Our Little Vandal

Nathan loves to play outside and one thing that he always does is play with chalk. We have gone through two large tubs of chalk this summer. We make hopscotches and draw pictures. Sometimes Daddy will draw roads all over the driveway so Nathan can drive his cozy coupe on the roads. Everything outside is Nathan's canvas . . . even the house.

Homestead Heritage Farm

The second weekend in October we visited Homestead Heritage Farm near Waco with Nana and Papa. They have a traditional craft village which has a blacksmith, textiles, gristmill, woodwork, and pottery shops. Visitors are welcome to watch the craftsmen at work in the shops and to buy their crafts. They also have a barn and a deli with a fresh bakery.

The Barn

Nathan was excited to see the animals, so we headed to the barn first. We found chickens, goats and turkeys.

The Gristmill

The Blacksmith Barn

The Hayride

After eating lunch in the deli, we rode the hayride and toured part of the farm. We stopped at this covered pavilion to look out over the fields.

Overlook to View the Fields

The fields were empty because they had already harvested everything. The Brazos River runs along the fields where they have a grove of pecan trees.

Playing in the Rain

We've been having summer showers all week. Tonight, Nathan couldn't resist playing in the rain.

New Addition

We have a new addition to our backyard. We only finished the fort. The swings will come later.

Nathan has had a great time playing with it. He can't wait to customize it with a mailbox and house numbers.

Swimming Lesons

For the past two weeks, Nathan has been taking swimming lessons at the Rosemeade Rainforest Pool. He really enjoyed taking this class. I will have to sign him up every year.

Playing Ring Around the Rosy in the baby pool. They started each class in the baby pool for 5 minutes to let the kids get use to the water.

Then, they would move over to the big pool. Here he is swimming with the aid of a noodle.

While his instructor was working with the other kids in his class, Nathan would stand on a platform with bars around it. He would hold on to the bar and bounce up and down. He always had a smile on his face the whole lesson. He is standing next to the girl with the pink hat.

Here he is first in line for his turn on the diving board.

On the diving board with his instructor encouraging him to jump off. He didn't jump by himself. His instructor had to lift him up and drop him in. But, don't worry. He loved it! And, couldn't wait to do it again. This diving pool is 12 and 1/2 feet deep.

This video is from his last day of lessons. The kids showed the parents what they had learned during their lessons. Nathan received a Certificate of Participation and an American Red Cross card stating that he completed the requirements for the Preschool Aquatics Level 1 of the Learn-to-Swim program.

Cousins Camp - Rosemeade Rainforest

Cousins Camp was at the Rosemeade Rainforest today. Nathan has been taking swimming lessons there each morning, so we just stayed after his lesson to swim with the cousins.

Nathan taking a break and eating some apples.

Nathan loves playing at this pool. He likes the spray/splash area and shooting the water guns. He doesn't like the bucket that dumps all it's water out on your head without giving a warning. Nathan also loves the baby pool because he can touch the bottom.

We had a great time with the cousins. It was a long day for Nathan. He had been at the pool since 9:30am for his swimming lesson and we left around 2PM. Nathan, of course, quickly fell asleep in the car on the way home. He was wiped out.

Summer 2010 - Summer/Beach Week

This week's theme is Summer/Beach.

We had fun this week celebrating summer. Nathan loves this time of year. He loves to be outside in the bright sunshine playing outside or swimming.

We started summer week with a craft that we got from our playgroup activity swap. It's a great opportunity to get some crafts that I wouldn't think of to do from the other members of our playgroup.

We received this mini bucket, shovel, rack and scooper. The bag was filled with foam stickers and a marker to decorate the bucket.

This activity is right up Nathan's alley. He loves stickers. Pulling the backing off the stickers is a good fine motor workout. Fine motor skills helps to coordinate hand muscle movements like eating with silverware and holding a pencil, which Nathan needs help with.

Here's his finished bucket. He even decorated his shovel with stickers. He asked that I write Summer Time and his name on his bucket with the marker.

We also started our Cousins Camp this week. We get together with Nathan's cousins at least once a week during the summer. We don't get to see our cousins as much as we would like to during the school year, so we make up for it during summer. We go on lots of fun field trips to keep the kids busy like visits to the library, swimming pools and this week we went to the beach.

About a 30 minute drive from our house is this great beach on Lewisville Lake. The sand is very soft and great for sand castles.

We met the cousins there after swimming lessons, so Nathan was a bit tired. He enjoyed playing in the sand and filling his bucket full of water and dumping it out near our feet. Here he is just kicking back and eating some lunch. Shortly after lunch he was exhausted and begged me to take him home. He quickly fell sound asleep in the car. Once we got home, I just put him right in his bed, sand and all.

Nathan and I made a new sensory box this week. For our beach week, we added some shell shaped pasta, sea shells. starfish, his mini bucket and shovel and foam letters and numbers.

Can you tell that Nathan loves playing in the sensory box? He likes to feel the different textures of each item. Sometimes he likes to take items out of the box and examine them on his blanket. He really enjoyed the foam letters and numbers and putting them together like puzzle pieces.

