From the category archives:

Outside

Make Your Own Backyard Obstacle Course

I am always looking for fun, creative ways to get moving with my kids. Since my girls were toddlers we have been making our own backyard obstacle courses. Our whole family can participate in gathering items, setting up the course, and testing our skills in a friendly family competition.
One of the greatest things about a [...]

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Landscape Photo Scenes

{Originally posted October 2008}
Last weekend, while out on a nature walk, the girls helped me find interesting landscape “scenes” to photograph. At home, we printed our favorites out, full-page size. Then, the girls chose some clip art and stickers to decorate their scenes with. They also dictated some fantastic stories about their scenes. You could [...]

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Metamorphosis

What fun it was to watch our tiny caterpillars grow and grow and make their debuts as butterflies. The girls were enthralled with the whole process – it is quite magical, isn’t it?

The timing was just right – we were able to release three of the butterflies at our old house, on our last day [...]

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Happy Arbor Day!

Arbor Day seems like a good day to share a tree identification book with you that we love!

Published by the Arbor Day Foundation, What Tree Is That? offers a step-by-step question approach to identifying common North American trees. It reminds me of those Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books I read when I was young!
As you answer questions about [...]

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Ocean Air

Hi everyone! We just returned from a quick beach trip – the girls just loved dipping their toes in the super-cold ocean! Be back soon with some ocean-y crafts and projects….
Have a great day and happy playing!

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Flowerpot Wind Chime

We celebrated my husband’s birthday last week. In addition to the veggie plants we bought him for the garden, the girls and I made him this fun flowerpot wind chime.

I had seen pictures of wind chimes like this – they seemed pretty simple to make, so we gathered a few things and winged it!

Supplies:

clay flowerpots [...]

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Ready, aim…

…BLAST!

The girls received these water blaster tubes at a birthday party over the weekend. They are basically a giant syringe with great blasting power! They played with them for at least an hour, first watering all the plants and then each other.
I love the simplicity – easy to use, no [...]

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Birdseed Cookies

Let me start by saying that about two minutes into this project, I was pretty sure it was going to be a flop. But, we persevered and our birdseed cookies actually turned out, so there you go! I wish I remembered where I got this recipe from – it is scribbled on a [...]

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Flower Planting Kit

We are always looking for simple, creative gifts to put together for the many birthday party invitations that arrive in the mail. Natalie and I put this flower planting kit together for two of her friends, and we just love it! Inside an inexpensive terracotta pot (6″) we put: organic potting mix, a [...]

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Toddler Time – Outside Fun

A couple of you have requested some “flashback” posts about things I did with my girls when they were toddlers. It took some thinking to remember back — with little ones running around, things seem like a blur sometimes! I thought I would start with outside activities, since the weather is still so nice and [...]

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