The boys were so excited that it was warm enough this afternoon to bust out the water table!
Category: Activities for Kids
Hatcher Family Dairy Tour…
While Jonas and Xander were at preschool this morning, Roman and I got to take a tour of the Hatcher Family Dairy with our moms’ group. He was all about drinking the little sample cups of chocolate milk and milking the pretend cow. He was also totally fascinated with the port-a-potties, the farm cat, and the hand washing station so we made repeated visits after short interludes checking out the chickens, the cows, the creamery, and the milking parlor. It was fun for me just having one little boy to chase around, and he had a blast exploring the farm.
Val’s Soccer Game…
Jonas and I went to his cousin Val’s soccer game this afternoon while Daddy held down the fort with his napping brothers. We enjoyed hanging out with Aunt Heather on the sidelines, cheering Val on. I was happy to see Jonas be brave and go play with a group of kids behind us during the latter part of the game…his cousin, Annabella, was there with them so I know that helped give him courage. For as confident as he is (like his Daddy), he can be a little shy in big groups or in new situations (like his Mommy)…so I just love seeing him develop that social skill of making friends in a group of kids he doesn’t know for the most part. Here he is climbing a goal (or something like that) with Val after the game.
Baseball…
Jonas had his first (coach pitch) baseball game of the season this afternoon. The game started about an hour late, but we enjoyed our time hanging out with Pops and Maw beforehand.
Roman pulled a nice one while we were there…I was talking to a friend I hadn’t seen in a while with Roman right beside me. The next thing I know this lady comes up to me and says discreetly, “I thought you ought to know his pants are down.” Goodness gracious… I have no idea if he had already peed, was about to pee, or had lost the battle of elastic with his pants…but either way…we all had a good laugh over it…and hopefully it gave some young mother hope in realizing she’s not alone. Ha! Atleast he’s two and looks like he’s one, so it’s somewhat excusable if not almost adorable…but still.
Next time, I’ll bring snacks and drinks (we had a snack before we left and I just didn’t think we’d need another one…but we did) and some sand toys for the little boys to play with in the dirt (they borrowed some from another little boy and it kept them happy and busy for a little while).
Jonas was so cute in his uniform. I love this picture of him with Coach Ed (who coaches his team along with Coach Josh), who has such a heart for Jonas…he was giving him a quick batting tutorial/pep talk here…and he hit the ball…he was so excited he almost forgot to run. Love it.
Gardening…
We are FINALLY starting our garden and are so excited!!! I don’t think I’ve been more ready for spring in all of my life.
The boys and I picked up a big bag of really good garden soil to work in (I have no clue what I’m doing…I just thought it might be nice to give back to our hard working garden) and some vegetable and herb plants (tomatoes, bell peppers, rosemary, and lavender) that we saw on sale this morning.
They were all big helpers to Mommy…transporting the plants and soil from the car to the garden, spreading the rich soil out, and planting our vegetables and herbs (and even a few perennial flowers we decided to add this year…echinacea and hollyhocks).
Big surprises this year are a three year old rosemary that didn’t make it through the cold winter, a few blackberry bushes that have come up voluntarily, and a handful of bulbs that we had to rescue and plant in pots because the waterlogged soil where they were planted was pushing them up and out of the ground (we’ll be moving those in the fall).
We’re also looking forward to planting our carrots, onions, and cucumbers that we’re starting indoors.
You know…it’s funny…when I was out planting a few of the tomatoes during nap time…just the smell immediately brought me back to childhood summer memories of working with my Grandpa in his garden. It was enough to bring up all of that missing him and made me want to cry. But how blessed is it sometimes to have our memories so attached to our senses that, from the simple action of putting a tomato plant in the ground in early spring, we can be instantly taken back to walking the rows of our Grandpa’s garden in the heat of summer with a stainless steel bucket, enjoying our quality time and watching carefully as he points out the ones that are just right for picking. A beautiful forever memory…hopefully we’re making some too.
