Love

Shades Mills

Our weekly visit to Shades Mills was much warmer this week.  The kids spent the entire time at the beach area.  Swimming, playing in the sand, exploring and finding (and burying) dead things.

These little inch worms are everywhere this year
- much to the boys' delight!

Adrianna caught a butterfly with her hands!
No harm done.  She let it go and it flew away.

Discovering grass.

Sunning himself on a rock like a lizard.

Making sandcastles.

Dead Duckling.  :-(

Dead fish.
Adrianna poked it.
We learned that rotting things STINK.

Dead baby turtle.

We found a clutch of dead baby turtles.
They had been dead for awhile.

The grave site.

A Time to Swing

Since we decided to turn the dirt space into a flower garden (and therefore take over the kids main play area), we surprised them with a swing set.  

Excited helpers.

Mixing cement.

Waiting is HARD!
The cement is still wet.

JOY!

We took Zoe to the neighbourhood park so that she could swing too.
First swing ride!

A Time to Plant

Garden time!

Veggies on one side and flowers on the other.  Like always, there are many helpers.

This space used to be "the dirt space".  Nathaniel spent many
many hours digging and dreaming and creating here over the
years.  He has many many fond memories of this space.  He was
a part of creating this garden but I think he's a bit sad that
its no longer a play space for him.  He's growing up.
(I have fond memories too....)

Kitchener Children's Museum

We joined a small homeschool group for a program about dinosaurs.  At the last minute, there was a program change and we ended up with a program geared towards much older children.  The kids understood the basics of predator and prey and Benji had a great time pretending to be a T-Rex and stomping around trying to catch his prey.  

The rest of the day was free to explore The Museum.  For a few hours in the afternoon, it was pretty deserted and the kids had a wonderful time exploring at leisure.

Trying to make the robotic dinosaur work.

The water table is a favourite.

Poppa spent most of the day helping with Benji.

Pin board faces.
We were explicitly told not to use our faces, but since there
was no one around and I felt it was "safe"....

Six Adrianna faces.
Pretty cool.

Playing with the mirror.
She so wanted to touch that baby!

The house the boys built.

Shades Mills

Our weekly visit to Shades Mills landed on another chilly Tuesday.  

Despite the weather we still manage to have a good time and find something new.

The little brown tips of the buds pop off easily.

Tiny pretty weed flower.
Speedwell possibly?
or Ground Ivy?

The May Apple's are in bloom.

Painting a dandelion in his nature journal.

Dragonfly nymph?

Even though it was REALLY cold, the boys got soaked.