1st half of June

 Lydia doing dishes.

Abby showing off our "sensory balloons".

 "Sensory Balloons" made of...cornmeal, black beans, and rice!

Popsicle sticks to make shapes out of. 

Baby smiles.  :-)

Look!  I can almost sit up?

Moving eggs to smaller containers.  We go through more than 5 dozen every 2 weeks!?!

Impromptu motor skill building.  Clothespins on a juice glass.

Mom taking the dryer apart when we forgot to replace the lint screen & something got through.  Oops!

Storytime!

Our little rebel insists on sleeping on his tummy.

Coloring a calf.  Or as she says it, "Gaff".

Decorating a big piece of cardboard daddy brought home from work.

Our neighbor's lily blooming!

End of May

L checking puppy's aka "boo-boop" heartbeat.

Playing dress-up with paper bags.

It hailed here a couple weeks ago.  Not rain. Not snow.  It was a good discussion.

Checking out the chickens at the cousins' house.

Playing on the slide with cousins.

More playing with cousins.

A glimpse into our home

A glimpse into our home.

Baby I is practicing sitting up on his own.  Until then, he'll use a bumbo.  :-)

A working on a U.S. map puzzle.

Then she wanted to do it again!

Practicing tying a bow...so she can tie her own shoes soon!

L working on fine motor skills, putting rush hour cars on their board.

Finding little itty bitty lettuce sprouts!

Samuel Whiskers timeline

Last weekend, our 5 y/o A and dad put together a timeline of the story of Samuel Whiskers by Beatrix Potter.  Beatrix Potter stories are one of A's favorite at bedtime right now.  Dad noticed she didn't quite understand one part of the story when the author goes back in time to explain what is happening to another character Tom Kitten.  So, as a lesson on the passage of time and certain events happening before, during or after others, we decided to construct a timeline of the story using pictures of the story printed off Project Gutenburg.

Gardening

Yesterday we went to T's parent's home to do some work on the garden.  Got a few peas planted, and poles ready for them to climb when they pop up, but mostly just got the ground ready to plant.

Found some good lookin' bugs too!

Baby hanging out while everyone else plays in the dirt. :-)

Nature Study in the Suburbs

I've noticed two trees out in the front of our townhouse strip that I'd like to identify somehow.

This one looks like a very young pine of some sort.

Right now, it's sprouting off some sort of seed or maybe something that will turn into a pinecone maybe?  Or maybe it's just some new growth.

The other one I'm not sure at all.

The leaf color is similar to that of a red maple, but the shape definitely isn't maple.  But some of the leaves are more of a green color.

It's also just about finished flowering for the season.

I did some reading in the Trees field guide that we have, but couldn't find a good match.  So will do some online research at some point and/or ask our next door neighbor.

Need to find a way to involve the girls in this curiosity.  At this point, *I* seem to be the one owning it.  Maybe they'll catch the bug at some point.  Right now, they're more interested in investigating trash laying on the ground.  :-\