Playing Candy Store…
Xander and Roman took a long nap this rainy afternoon, so Jonas and I got to spend some quality time together during quiet time. He’s been asking me to do some more “lessons” with him (I go in and out of being motivated and with it enough energy wise, but I’m going to try to resurrect them for all three boys three days a week this spring and summer…sounds ambitious but we can try).
So, we started with him practicing writing his first and last name with the first letters uppercase and the others lowercase…a skill the kindergarten team mentioned as important for rising kindergarteners to have (at the registration meeting Tom and I attended earlier this week). His preschool and preschool teachers are AWESOME, so he writes in his journal every morning, alternating with his name, his address, and his phone number.
Then, I thought he might enjoy talking about coins again…so we sorted them by color and size and talked about their names and how much they’re worth. I love having no agenda and one on one time with each of my boys because it always morphs into something really fun. We came up with a game of Candy Store, taking turns being the buyer and the seller. It was interesting coming up with different combinations with him for paying and giving change and to hear him talk through his thought process. It ended up being such a great real world practice activity…with identifying coins, using addition and subtraction, counting by fives and tens, etc. He even went all businessman on me and inflated the price of a sucker from 45 cents to 98 cents…ha!!!
Seed Starting…
The boys and I had so much fun today using the pot press MeMe gave us last year to roll newspaper into little compostable pots to start our carrot, cucumber, and onion seeds.
Roman’s First Music Class…
Roman is LOVING his very first music class. He gets to explore and play with all kinds of different instruments, sing and move and dance to fun songs while learning about pitch and tempo, and practice sharing by trading instruments during a jam session and taking turns playing the xylophone with his teacher and singing into the play microphone. Here he is enjoying himself with his super sweet music teacher.
Climbing Wall…
Tom is working on building a climbing wall in our garage this weekend. I love these pictures of each boy taking a turn, scaling the wall, with Daddy close behind.
Picnic Time…
The boys just love having picnics with their stuffed animal friends. I guess it’s the boy version of tea parties. Here Xander and Roman are with their morning setups (and yes…I had to convince Xander to put some underwear on for the picture…ha):
Marshmellow…
We brought home Xander’s class pet this morning for the weekend…Marshmellow the guinea pig. The boys just love her…they scoot their chairs over to peek into her cage to check and see how she’s doing, they wave at her and say hello from across the room, they’re absolutely delighted to hold her, and they enjoy helping me with her daily care. Yay for class pets, and yay for super sweet boys to love them!
Building a Race Car…
Tom took Jonas to Home Depot this morning to the Build a Race Car Workshop. Jonas loved having special time with daddy and is super proud of his new creation.
Discovery Center…
The boys and I spent the morning at the Discovery Center checking out the Curious George exhibit. I was so grateful for the free admission in honor of MLK Day…but, in retrospect, my anxiety level was so high from trying to swim through crowds of kids and parents with all of their activity and noise…not to mention attempting to keep an eye on all three of my little boys who were exploring in three different directions in the midst of it…that I think the $25 would have been well worth it to go on a different day with way fewer people. I still hung in there with it, and they had a blast checking everything out. And then, when we were all feeling over it, we enjoyed spending the rest of our time outside…eating a picnic lunch, playing on the playground, and walking down the boardwalk over the natural wetlands.
Feeding the Ducks…
After we dropped off Jonas at preschool this morning, Xander and Roman and I went on a duck feeding adventure. There’s a great little duck pond in the next town over that we like to visit when we have a stash of stale bread heels to share. The ducks were a little aggressive when we were passing out the bread, so Roman kept saying “Hold, hold!”. I held him most of the time, while Xander sweetly herded the ducks toward the water (by the end of our time there, he had most of them swimming in the pond).
