A morning at the trail

One of my favorite things to do is spend the morning at the trail, and we were able to do that this morning! The kids and I left the house about an hour after breakfast, so we spent about 3 hours at the trail. First, Oliver rode his bike almost 4 miles while I jogged next to him with Buttercup in the jogging stroller. Then, we played at a couple of different playgrounds with friends and, of course, spent some time "fishing" and throwing rocks in the creek.

Buttercup was much happier in the stroller than in the bike trailer. She just doesn't look happy in this picture because she thought I was going to unbuckle her. :-)

Making a milk carton viewer

The other day, I was looking for craft and activity ideas online and came across this one from the Texas Parks and Wildlife website. It's a really cute idea, and we already spend a lot of time outside, playing in puddles and whatnot, so this was the perfect activity for us!

Basically, you cut off the top and bottom of a container (they used a milk carton, I used an empty yogurt container), wrap one end with cellophane, and set it in a puddle to see what's in there.




































There weren't any puddles in our yard or anywhere nearby, so we used the water in the backyard pool.


















































What did we find? A snail, several waterbugs, some twigs, a dead wasp, and . . . oh what's that? An Oliver!

You Capture: America

This week's You Capture assignment is: America. At first I was planning to take photos of watermelon, farms, McDonald's (ha!), or things that symbolized how I feel about my country, but I ended up taking this one picture the other morning while my hubby cut grass.

I think this one sums it up best. My happy 3 year old boy (who just happened to be wearing his flag shirt!), hanging out in a tree on a sunny summer morning. Perfect! :-)

V is for Vest

This week's alphabet lesson: V is for Vest! A construction worker's safety vest, to be exact. :-)



















I wanted to make this one as cute as possible, so I did most of the prepwork during naptime, but left the big parts and "reflector strips" for Oliver to glue on.




















Oliver was pretty excited about this one! It ended up being a surprise for him -- he asked for "C is for Construction Worker", but I decided to save that one for next week when I had more time to plan it out. When he saw the vest I'd made, he yelled, "YAY!" and immediately held it up to see if it would fit him!

Homemade animal masks

I'm not sure why, but Oliver really likes to growl at people (random strangers, our friends, the mailman) right now. He doesn't do it to be aggressive or mean, he just likes the sound. I've tried to explain to him that most everyone might not like being growled at, or that he's just growling for fun (especially because he uses his grumpy face and grits his teeth while growling), but it hasn't really sunk in yet. So I had the bright idea of making a lion mask for him that he could wear when he feels the urge to growl.

Well, a lion mask turned into an elephant mask, then a hippo mask, then a shark mask, and then finally he decided that he wanted a snake mask. I said, "Well, snakes don't growl, right? They make a hissing sound, like sssssssssssss." And my always-imaginative Oliver responded, "Mama, it can be a growling snake. Okay?" Silly me, only thinking inside the box. ;-)


















Of course I couldn't leave Buttercup out! She was too busy playing with pipe cleaners to tell me what she wanted her mask to look like, so I chose a duck mask for her. After it was finished, she slapped at it, refused to put it on, and ran away screaming.


















Well, I guess I can't blame her. It is kind of weird looking!

Scenes from our weekend

Whew, we have really been enjoying the 3 day weekend! We've had some slightly cooler weather, which makes it much more pleasant to have fun outside.

We grilled on Saturday and Sunday:




































Also on Sunday, Oliver got to skip his nap (a first!) and I took him to a birthday party. Anna and I took turns being eaten by a giant Bruce inflatable while Oliver ran around like crazy, fueled by petit fours and sleep deprivation. (Side note: why do kids always get even more hyper when they're not well rested??!)



























This morning we all did yardwork (read: Dennis mowed while Oliver raked grass clippings, Buttercup took her boots on and off, and I sat in the shade), and Dennis found this little guy in the grass. Very cute, but I won't deny that I ran away screaming, when Dennis tried to toss him onto my shirt. Thanks, hubby! :-P














After the yardwork, we cooled off with a water balloon fight, followed by a dip in the pool. Yay, summer!

A tire swing built for two

We've had some rainy and cooler weather this week, thanks to Hurricane Alex. One morning, the natives were restless, so we headed out to one of our favorite playgrounds almost immediately after breakfast. We got to spend almost 2 hours at the park, and no one even broke a sweat! ;-)

The kids did the usual -- exploring, climbing trees, watching deer, running on the trail -- and then we went back to the playground to play.














Oliver and Buttercup both really liked climbing on this play structure. Oliver has almost figured out how to loop his leg over the top and climb down on the other side!




































Buttercup can climb up to the top almost as quickly as Oliver can, but then she loses her nerve and screeches for me to take her down. :-)



















The rest of the playground is pretty fun, but without a doubt, their favorite part is this tire swing. Buttercup ran over to it, looked back at Oliver, and said, "Ah-ver? Swing, please?" So sweet!!