the ducks. Although, we never actually saw any ducks :) O kept calling them, she said "ducky, ducky, kitty, kitty, kitty. They like it when you call them kitty."


 
Then we walked on our neighbors' dock to look at the water and inspect the many huge spiderwebs. At this point, O was the mama and I was the baby. She was very protective of me while we were on the dock :)



Then it was time for O to go to her office to work. Her office is a board that she sits on while she digs in the dirt. We also played on her swingset and swang on the hammock before relaxing in the grass inspecting rocks and weeds. THEN I found a tic on her arm! Yuck! That's the downside to great weather, I guess.

A Walk in the Woods

We took advantage of the beautiful weather today and took a walk in Grandaddy's woods. It was fun to show O the woods that were my playground when I was growing up. O was VERY excited to ride in the Beco at first, but then she was ready to walk like a "big girl."



My balancing girl was scared to cross the stream on this log at first, but then she said "O's not scared anymore!" and she wanted to go all the way across (which she couldn't do since it was a rotten log, so Elliott couldn't cross with her to hold her hands). Btw, O is VERY proud of her oversized t-shirt that Elliott brought her from his recent ski trip. She ran up to M when she arrived and said "See my new dress!"



O and M had a super time looking for fairy grass and fairy holes throughout our walk. M is showing O tunnels in the rotten log. They might be fairy tunnels!


After our walk, the girls had fun exploring Grandaddy's house site. Grandaddy is building his house by hand with my brother's help. He has cut all of the lumber himself and is sawing it into boards using a saw mill that he built. We hope that he'll be finished before O and M leave for college :)



The girls love to balance on Grandaddy's boards!

More Science Fun

After watching Sid the Science Kid, Guh-guh and O went outside to find and study roly polys. They studied them with a magnifying glass and inspected their tiny legs.





O has one of her tiny baby dolls under her shirt, and she is pretending that she is about to give birth.  She's such a funny girl!

They also enjoyed looking at flowers through the magnifying glass. We are so glad to finally have nice weather again!
Btw...we are still waiting on the carrot baskets to produce leaves. I'll let you know what happens!

O Loves Turtles

IMG_1813 (Large), originally uploaded by omamom16.

We went to the aquarium this weekend, and O LOVED the turtles. There was an outside exhibit with a turtle that she kept calling "cutie pie." O spent the most time at the baby sea turtle exhibit. I love this picture of O and her Uncle illum (William) watching the sea turtles.

Tiny Turtle

october 2008 155 (Large), originally uploaded by omamom16.

A few weeks ago when O's grandma, Mem, and her cousin were visiting, we went outside to play on the beach. Before we knew it, the girls were in the water! The weather was HOT, but the water was cold! The girls were excited (and O was a little scared at 1st) to find this tiny turtle on the beach. He was so cute and tiny, and his shell was still soft, so he must have been brand new!

Edit to add : Oops! We went to the aquarium this weekend and saw softshell turtles. So this little guy is a softshell turtle. I guess I should have known that, but I had no idea that there was such a thing!

Leaf Rubbings

IMG_1660 (Large), originally uploaded by omamom16.

Yesterday afternoon, O, my mom, and I took a walk to look for leaves. She was so cute, and she'd pick up a leaf, look at it, and say "that one is too crunchy." She was so excited when my dad came to visit because we'd told her that he'd love to rub leaves with her. She showed him how to do it, and he was very impressed with the finished product. My mom and dad are holding the paper still for her in this picture. This was a fun and educational fall activity!

The Backyard Birdsong Guide

O and I gave Elliott this book for his birthday, and it is VERY cool! It has 75 different birds with 130 different sounds. We all love this book, and I'm sure it is going to be a wonderful learning tool for us!

At the Park with Daddy

O and Ell had a great time at a nearby park a few days ago. She was very excited to tell me that she saw an alligator!

We Made a Toad House!

No one has moved in yet, but O and I made a nice little toad house on Friday afternoon. It was very simple... just turn a pot on its side and put a layer of sandy soil on the bottom. Hopefully, we'll have some occupants soon!

Riding in the Kayak

Lately, we've been taking a kayak ride every afternoon (our wonderful neighbors let us borrow theirs!). O loves to drag her hand in the water as we glide along the water. I love to watch her little hand and hear the water running through her fingers :) We look for turtles, fish, and alligators. O REALLY wants to see an alligator, but I REALLY don't!