Friday, August 27, 2010

Art Projects

We do lots of art projects in our home!
Both girls absolutely love our art time.
Making animals out of egg cartons with John Wayne and Easton West.
These are really FUN!  Bats, caterpillars, ladybugs, spiders, puppy dogs, etc! 
Use googly eyes and pipe cleaners for antenae and legs. 
The kids have a blast creating and making their own unique!

I love not having cupboards above this space anymore. 
We do so many projects on this counter now.  Cooking too has been a lot  of fun when Silver can get up on the counter and be part of everything instead of on a chair. 
Here they used their imaginations and pulled the couch cushions off to pretend they were horses to ride!
Each had their own horse and saddle.  The saddles even had a secret compartment (between the pillows) to hide their treasures. 
River used her "magination" to make triangles out of straws. 
These couches have been so great. We make forts, canoes, mountains, slides, airplanes, rocks to jump accross the hot lava on, boats.......lots of fun adventures!
We love making messages for Daddy when he comes home. 
Bathtub crayons have been really fun!
Our Spring Creation!
Here we are making a volcano:
Mixing the dough
Building up the volcano around the bottle. 
Mommy was so busy with everything else, I didn't notice Silver got the red food coloring.
The volcano was lots of fun, bubbling out the top:  Baking soda, vinegar and dishsoap.
Getting messy is part of the FUN!
One of my fundamental beliefs is to let our kids explore, explore, explore without worrying too much about them getting good and dirty!  Sand, Mud and messes are like magnets!  Kids and clothes are washable.  And if the clothes get ruined, I buy them at the thrift store, so we're not out more than 50 cents per outfit.
Laughter, Adventure, Exploring, Fun....Love!

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Summer of the Frogs

We've had a fun summer getting out and exploring our beautiful world!
A theme this year seems to be frogs.  Here are River and Daddy at a recent Family Night. 
We went up the canyon and while playing in the water found quite a few frogs hopping around.
We enjoyed making corrals for our frogs - I don't think we'll go into the frog business though - they kept jumping out of our corrals!
Silver enjoying one of the frogs in her cup!
There are about 8 frogs in this cup that keep jumping around, true enjoyment!
Whose legs are whiter?  Daddy's or the frogs?   :)
We also raced "boats" down the current - leaves, flowers, sticks, it was an enjoyable evening.
Simple Family Night lesson to go with this activity:  Dad:  What happened when we got out of the water and onto the sand?  River:  Our feet got all dirty and muddy!  Dad:  How did you get your feet clean again?  River:  Got my feet wet in the water and it washed away the mud.  Dad:  That was like repentance - when we make mistakes or do wrong things, it's like we get dirty.  Jesus has made a way for us to become clean again and wash away the things we do wrong when we ask Him, and do our best to not do it again.  That's repentance.
Another frog memory this summer was the 24th of July - we went out to Uncle John and Aunt Tadi's house for fishing and fireworks.  We found frogs as a bonus and each kid had a frog to race.  They lined them up on the sidewalk and then cheered their frog to the finish line. 
On another adventure, we found "Poly-frogs" at Paca and PacaMa's ranch.  River got a kick out of these little wiggly guys having multiple names:  poly-wogs, tad-poles or her favorite poly-frogs!
River even caught one herself!  These were pretty wiggly, and we had a lot of fun!
Daddy sure lives in a dry part of the world for liking fishing :) 
Here he is trying to catch goldfish!
I got a kick out of this outfit - 'Lil Darlin' shirt with blue jeans that match her eyes and silver sparkle shoes, topped off by the hat!
Daddy and Kin checking to see if our vessel is sea-worthy!
Florida Swamp or Arizona Cow Pond? 
True FUN!
High adventure!
Race between teams of Kin/Ron and Colt/Sherre.
Fun Memories!
Silver loves to do everything that River does.  She is quite the trooper trying to keep up and climb up!
Silver kept saying "Ta-Da"!! When she'd climb onto the fence.