Gnome Hunt and Fairy Houses

I took the kids to an event at a local farm back in September. We went on a walk in the woods to find hidden gnomes, and then they built fairy houses using materials they found in the woods.

Finding a gnome.

A gnome!

Becca's fairy house.

Samuel's fairy house (for very large fairies apparently.)

Becca and her finished fairy house

Samuel's finished fairy house

Both kids really liked walking around in the woods (there are no woods near our house. Heck, we only have 1 tree in our yard, which is great for fall raking time, but not so much fun for exploring). Becca is a nature collector and brought home a big bag of treasures - nuts, seeds, sticks, etc... Samuel didn't bring anything home, but he had a lot of fun building his fairy house (mansion?) At one point, the instructor actually restricted Samuel from bringing back any sticks that were larger than he (Samuel) was. That's how gung-ho he was about building this. I don't think he was at all interested in a fairy possibly living there, but he just wanted to build, build, build.

First Day of School

Was the 1st day of school back in August? Yes. Am I super behind on updating our blog? Yes.

Here are the kids ready for their first day of school:

Live from Fort Wayne, It's Sunday Night...

Our blog has been sadly neglected for the past few months since I went back to work the beginning of August. I have tons of things I want to post here, and will try to get to those soon. In the meantime, here are a few videos of Becca attempting to tell a joke tonight. (It sort of looks like she is wearing a purple mink stole in these videos, but it's actually just her bathrobe.) Oh, and in case you thought 4-year-olds were ready for stand-up comedy, spoiler alert: they aren't. But she is super cute, so that counts for something.

Princess Tea Party

Becca went to a Princess Tea Party this week. It was a program through our Parks and Rec Dept. There were about 10 little girls there all dressed up in princess dresses. They got to make hats, play games, decorate cookies, and play with an (empty) tea set. She had a lot of fun! I think her favorite parts were eating the cookie and dancing on the stage in her princess dress.

Elephant and Piggie

Both Samuel and Becca LOVE the Elephant and Piggie books by Mo Willems. This week Elephant and Piggie made a guest appearance at our library so we went to see them. The kids got to have their pictures taken with Elephant and Piggie, hear some Elephant and Piggie stories, and make some puppets. Here are some pictures:

Muncie Children's Museum

Last week the kids and I met some friends at the Muncie Children's Museum. This museum is great! It is a lot smaller than the Indianapolis Children's Museum so it is WAY less crowded (actual quote from the person at the admission desk when we bought our tickets: "We have 4 families here today so it may be kind of crowded."). Samuel's favorite thing there was a real semi-trailer truck that kids can climb in and pretend to drive. Becca's favorite was the area set up as a small town where kids could play in the post office, store, vet, dentist, etc...

Here is a video of Becca playing in the vet's office, a video of Samuel climbing up the ant tunnels, and then some pictures of the kids enjoying other parts of the museum. If you live anywhere near this museum and have young kids, I highly recommend checking it out!

Samuel at the top of the ant hill climbing structure.

Becca petting Speedy the tortoise.

Future mechanic #1.

Future mechanic #2.

With our friends Helen and James.

Samuel's favorite - the truck!

Swim Lessons

Both kids are doing swim lessons this summer at our local YMCA. It's Samuel's 2nd summer taking lessons, and Becca 1st. Our YMCA has a new outdoor pool with a splash pad area and a big water slide. It's super cool. We're not actually members there, but the kids can use the facilities during lessons. We have had some lessons in the new outdoor pool and some in the inside pool (like this morning when it was a whopping 58 degrees out at 8:30 am!)

Here are some pictures and videos of the kids at swim lessons:

Science Central

This week I went on a field trip with the 1st graders to our local science museum, Science Central.  Samuel has been here before and really likes it. Here are some pictures from his trip:

The boys looking at the funny mirrors.

At the fog simulator.

Watching a balloon filled with oxygen
explode when it touched fire.

My group to chaperone.
 (clearly that one boy is going to be a basketball player someday.)

Finally, a video of Samuel spinning round and round (and round and round). Before I put the video, here is a picture of him three years ago at the same exhibit. Look how much he has grown!

Spring Break

The kids and I drove to Evansville for Spring Break to visit Gran and Papa Michael (for any non-Jackson readers: those are my parents.) It was the first time we had done the drive, which took us about 6 hours. The kids have never done such a long car ride before, and I was worried that Becca would give us a repeat performance of her 3-hour screamfest from a few years ago. However, the kids did really well in the car, much better than I had hoped for. It helped that I packed a zillion snacks, and made them road trip binders (thank you Tanya for this idea!). The thing they really enjoyed was listening to books on CD. I checked out a bunch from our library right before the trip and they were a huge hit. If you are looking for recommendations for kids this age, we liked: Mr. Putter and Tabby, Mercy Watson, and Junie B. Jones.

Evansville has a wonderful children's museum. Almost all of the pictures I took on our trip are from the museum:

Samuel making a bridge

In the water room

Becca and Papa Michael building a house

In the giant bulldozer bucket

Becca and Gran working the digging machine

Samuel said his favorite part of the museum was the building room (although his clothes would definitely indicate the water room!). Becca's favorite was absolutely the face painting. Here is a video of how much she enjoyed that:

She wore that face paint for the rest of the day and even  put up a fight when I tried to wash it off in the bath that night. I think she wanted to wear it forever.

Other highlights from our trip included:

Samuel going fishing with Papa Michael

Ice cream at Dairy Queen on the way home

  

Ice cream. Yum.

All in all, we had a great time on our trip. It was fun to see everyone in Evansville, and we will plan to go back again sometime!

Fun at School

We have had a few fun evening activities at school lately. First, Becca's preschool did a Family Fun Night that had a western theme. The kids had a great time in the bounce house and playing western-themed games such as hobby horse races, throw the lasso over the stuffed pony, try to throw a ball in a cowboy hat, etc...

Here are some pictures from that night:

They also both got their faces painted. Becca got a bunny face, and Samuel got a frog. I didn't get a good picture of their faces, but you can sort of see the designs here:

The 2nd thing we did was a cake decorating contest at Samuel's elementary school. Samuel and I worked hard to make this hamburger cake one Sunday afternoon:

The cake itself was pretty easy to make. I found instructions online that we followed and he did most of it himself. The buns are just plain cake, the sesame seeds are slivered almonds just poked into the top bun, the hamburger patty is a rice krispy treat made with cocoa krispies, the cheese and lettuce are gummy candies we found at the store, and the french fries are pound cake he cut up with a special kid vegetable cutter we have that happens to make those wavy edges.

All of the cakes were on display at the school ice cream social one night. It was neat to see what the kids had come up with. Although he did not win a prize, he did get a ribbon for participating (he wasn't thrilled about not winning, but hey, it's a life skill to work on, right?) and we definitely had fun making the cake. I'm sure he will enjoy eating it too.

Oobleck

About once a year around here we make oobleck. Why once a year? Because it is insanely messy. It takes me about a year to forget how much work it is to clean everything up when the kids are done playing with it. They absolutely love it, and would probably play with it every day if I let them. Maybe it's something we need to play with outside in the summer.

If you have never made oobleck before, it's just equal amounts of cornstarch and water mixed together. It's neat because it's both a solid and a liquid. It's actually a lot of fun to experiment with. Just not so much fun to clean up.

Here are the kids having fun with oobleck: