Water Play!

Sorry I haven't posted much lately.  It seems like we do the same things every day so it's not very exciting to read about so I don't post anything!  Either way, here's what we've been up to this week.

Monday Gavin did a flower mosaic craft.  We used the leftover shells from the Easter eggs he colored.  I printed a picture of a flower and he glued bits of shell onto it.  It didn't quite come out as a mosaic, but he tried and I think he enjoyed it.  It seems like we haven't done much art lately because the weather has been so nice that we've been spending our time outdoors.  The rain this weekend has given us a couple days inside so we've gotten to do a little more artwork this week.

While Gavin was working on his mosaic, Calla got to paint her flower with the watercolors.

The kids also made a construction paper caterpiller on Monday.  I don't have pictures because I had to assist and didn't have enough hands to hold the camera!

Tuesday morning Gavin and I watched a robin outside the window on our front porch.  I saw her land and called Gavin over because she was so close to the window.  Then, she grabbed the coconut liner in my planter and had a little tug-of-war pulling it out, flapping her wings and everything, and finally she managed to get a mouthful of the liner.  She flew away, presumably to add it to her nest.  It was really neat to see!  We waited to see if she would come back for more but we didn't see her again.  I took a picture but it didn't come out very good because I had to take it through the window.

While Gavin was at preschool Tuesday morning Austin played in the playroom.  He told me to thank Grandpa Ben and Grandma Sue for his new clothes!  Unfortunately, he is drooling again all the sudden.

Gavin and I are almost done with plants.  We finished all 18 library books and almost all the books we have at home about plants.  We have also read about bees and deer.  Tuesday afternoon he worked on a flower dot-to-dot 1-20 and a graph.  We haven't done a graph before but he did a great job.  He seems to take to math fairly easily.  He still has trouble coloring in lines so I put a piece of paper on the side of the columns to help him.

When he was done he helped me weed the front garden.  So by now you probably have realized I'm not much of a gardener and we put bare root plants in the front flower bed.  The problem now is that I don't know what I planted and what is a weed.  So, we pulled out what we were fairly certain was grass and left the rest.

When the kids woke up they played for the rest of the afternoon.

And Gavin caught yet another toad.

This afternoon the kids played outside from lunch to dinner.  Austin never did take a nap and he wandered around the driveway exploring things.

When Calla got here we got out the sidewalk chalk.  I know it's weird to play on the front porch instead of the backyard but there's no shade in the backyard and our front porch is covered so I don't have to worry about sunscreen.

Then we got out the water table!  Calla tried to climb in it when I first filled it up so I had to explain it's not a swimming pool, just for playing in with your hands.  She quickly caught on and stayed at the water table for the next 2 1/2 hours!  Here's some random water play moments:

Now that Austin can crawl, he does not want to stay in one place...and yes, that is dirt near his mouth.  He seems to enjoy eating dirt and also tearing apart my flowers.  On the plus side, I think he's finally starting to understand what 'no' means...not that he listens, but at least he doesn't just smile at me when I tell him 'no'.

He's started crawling up on his feet like this.  I'm not sure if it's leading to walking or if he just thinks he's a monkey.  I guess time will tell!  And here he is thinking about tearing apart my flowers.  Luckily he decided to go along his merry way instead.

Gavin had soccer practice this afternoon.  When he got home he didn't play at the water table which is kind of odd.  Maybe too many babies around it?  Anyway, he got out his cars and then rode his bike with the neighbor boy.

That's been our week!