Get in to nature!

This week was nature/pioneer week.  Last year the girls and I watched through the whole little house series.  Grace was always joking that characters were always in misery, the show was a lot more dramatic then I remembered haha! But it is fun for them to learn about that time period and how different things were.  I believe there is a lot less to complain about when we read about how much work was required back then to do every little thing.  For me included! I can't imagine ever wanting to stop being a 21st century Momma and trading places with Ma for a day! So the plan was to take time to appreciate nature this week and tap into our inner pioneers a little bit. As such we read through the little house book all week long.  The older two are totally into these books, fun to read all together too. One night we had an extensive discussion on log cabins and how they were like the toys lincoln logs. 

 

Monday we started off  with a craft to make a toy that Mary and Laura would have played with; yarn dolls.  I got the tutorial from this site.  I made one for each of my kids including a boy one for little Jack. They also colored some Little House coloring pages (I'm telling you there are coloring pages for anything now a days!)

 

For snack we had "Ants on a Log" except my kids sort of hate raisins (I can't blame them because I don't like them either) so our ants were chocolate chips, lol.  Hey, they ate celery it all balances out!

Monday night we started our plant pals similar to these....

 

However we can't take an after picture until our grass seeds sprout into hair so stayed tuned for these later this summer.  Right now they have fun watering their little friends each day. 

Wednesday we made bug jars and after dinner Daddy went exploring with us in the backyard and we collected a variety of bugs and a microfrog (seriously this frog was the size of my fingernail!)

This strange phenomenon of bug collecting is something all my kids love.  Seriously my toddler is super delighted at the sight of an ant.  Momma however hates all creepy crawlies.  I did come out to photograph their catches. Better than the alternative of them bringing them inside to show me.  I thought it wouldn't be until after my son was born that I would have to say things like "Spiders and frogs need to stay outside!!!"  They also hunted some rocks in our yard that we will use for a craft another week.

That night for dessert we had mini-jello aquariums which was actually supposed to be for beach week but we hadn't gotten to it. This picture is actually easier to see than my picture, mine were nerds with blue jello on top and a couple of swedish fish tucked in there. You can't make the jello with the candy in it because the candy starts dissolving right away. 

 

Sophie also started riding her back Wed night for the first time without training wheels! This was very exciting and handy for one of the weekends scheduled events!

Thurs night while I was working Craig took the girls to get strawberries. With the way things were going this year we didn't pick them ourselves but we didn't want to go without jam for the winter. Craig and I whipped it up after they were in bed.

 

Friday was a lot about chores. Face it the pioneers did a lot of chores. Our family has been without a washing machine for several weeks so Craig took all the kids to the laundromat (which is just one step up from beating it against a rock in the creek right? haha!) and we also did a little weeding in the garden as a family. But not to make their whole lives miserable we made homemade popsicles (to be enjoyed on Sat) out of Cherry Limeade juice, Watermelon Juice and Sprite and a cherry! They were yummy.

We let the older two stay up late and do some stargazing on the trampoline. We used our star finder app to point out constellations to them. There were also a lot of fireflies out which were like stars close to earth.

 

Saturday afternoon when I got home from work and my haircut the older two took off with Daddy for a bike ride to the park. When Charlotte woke up from her nap we drove up to meet them there.

First things first they played on the playground.

Then we ventured into the woods for our hike. Originally our plan was to explore a new-to-us park however with the combination of the bike ride we stuck with our favorite park.

 

We had fun on our hike the girls did a scavenger hunt and pointed out stuff along the way.

                  

 

 

 

 

We saw a huge mushroom about the size of a dinner plate (I couldn't get a picture) and talked about the different things that could cause the giant trees to fall over.

 

 

 

Charlotte was delighted to stomp around in the creek. We helped a dog running loose find it's way home and talked about being a responsible pet owner haha! We also talked about taking care of nature and everyone cleaned up the garbage we found along the way.

 

 

 

Then we went and visited our favorite sign in the park, so glad they were able to keep it up after the atheist group tried to have it torn down this year.

Finally on Sunday night we had craft time with toilet paper rolls. We made binoculars with a little duct tape and string. And we made bird feeders with peanut butter and bird seed. Daddy helped hang them high in the tree.

 

Once again there was a variety of stuff we didn't quite get to and there was some unexpected hassles in our house this week but we still managed to have fun with nature this week. 

Last week we forgot to do a new fruit of the spirit devotional.  This week we talked about peace.  With summer comes a lot of bickering amongst siblings (that's normal right? you got that going on at your house too, please say yes!) so we talked about the importance of being a peacemaker in your house.  And we started the 10 sec rule of counting to ten before you speak or react when you are angry or frustrated.  They even made Daddy use it when he was getting frustrated with them haha. 

This next week is patriotic week, OBVIOUSLY!! But we may be getting a new family member too so I will do my best to get stuff done in the meantime.  We are still just waiting....