It’s What We Do

New playground!  Pirate ship/island themed.  A pretty good one, really.

The jeep might only fit in loosely with the theme of the rest of the playground, but the kids didn’t seem to mind.

                        
Tick-tock, tick-tock!  Our new read-aloud is Peter Pan.  Watch out Hook, that croc is coming to get you!


Peter Pan deftly leads his Lost Boys through the obstacles, but starts to look a little ill on the spinny thing.

I don’t even remember what was going on here but she sure is cute!

                   
This “experiment” is suggested in the back of one of Logan’s books and he was asking about it, so I picked up a batch of daisies at the farmer’s market.  Unfortunately the ONLY food coloring I could find was the gel kind which, apparently, can’t really be absorbed by the flowers.  Still, they’ve looked nice sitting in their colored water all week.

               
The animals got sorted into enclosures and habitats, then we had snack time at the zoo.  From the stairs, you can see the whole of the zoo with the bird cage, the bear pen, the wild animal park, the petting zoo (divided into pets and farm animals) with Logan in it, and the water tank.

                         
                            
Photo session upon receiving Naomi’s new quilt!

                           
We attempted some potty training this week and while Naomi was very willing to give it a go, I just don’t think we’re there yet.  We’ll try again. 

We interrupt this broadcast to bring you an important message--Logan saw Mommy working on this (while overseeing bath time) and wanted to do his own typing.  So, with Mommy only pressing the shift key as necessary, Logan typed this: Logan Jacob Wilde Naomi Adelle Wilde Heidi Marie Wilde Jacob Herman Wilde

 
Appropriately enough, here’s my sunny little computer master himself.

Naomi wasn’t playing to the camera that day, but the sunshine still loves her blonde hair and perfect cheeks.

And, sometimes, this is how we do it.

Discovery Cube

I really wanted to title this something like “Still Not the Wonder Museum” but that just seemed . . . pouty.  This place, just up the highway in Santa Ana was pretty neat.  They had some really fun and interesting things and they definitely had a much bigger budget than our little Wonder Museum but . . . sigh!  After looking through the photos and deciding which ones were blog-worthy, I realized that the problem was that there was almost nothing here that facilitated or allowed for open-ended play.  Everything was very specialized, very mono-functional (pretty sure I just made up that word); consequently it wasn’t the kind of place I could take the kids back to every other week and we’d all still enjoy it.  Still, it made for an entertaining morning.  Enough with the comparison, on with our current adventure!
You see that giant cube over the dinosaur bones?  As soon as you get on the exit ramp, WHAM! there it is.  Makes the place pretty easy to find.

Shifting sand demonstrates wind and water erosion, formation of dunes/drifts and generally pretty patterns.


Air currents keep a beach ball aloft, water vapor makes visible a mini-tornado and balls sink at varying rates through different materials.

Fearless.

Giggling in the earthquake simulator.  They’ve been through a few real ones, so I’m not surprised this didn’t phase them.

    
The dinosaur area was admittedly pretty cool.  Part scavenger hunt, part playground, and both the kids were young enough that we were able to get away without paying the extra fees that are normally associated with this section.

Perhaps we can give them a few points for impressive size as well.

But this simple machine might just have been the favorite.  You use the pulleys to lift a bowling ball; dropping the bowling ball down one tube causes a tennis ball to shoot up out of another, smaller, connected tube.

                               
If the kids were older this might have been a peaceful and very interesting exhibit to watch.  While images on the globe changed, a voice gave short lessons about the different planets and things like weather patterns, day/night, and global airline traffic.  Unfortunately, we’re not all at a sit-and-watch stage right now.

                            
We do somehow manage to do sit-and-read quite well though.

G’night!

Dressing Up and Camping Out

 
The many looks of Logan.  The third playful pose is inspired by a neighbor that we’ve seen quite a bit recently; she wears her twin babies more-or-less like you see Logan doing, while also walking her two large dogs!

                         
Naomi actually spends less time dressing up at this point (just not quite the right age/stage I think), but she does take fascinating self-portraits when given the opportunity. 

Here are Little Red Riding Naomi and Ga-Logan, the Good Witch, journeying through the forest together.  (Our current read-aloud for Logan’s bedtime is, in fact, Wizard of Oz.)  

         
Cornstarch goop.  Not dressing up or camping out, but just something I’m sliding in here.

 
This IS camping out.  Really.  They went to the campsite about a mile south of our house (as opposed to the other camp site a mile north of our house) which happens to be right on the beach.  And also happens to have two (2!) playgrounds.

 
Naomi napped at home with me while Jake and Logan set up the tent, but she caught on to the whole “camping” thing pretty quickly. 

Even with the beach and the playgrounds, Mommy still preferred to leave right after the s’mores and return to a comfortable bed and a quiet house!

Besides, weird marshmallow-covered-things come out at night.  Also, water bottles left too close to the fire develop odd-looking protuberances.  Both problems that Daddy can handle just fine on his own.