don't put the easter basket away yet- simple nature activity for young children

Take a walk with the empty Easter baskets and collect some nature to bring inside.
The nature table is a great activity for young children.
Simple or elaborate-
teaching the children the change of season and experiencing nature together.
(and making a corner of yr home beautiful)
We have our table on an old low kiddo bookcase.

I've been a miner for a heart of gold

It was a GOLD RUSH today.
We have been reading about the wild west and talking about the gold rush so we decided to have our own panning for gold experience in the backyard. I took small pieces of foam covered in gold glitter and hid them beneath sand in my trusty large wash tub. We used some old camping tins and water and panned for gold!
It was fun and kept their attention for quite a long time
I read some stories on the gold rush and California to them while they played and later we counted all the gold and since Finn had twenty pieces he could buy something out of the "general store".
There was even one shiny piece of gold left for me.
Guess what?
It was just enough to buy a cold Stella Artois from the "store" for mom.












For older kids- here is a good timeline to print out!

Get me delivered to yr email xo

all over you, all over me/the sun, the fields, the sky

The sun rubbed all over us today.
The wind with a chill to it danced around our collars.
Outside was bliss.
It was beautiful in the backyard as a family with everyone working on different projects. We worked our garden and planted today. We fixed our amazing free herb container. We made a pumpkin patch. We created. We laughed. Happiness most definitely flowed in a circular motion.
***OK! I am about to freak out in delight! I am a guest mom for DESIGN MOM this week. She is like my favorite mom ever and I am beyond honored to hang out in her divine space. Come visit this week. xo

Cause there's too many places I've got to see

Blaise likes to rise earlier and earlier lately. Um, like at 3am for the last several nights. It seems his circadian rhythm is well screwed up for some reason. Mornings have been long and I rage a bit. But, I feel as if I have at least accomplished more in my zombie fog lately. Morning folk must be all jazzed by lunch at all the items they can tick off their lists I suppose. I like the night though. I pray Blaise falls back into normalcy.

"I daresay you haven't had much practice," said the Queen. "When I was younger, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast." Alice in Wonderland.

Early this morning we made a birdhouse. We used recycled materials and a milk jug. It kept us busy and I was able to ingest enough coffee to resist the urge to scream out. We cut a milk jug and used the bottom for the base and poked small holes for twine to hang it. We used old bias binding and cut out shapes from the extra jug plastic. Finn pasted some colorful paper on the bottom and then we headed outside with some stale bread. I am looking at it outside the window just now. It sparkles the backyard.

This is the birdfeeder I want to make all by myself.
and I saw some cool bird feeding inspiration here

Your head will collapse/If there's nothing in it

Free activity: take some salt and let yr kid practice writing letters or numbers or just have sensory play. It kept Finn entertained for a long time. He later brought trains, dinosaurs, and cars into the salt for play.

Our seeds are growing and looking wonderful. We have started to get more and more excited for the garden this year. We have been stomping around in the backyard looking at our small plot. Some of my best memories are attached to growing up in the thick of the Southeastern Ohio back country. I loved the freedom and wonder of nature. I love that I already knew how to drive a stick shift at 16 because I grew up on tractors. I find it sorta terrifying that I had a motorcycle when I was a kid. I am even more freaked out that my dad buzzed me round the countryside on the back of his at a very young age. I love that my mom and I would walk down to the giant gardens we had in my childhood with a salt shaker and sit and feast on tomatoes warm still from the sun. And that my grandpa would pick me up from school and bring my rabbit in the car so that I could pet him with one arm while hanging my other arm out the window of his old car, trying to catch tall weeds on the banks of their road. I spent an incredible amount of my formative years in the creek. They were really some halcyon days in there. I kind of detached from nature for a long time but am so back in the thick of it as I tap my toe against the floor in anticipation of spending the day Sunday at my parents land. I want Finn to strip his fancy church clothes off and run wild around the land. I want him to get really dirty. I think there is a big possibility that we will move down to our land we own in the country someday and build a little world. Crossing fingers that it is possible to leave the city and make it work. Someday.
I was loving reading about Blue Yonder and the ranch today. Now that is what I am talking about!