A Walk In The Woods

We are loving this cooler weather, it makes us want to spend so much more time outside!

We have a new favorite hiking spot near our house and most mornings this week we've skipped our usual YMCA routine in favor of fresh air and trees (that are starting to turn!).

I love watching Qais explore the forest, he's so curious and content.

I also love that when we're in the woods he is free to roam - a free range kid - he can wack a stick around all he wants, he can make piles and stomp on them, he can pick up rocks (and leaves, and sticks and anything else) and throw them and he can run off the trail and go anywhere he wants.

Not only does he have a blast but he totally wears himself out (love those good naps). We still have to make sure we're home by about noon or it gets too hot for us but soon we'll be able to stay out longer and I foresee some daytrips to state parks.

So grateful for the cooler weather making this possible, bring on fall!

Long Weekend

We had a wonderful long weekend, full of family, babies and playing outdoors, some of my very favorite things.

I love this time of year so much, cooler weather, watching kids go to school and finding a new routine. The leaves around here look like the end of summer - over ripe, over saturated and a few are even starting to turn orange! It's so nice to finally be able to spend more time outside, our to do list is growing with activities that require cooler weather - beach trips, river trips, apple picking trips, trips to the zoo, museums, hiking, camping and more. We've also been spending more time in our own backyard. I'll post some pictures of what we've been doing later this week, but here's a sneak peak

our first backyard bonfire.

#27

on the list was to learn to can. This summer was the perfect time to learn, so much produce at the farmers market and in our own garden.

At the beginning of the summer I used up an amazon gift card and bought these three items -canning tools, water bath canner, and one of the Ball complete book home preserving. I have loved flipping through the book at all the fun recipes, I have so many ideas for things I want to do in the future - brandied peaches, tomato sauces, juice concentrates, apple pie filling. I would love to have a pantry full of food I've put away for the year. Someday I will...

Here is a small portion of the four things I've canned this year, I just pulled out a jar or two of each to take a picture of. There's strawberry and blueberry jam (which were by far the easiest things to can) and then there's pickled peppers and canned crushed tomatoes. I haven't tried the peppers or tomatoes yet but the jams were unbelievably yummy. I also made a bunch of bread and butter pickles a few weeks ago but they were so yummy that they're just about gone already!

I'm really so glad I learned how to can. It's really easy and fun and I love looking in the pantry and amid the various things I've bought to see things I made - even picked (like the blueberries) and then preserved is so great!

All You Need To Have Fun Is..

water and a cup


Sometimes the simplest activities are the most enjoyable.

Butterflies

For Mother's Day I bought myself a subscription to Living Crafts magazine, if you don't know the magazine - it's awesome. Full of great patterns, tutorials, inspiring photos and great articles. I have been ear marking patterns I want to do for a while and this week I was thumbing through the summer issue and came across this quick easy butterfly decoration. I decided to make it one afternoon while Q was sleeping and hang it from a branch above our nature table.

I just took some random bits of colorful wool roving, in sections about 6 inches long and an inch or two wide


then I folded them end over end and with a 6 inch long piece of pipe cleaner I made the little rectangles into butterflies, twisting the pipe cleaners to close them up.


then I turned down the ends of the butterfly antenna by rolling them over a pen, then I put embroidery floss around the middle and hung them up on a branch.

I really like how they turned out, they really brighten up our house

We're Home...

from a very long weekend away. I'll write some about our adventures later this week but now, guess what I came home to?

a bloom!

there has been a bee on it since it opened up, constant, drunk on the pollen

and there is a smaller sunflower following close behind, I think it will open up by the end of the week

Time

Sorry for the absence again, I really should just stop apologizing, blogging just doesn't happen as much with my energetic toddler and the crazy summer heat. I find that we've been going out a lot more to make up for not being able to spend time in the garden - YMCA, playdates, La Leche League and spending time with the new baby in our family have kept us busy. Even though we've been inside, we're still watching the garden and reaping the benefits on our dinner table. Here is the most exciting thing happening in our garden right now

We're waiting on our biggest sunflower to give us it's first bloom, and unfortunately we're leaving town for a little while right as it looks like it may happen. I'll update with a picture next week when we're home again.

The Zoo

We're having a break in the hot weather this week and we took advantage of it today with a trip to the zoo. We woke up bright and early, grabbed our picnic and water bottles and spent most of the day walking around looking at animals.

Q is so into animals lately, a good 90% of his words right now are animals. He says fish, squirrel, bird, dog, kitty, bunny... He has no fear of animals and loves to watch them anytime he gets. His favorite books are the ones with pictures of real animals in them, we'll go back and forth over certain pages all day while he points and learns their names. I just knew he would love the zoo.

and he did.

Besides one startling incident with the chimpanzees we had a great time. We walked the whole zoo, took lots of pictures, got down and ran, visited our favorites (sea lions, bears) multiple times and ended the day with running around in a kids play area that gave us lots of inspiration for our yard.

A great way to spend a cool summer day.

Boiling Hot

What do you do when it's too hot to play outside and you have an energetic toddler?

We're still trying to figure that out and so far it means we have to change activities about eleventy billion times a day. Here are a few of our favorite activities for being stuck inside. These are just a few of the more creative activities, we also spent about an hour yesterday banging two sticks together.

various pans, cereal, play food, measuring cups and some big spoons to make lots of noise

cornstarch and water were lots of fun and lots of mess

chairs and playsilks make a fort, or some very good peeka boo