Little Gardeners

A local nursery has a really great fall tradition. Every year they build a "pumpkin patch". Here are some shots from last year. All year Emma asks when we are going to go back to the pumpkin patch.


tractor ride

straw maze

slide

rope bridge

Last Christmas they hosted a fireworks display complete with a live band and free chili dinner with a toy donation.

Unfortunately they just went out of business. I am quite sad for Emma to miss the pumpkin patch and I will miss the Christmas fireworks.

All of that to explain this next picture! lol

I found these little gardening sets for the kids. They love them!









July 2009

Max the cat and Mouse Trap

Daniel's favorite cooperative game is Max. The age recommendation is higher than his 2 years but I'm sure your 2-yr old would love it too!


The objective is to get the bird, chipmunk and mouse home to their tree before Max the cat catches and eats them. Max has four snacks that you can call him back to his porch to eat but once they are gone you can't call him back.

He never seems to be traumatized if one of the animals ends up in Max's tummy. However Emma - the 4-yr old who will loves Spiderwick Cronicles becomes nearly inconsolable if she loses one of her animals to Max's tummy. Go figure! lol

Another favorite of D's is Mouse Trap. He plays this game all the time and can nearly set it up entirely by himself! Although there have been times when I thought his mouse trap playing days were over after he got too careless with the steel balls and I just couldn't move the couch one more time!


Oh yeah - Twister's a hit too!












July 2009
Seriously - who doesn't think pictures of their toddler playing twister are cute!

Killer Bees

"Mommy,can I watch a movie? The one with the killer bees."

Killer bees?

"Yeah, and she is staying with a little girl that has a dog. And the dog is trying to eat the killer bees. And the other two are trying to stop the tractors that are trying to tistroy the killer bees that are about to bloom."

Oooooooh, you mean the TwillerBeas? Barbie Thumbelina? Sure, Emma you can watch it.

Cousins came to vist!

They gathered lots of stuff for a picnic (the sweet peas and lettuce was all that was acutally edible lol)






And set it up with care - well, the two-year old didn't care to be so careful. lol




How cool are these swingers, eh?













July 2009

I remember what fun it was each summer to jump on our cousin's trampoline with the sprinkler underneath. And it seems that my kids love the very same activity!












July 2009

music

Emma asked me to teach her how to play her violin. She hasn't showed much interest in it lately so I was excited for the request. And I learned that she has grown out of her violin. She needs a bigger one. I think that Daniel will get her current one. She is very good at keeping her bow on one string at a time now. And her bow hold (when she wants to hold it correctly) is looking really nice!


I was practicing a piece I will be performing at a friends church when the kids came and brought me some flowers.


And then they decided to play their instruments with me. So here is the illustrious bells, drum and viola. (ignore my mistakes, please lol)










July 2009

Random Observation

Mug Root Beer cans have a picture of a dog on them




while Barq's Root Beer doesn't.




I find that funny.

Coincidentally, Mug is gluten-free and Barq's isn't.

Snapshot Sunday

Have I mentioned that I love freecycle? Someone posted that they had some rhubarb free for the picking so I loaded up Emma and we went to pick rhubarb. And this is about half of what we picked!! I chopped and froze this and I am planning to make candied rhubarb with the rest. Yum!


So the same really nice person who gave us the rhubarb also gave picked us a tomato from his garden, gave us some of his aloe vera plant (I think because he was mildly impressed that I could identify the mint, oregano and garlic in his garden lol) and gave Emma a rose (I think because she is just so darn adorable lol)




lots and lots of swimming going on here in the hot weather!

Right this minute

Making treasure maps.

What?

My sister posted this on her blog back in January. I saw it and immediately wanted some cooperative games. I wasted a bunch of time looking through all of their games and decided on a few that I wanted. Since the few equaled nine, I then set to saving up to buy them. lol Harvest time was one that I ended up buying. What happened after we got it was very funny. Emma, who has of course never actually read my sisters blog proclaimed as winter arrived before our gardens were completely harvested "oh NO! What will we do?? It's a DISASTER!"


p.s. you really do have to follow the link and read her blog post to know why this is funny.

My business

Don't read these posts if you can't stand some shameless promoting! lol

I have opened up an etsy shop. www.pinkpandacrafts.etsy.com So far all I am selling are my crochet play foods.

About a month ago I got a custom order for 12 ice cream cones. She wanted them for her daughter's birthday party in 7 days. And she lives all the way across the country from me. Which meant that if I agreed to make them I would have 3 days to make nine (already had 3 that she wanted made) cones with sprinkles!! And I am happy to say that with the kids help and cooperation I got them done!




I think they turned out quite cute if I do say so myself!







June 2009

Father's Day

I think that sadly my father's day efforts diminish each year. No - that isn't right. My efforts don't diminish at all. I just have more to deal with as each year comes and goes! So this year breakfast didn't get finished before he got out of bed. It was still yummy though!

Emma decorated his pancake all by herself!


Daddy was nice enough to make a sailboat on D's.


The kids both concluded that Daddy "you the best evah!". Yes, indeed he is!







June 2009

June pics

Who needs olives when you've got strawberries? lol



This picture cracks me up. I made a batch of marshmallow crackles (thanks for the recipe Sarah!) before dinner. Dinner was a variation on baked chicken. In between kids helping me get the crackles off the stone and getting the chicken browned and into the baking dish it probably shoudn't have surprised me that one of the crinkles got baked with the chicken! I do wonder though that the extra baking time didn't burn it to a crisp!







I'm sure that every time they get chocolate mustashes I take a picture. So here is one of 100!

Bike helmets

A friend of mine told me that I could get a free bike helmet for each of my kids at a safety carnival. So the morning of, we wake up to cold, wind and rain. Bah. Oh well, let's go anyway. A free helmet is a free helmet. It began at 9 am and we got there at 9:05. The kids headed straight over to the bouncy house (which got shut down after about 30 min because of the rain) while I went to find out where the helmets were. And nobody knew anything. I finally ended up figuring the process out after getting one piece of info from each diff person I talked to. Very frustrating. It turns out they gave away 20 bike helmets each hour on the hour. And you had to be in line with your child before the hour and hope that you were one of the first 20. Oh, and your child had to be at least 3 yrs old. That last bit of info I found out after we had been in line in the rain for 20 min. So we told D that he was now 3 and told Em that D was now 3. But the pleasant surprise was that they weren't all just basic black helmets like I was expecting. Daniel's even has actual googly eyes on each side! It's a bit big for him, but he'll grow into it.

Snapshot Sunday

I just finished a crochet playfoods order (post for that later) and the whole time I was making them I was picturing what I would buy with my paycheck.

Yeah - I might have told the kids it was for them, but really - it was for me! lol The tag said $25 (not bad on sale) and it rang up for $10! Sweet! Best $10 I ever spent!




Think it's time for a new shelf? LOL