Outdoor Hour Challenge #1: Let's Get Started

The boys and I spent about an hour on Monday at the Riparian Institute, located conveniently aside the library Andrew manages. The weather was fantastic and we even saw a tiny waterfall and a stream leading to the main lake! Very exciting! Desert flowers are still in bloom, birds are singing in the trees, ducks are flying overhead, and water is abundant. What a great start to our adventure!


The boys collected some loot to examine in further detail during our nature studies.
We used recycled plastic to store the specimens and stapled them to the inside of a cut apart shoe box. We will take the box back to the Riparian and use the Trees of Arizona Field Guide, as well as some supplementary field guides from the library to try to identify the trees and flowers the boys are interested in.
With this design, we can put the lid on for easy transportation.
Watch out nature...here we come!

the master force

Hi. I am Atticus and this is my first blog post. I am a master at using the force. I was at my friend Will's house, and I played with his Star Wars Force Trainer. I made it to Jedi Knight.

I have a lot of brainwaves.
I am imaging the ball going up.
I am using the force.
My brother Creeley was watching me.
I held the ball steady with my mind.
I am thinking really hard.
Max made the ball go down.
But I made it go back up.
Max made it go down again.
But I made it go up.
Townsyn loves to watch me.

I love using the force.

Cotton and hemp and wool, oh my

Since I am doing a 365ish day photo challenge, and carried my camera to work today, I thought I'd share a few pictures of fluffalicious goodies we carry at Wildflower Diapers. People always comment that they'd love to play in the fluff of piles of cloth diapers. I get to do it for pay! Booooooo ya!

Thirsties Fab Fitteds in a myriad of colors:
Happy Hempy super-absorbent fitted diaper. Stuffable. Great for night time.
Cloth for Your Angel wool covers. Made (sort of) locally in Tucson.
And Bumkins AIOS, from a *very* local airpark company. A diaper I hold dear to my heart, as it was the first type I owned. I can't believe we bought our first cloth diapers seven years ago! Sniff, sniff.

Unusual backdrop

It's cloudy. It's moist. It's raining.

And being that we see it so rarely here, I was actually compelled to pull over on the way to work to take a picture of the ominous cloud looming over the mountains. In other parts of the country, that would seem a bit bizarre. But my fellow Arizonans will back me up. We live for these days, few as they may be. Chance of precipitation is 100%? Bring it on, we say.

Joseph's Coat of many (tacky) colors

Yesterday, as part of our lesson on the Ancient Jewish folks, we came across the story of Jacob and his twelve sons. Joseph was his favorite son and was given a very colorful coat dyed using saffron, cochineal, pomegranate, mollusk shell, and kermes insect, among other things. His life was an, um, colorful one...much like his coat. The kids had a great time decorating his coat of many colors. First we traced Atticus on Kraft paper to get the coat shape. Atticus drew his head, legs, shoes, and hands. We glued yarn to his head for hair and Creeley drew his facial features. All three kids glued colorful material strips to make up his gorgeous (tacky) coat. We were all covered in glue and tiny material scraps. Here are a few pictures:

What's gonna work?

TEAMWORK!

For those not familiar, that is part of a little jingle on a kids show called Wonder Pets. We borrowed it from the library once, and I saw about half of one episode, yet still the song sticks in my head. Anyhow, I found it appropriate for today, because there was a whole lot of working together going on in our house. Wednesdays are a great learning day here because Andrew doesn't go into work until noon.

Today Andrew and Atticus dug into a little information about the ancient Jewish folks. Atticus enjoyed listening to a few Tales from the Old Testament read by Jim Weiss. If you haven't heard of him and are looking for CDs to listen to on car trips, he comes highly recommended by our family. You can find many of his CDs at your local library.

Creeley worked on matching his upper and lower case letters on a magnetic board and Townsyn tried to help. Creeley informed him that the tiny circle was NOT a letter.
It didn't take him too long...
And his alphabet was complete.
He looks proud, no?
Townsyn moved on to building with Magna-Tiles. They are by far a favorite toy around here.
I love how he sticks his tongue out when he works.
Townsyn and Lily, who spends the day with us on Wednesdays and Thursdays, worked on matching their colors.
Once again with the tongue.
And this is where the working together didn't go so well. I wouldn't let him help me take pictures with my camera.
The kids decided to use their Magna-Tiles to build a house for Linny, a stuffed Wonder Pet that Atticus got Creeley for Christmas. Once again...what's gonna work?
TEAMWORK!
And here we have it! A house for Linny! I'd say the group effort was a smashing success. At least it was a few minutes later when Demolition Townsyn knocked the house down.

Outdoor Hour

This week we are starting the Outdoor Hour Challenge. I recently purchased the Handbook of Nature Study, a book written by nearly a century ago by Anna Comstock, but still applicable to the finer parts of nature today. Barb, aka Harmony Art Mom, has put together weekly challenges to encourage families to get out and explore our environment. I am excited and up to the challenge, although I am thinking we might need to make some alterations being that we live in Arizona. Or we might have to take a few day trips. Either way, the boys are going to love it!

Full of hot air

Against our better judgement, we headed to Glendale last night after a long day of work for me and a long day of assembling a bed for Andrew. We arrived at around 6:45, just minutes before we usually start the bedtime routine for the boys. We waited about 30 minutes to catch the shuttle to downtown Glendale to catch "Glendale Glitters" for the first time in about 3 years. The boys think it was worth the wait for sure. Andrew and I are still trying to decide. We'll get back to you when the little boys aren't up past 10:30 two nights in a row.

At first the boys were a little scared.

We came across a nice crew that offered the boys a chance to climb into the tethered basket. But Atticus turned down their offer and the little boys followed suit.
My guess is that the balloon wasn't up to his standards.
A few balloons up they saw the flame up close again.
But this time they weren't scared.
This balloon met their expectations.
So they climbed in!

A few balloon shots:

And of course the boys were distracted by the neon lights advertising deep fried everything. They settled for chocolate covered cheesecake and fresh fruit. Pure enjoyment, don't you think?





The entertainment was first class.
Creeley is obsessed with these wavy dudes. They kind of freak me out.

These pictures are just me having fun with my camera. I love that thing so. When Andrew is with me I have more opportunity to play around so please humor me. This is also known a "my ode to an end of a fabulous holiday season." More lights next year folks!