Since it has been so hot lately, we decided to make a cool summer treat. We made yogurt popsicles.

We mixed vanilla yogurt, strawberries and bananas in the blender.

Nathan pouring the yogurt in the blender.

After mixing and pouring the smoothie in the molds, Nathan put the lids on top. Then, we had to wait for them to freeze. It was hard to be patient.

Nathan enjoying the yummy cold popsicle. It was a nice cold treat on a very hot summer day.

Here's a list of our favorite books we read this week about summer and the beach:

Pig Little by Mike Thaler

All Summer's Fun by Daniel Skalak

Sand Castle by Brenda Shannon Yee

Mouse's First Summer by Lauren Thompson

Duck Dunks by Lynne Berry

Bats at the Beach by Brian Lies

Summer 2010 - Zoo Week

This week's theme is the ZOO.

This week was a short week due to the Memorial Day holiday so we didn't have enough time to fit in all the activities that I had planned. If we come across a day later in the summer with nothing to do, I'll just get out some of the crafts that we didn't get to this week.

Zoo week started with a trip to where else . . . The Dallas Zoo. We were very excited because the new Giants of the Savanna exhibit had just opened. Check out our entire zoo visit here.

Here's the big 3D sign as you go in the tunnel.

Our favorite part of the new exhibit were the giraffes. You can get up close and personal with them. You can feed them lettuce leaves and even pet them.

Nathan loved the butterfly house. There were many caterpillars all over the plants and the ground. You had to be careful where you stepped.

Nathan's favorite part was the children's petting zoo area. He was allowed in the goat barn to pet the goats and he also petted a white fluffy bunny. He was wishing that he had brought his fishing pole.

The children's zoo also has a lazy creek where the kids can wade in the water. We always forget to bring Nathan's swimsuit when we visit the zoo. It was our last stop before leaving the zoo so we just let him get his clothes all wet. It was really hot and he had a blast.

We have spent a lot of time this week in the pool. It has been very hot and the pool feels great. Nathan is a little fish. Once he is in the water, he never wants to get out. It's a good thing that Mommy loves to swim, too. We sure do love our pool during the summer!

Nathan is sporting his new sun shade hat and sunglasses. You will see him wearing these a lot this summer.

This marshmallow activity is not really related to the zoo, but it sure was fun. We built structures using marshmallows and toothpicks. I built the zoo animal cage on the right. See . . . I did relate it to the zoo. Come on . . . work with me.

Then, Nathan did one better. He built our house and then added a square shaped pool in the backyard. What a smart kid!!

This activity worked on his fine motor skills. He later built a three car garage and then a large fence around the house and garage. He called it his marshmallow city. We left them on the table over night and the marshmallows hardened. Nathan has played with it all week. I will be keeping these tiny marshmallows in stock. It's easy to pull them out when I need to occupy his time for awhile.

I had a couple of zoo animal crafts planned this week but we only got to do one. I let Nathan decide which one he wanted to do and he chose to make an elephant.

Here he is painting a paper plate for the elephant's head. We made the gray paint by mixing white, brown and blue together. Nathan loved mixing the paints to see what color they would make in the end.

He also painted two ears and a trunk that Mommy cut out. After the paint dried, which was a while because Nathan glops it on, he glued eyes and stripes down the trunk. Squeezing the glue is also great for his fine motor skills because he has to squeeze the glue really hard which works out his hand muscles.

Here is the finished elephant. I tried to get Nathan to hold it up but he was just not in the mood to have his picture taken. That is happening a lot lately.

While the paint on the elephant was drying, Nathan and I went outside to play with some parachutes. We had four little zoo animals each attached to a parachute. I thought this would a great outdoor activity but the parachutes didn't work as I wanted them to. I wanted to throw them up in the air and have them float down so Nathan could try to catch them. They just plummeted to the ground too quickly for even me to catch them. This activity only lasted about 10 minutes before we both gave up and went inside to the cool house.

To go along with the zoo theme, Nathan and I made Monkey Bread. This recipe is very easy and I had Nathan help as much as he could. We used biscuits in a tube and I cut them into fourths. Then, Nathan shook them in a zip lock bag with sugar and cinnamon and placed them in the bread pan. I cooked the carmel topping and poured it on top. Then, we popped it in the oven.

Here's the finished monkey bread. It was delicious! Nathan lost interest once it went in the oven and didn't even want to try any of it. He is currently in a peanut butter and jelly sandwich phase and is not very interested in eating much else. Well . . . I gave it a try. I have some more snacks to try out in the coming weeks. I'm hoping one of them will peak the interest of Nathan's taste buds.

Here's a list of our favorite books we read this week about the zoo.

Sam Who Never Forgets by Eve Rice

Monkey and Me by Emily Gravett

Two at the Zoo A Counting Book by Danna Smith

'Twas the Day Before Zoo Day by Catherine Ipcizade

Edward the Emu by Sheena Knowles