Crafty Update

We decided to stay home a bit more this week and bring out our inner craftiness. I thought I'd better do an update now before it gets out of hand. We also (finally!) decorated our mantel for Fall. Turns out needle felting is not hard!

We made toilet paper roll binoculars,

 a catch the beer caps in the can toy (idea from Artists Helping Children),

and a fall collage. I've been buying magazines at the library for 10 cents (or taking them from my mom's house).

We made these optical illusions (seen at The Forest Room).

Side note: I always laugh at Eaden and her thinking that 80 degrees is sweater weather.

Can you believe the fun to be had with a ball and some pots! We played Bozo's Grand Prize Game (my favorite as a kid).

Isn't my grass beautiful? I like this next picture. See where the ball is?

Then we made some lacrosse type thingies. I attached the planters with hot glue.

We started our pressed leaf collection.

And we learned how to play marbles...well not really. The girls made up their own rules.

We made this Stabling Your Horses game from Artists Helping Children. Is this cheating?

We're on a crafting roll so more to come!

Pounding Flowers

We found out about this great and simple activity at Rhythm of the Home. It is sooooo easy and fun! What kid wouldn't love to hammer flowers to death? And such a beautiful result! I think we're going to look for some red flowers and a bunch of juicy green leaves to make holiday wrapping. I like to wrap with cloth and I think the flower pounding comes out best on the cloth....so that's what we'll do!

Titmouse Club

 We arrived at Titmouse Club quite early and so explored on our own a bit. There were quite a few men busy clearing trails and cutting down dead trees.

We identified some squirrel poop.

 We were happy to see a bit more water in the creek than normal (well normal these days).

We saw a little bitty turtle. We usually see big ones here.

Then we made our way over to the cabin to learn about bats.

 There was no bat poop under the bat house. So no bats. I believe they are supposed to come in the wintertime. We will check back.

Digging up Bones

 Since I said I was tired of blogging, I've been blogging more. I think since we started preschool, there are just so many pictures, lol! Anyway, we are loving life and loving spending time together. As you can probably tell, we love having memberships to places such as the zoo, museums, and nature centers. We never have to worry about getting our money's worth and can go when we want and at our own pace. I think we're going to try and stay home a bit more and find ways to be creative around the home in the coming week. We'll see. We need to decorate for fall and I would like to sew a bit...

Here is an awesome activity we did a couple of days ago. It was just the right difficulty level for Eaden. It actually probably took about 30-45 minutes to dig up all of the dinosaur bones. She never tired of it! It's also a great extension of our Nature Detectives class which we go to on Fridays. We are learning about skeletons this month.

Second Saturday Settlers

Today we went out to Jesse Jones Park for Second Saturday Settlers.

Horses first!

Then bows and arrows. Eaden and Naia wanted to try at first, but changed their mind. Aidan was all about it though.

We hung around while Aidan took a dump in the woods.

Even the soldiers seemed to be waiting around for him.

We learned about the impact the Industrial Revolution had on Civil War weaponry.

We learned how to make butter.

How to spin.

We made sure to cover our ears for the salute.

And after that, taking all precautions, made sure to cover our ears for the Native American blowgun demonstration.

Excuse the smudges I apparently had on my lens the entire time.

Midnight Special

Today we went to the Museum of Natural Science in Sugar Land. It is included in our museum membership. One of the coolest things about the place is the museum building. It use to be "the Main Unit of the Central State Prison Farm - which reopened as the Houston Museum of Natural Science at Sugar Land on Saturday, October 3, 2009 -  and three barns were built in 1939 to replace existing wood structures on the older Imperial Prison Farm, which was located on the same grounds." -Museum Website

Midnight Special

Before Two Camp was constructed, Huddie Ledbetter (better known as Lead Belly) was incarcerated in the wooden structures at the Imperial Prison Farm, until his pardon in 1925. The train from Houston to San Antonio would arrive in Sugar Land at about midnight with its light shining brightly. Lead Belly's words to "Midnight Special" reflected on his experience in Sugar Land.

If you're ever down in Houston
Boy, you better walk right
And you better not squabble
And you better not fight

Bason and Brock will arrest you
Payton and Boone will take you down
You can bet your bottom dollar
That you're Sugar Land bound

Let the Midnight Special
Shine the light on me
Let the Midnight Special
Shine the ever-lovin' light on me

The kids got to dig up dinosaurs!