Ice Globes…
The boys and I tried a fun winter experiment. We filled up balloons with Koolaid powder and water (I totally splashed blue and purple water all over myself more than once…next time I’ll wear an apron…ha), left them outside to freeze, cut and peeled away the balloon, and enjoyed playing with and looking at our colorful ice globes (next time we’ll ditch the purple and try for brighter colors like the blue).
Forcing Bulbs Indoors…
The high today is 54, and the low is 7. And I’m experiencing a whiplash of weather-induced feeling…the warm has me thinking of spring and longing for those first signs of returning life outdoors, and the cold has me going into hibernation mode and wanting to get immovably cozy indoors. So, I thought maybe forcing some bulbs inside might do the trick to bridge the gap for me with the best of both worlds.
Jonas helped me pick out a bag of red tulips and yellow daffodils that were 50% off at Home Depot this morning. Then, I literally had to drag our bag of potting soil out from our outdoor storage room into the sun this afternoon so it would thaw out…it was frozen almost solid! Jonas and Xander suited up in their coats and enjoyed taking turns busting the soil up with a screwdriver and grabbing handfuls of soil to help fill up our pots and vases. (I thought a clear glass vase would be fun because we can see the bulbs start putting roots down and sprouting up.) I’m looking forward to watching our springtime experiment bloom in the dead of winter.
ArtQuest…
The boys and I met Aunt Heather and Cousins Val and Annabella this morning at the Frist Center. Admission was free with canned goods donated to the Second Harvest Food Bank. Thanks so much to Aunt Heather for letting us know about it. I was so excited to get to check out the Norman Rockwell exhibit! Soaking in the beauty, even for a moment until my little ones quickly figured out how the sounds of their voices and footsteps carried within the great acoustics of those halls, was such a treat. The boys loved exploring the ArtQuest with their cousins. (I think the last time we were there was with the Morozovs as well when Xander was Roman’s age or younger…amazing how time passes.) ArtQuest is a fabulous interactive art exhibit for kids…Jonas’ favorite thing was kaleidoscope drawing and Xander and Roman loved building with magnets and painting.
We All Live in a Yellow Submarine…
The boys and I spent the day after Christmas in our pajamas, recovering from our holiday travels.
While Xander and Roman were catching up on sleep with a pair of super long afternoon naps, Jonas and I headed out to the front yard to soak up the warm winter sun, share a snack, and work a United States puzzle that came in his stocking.
When Xander woke up, he joined us outside for snacks and had fun helping me clean out the van while Jonas found a big empty cardboard box and an empty wrapping paper roll to turn into a submarine. They had seen a cardboard box submarine in a book we recently checked out from the library and had been wanting to make one of their own ever since. So, I outfitted them with smocks, wipes, paintbrushes, and paint and they went to town creating their masterpiece.
Gingerbread House Decorating Party…
I was so excited to be able to spend some one on one time with Jonas at his Gingerbread House Decorating Party at preschool this morning.
Wondering on the way there how they were going to afford gingerbread house kits for all of the kids in the 4 and 4/5 year old classes, I smiled when I saw the milk cartons framed with graham crackers and held together by hot glue…I love the resourcefulness and creativity of teachers.
Jonas and I worked together…I iced the gingerbread house and the upside down ice cream cone tree, and he did all of the decorating. He had bowls and bowls of fun, decorative sweets to choose from: marshmallows, peppermints, candy canes, jolly ranchers, M & M’s, gingerbread man cookies, butterscotches, gumdrops, and coconut.
Here are a few pictures of us hard at work and of his gloriously festive finished product.
Christmas Alphabet Tree…
After the big boys came in from their trail blazing explore in the woods with Daddy and Roman finished playing with Playdoh (i.e. throwing all the Playdoh and tools on the ground), they set to work on this fun Christmas Alphabet Tree craft I saw on Pinterest. I’m trying to ramp up my winter activity stash, as it’s been cold and rainy and Christmas Break is coming up (help me, Lord).
