Tis the Season for Puddle Jumping

First off, Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers out there!   I hope it was truly a blessed day.  I am so thankful for the blessings of motherhood.  I know it really is a gift and a miracle and will never take it for granted.  And Drew and I have some amazing role models as mothers, so our kids are also blessed with awesome grandmothers to look up to.

One of the activities I love to do with the kids is puddle jumping.  Following rain showers, we love to jump in all the puddles we can find and see how big of jumps and splashes we can make.  This seems to be the season for it.  With all of the other things there have been to explore at our new home, we totally forgot about the fun that can be had by puddle jumping.  On Friday night, after we ate dinner together as a family, we decided to take a walk in the beautiful weather to find some puddles for jumping into.

And, I grabbed the camera to document our fun...

This puddle was in our driveway.  It ended up being the best one we could find.  I guess we waited too long after the rain and the ground sucked up the much needed water.  But, we still had plenty of fun.  Here Abbey is pre-jump.

 

Look at that height--and why does she look so much older in this picture.  Please stop growing up so quickly, Abbey!

We finally decided to venture beyond our driveway and see if there were any larger ones to jump in.  This one was near the end of our driveway, but the kids are testing out the muddy-ness of it.  They decided it may be a bit too muddy for early jumping.

We ended up finding a small puddle at the opposite end or our street.  It was tiny, but that didn't stop the kids from seeing how large of splashes they could make.

So much higher than her jumps last year!

Luke tried to get some height.

They love their special daddy time.   Both kids know in this picture that they get two whole days with daddy as the weekend is here!

headed back to our home for a little more splashing...

splish!

splash!

Homeschool Hiking

We have an awesome homeschool co-op group that we get together with regularly.   All of our kids are very close in age and we all live pretty close to one another.  We can already see we are building lasting friendships with these fun friends.  I know some who aren't familiar with homeschooling think that homeschooled kids don't get "socialization."  Well, they are completely wrong!  Our kids get plenty of organized interactions with other kids and adults. 

from one of our first co-op meet-ups last fall. 

 

It's fun to see how much each of these kids has grown even since the fall!

I admit, I feel like a wonderful perk to being a homeschool teacher is that, to some degree, I can pick my kids' friends.  The group of us moms connected last August, exchanged contact information, and the rest is history.  Each month, the hosting mother comes up with some fun lessons (based on the theme that has been decided).  She schedules crafts, activities and always allows for plenty of playtime.  At our last spring-related meet-up, it was decided that scheduling a hike very soon was a must!   So, we did not delay and scheduled it immediately.  We had that hike this morning.  What glorious weather we had!   We just had a big thunderstorm last night, so there was plenty of water to fill up the creeks where we hiked.  It made the hike even more exciting!  Here are some photos of our adventure with our friends.  (We missed two of our co-op moms and 4 kids.  We will have to do this again with all of us--so much fun!)

Right away, Abbey found a "cool stick."

And she was elated over all the puddles she could splash in!

And, I noticed that just like when our family hikes together, Luke was always at the front of the pack.

 

There were lots of neat things to throw into the water and watch them splash.

And our friend, Jack, found the coolest stick I have ever seen.  Doesn't it look like something you would find in the Lord of the Rings or Narnia?

Because of the recent rain, the water was rushing pretty rapidly down the creek bed.  There were several little "waterfalls." 

The kids enjoyed throwing various objects into the water and watching them flow down the stream. 

The scenery and weather was absolutely gorgeous!

My friend, Sarah, had a great idea about putting duct tape on the kids' wrists.  As the kids found a treasure, they could stick it on their duct tape bracelet instead of having to carry it.  There ended up being some pretty cool bracelets at the end of our hike.

Our friend, Ava, is one of the sweetest, most kind little girls.  Here she is helping out another friend, Austin, with his bracelet.

We had so much fun exploring with our friends.

Abbey couldn't get enough of the water and the puddles!

Thankfully, I brought an extra pair of shoes for her to change into.  With Abbey, if there are puddles around we always need an extra pair of shoes.

A message along our hike:  "True Love is not easy to find." 

We spotted this really cool, black, furry caterpillar.  Thankfully, us moms remembered that there are caterpillars with that resemblance that, when touched, can cause severe allergic reactions to humans due to a toxin that its tiny hairs emit.  So, it was fun to look at, but we definitely didn't touch.

This was our beautiful scenery as we walked back to our cars. 

After our hike, we headed to the nearby Whole Foods for lunch and ate outside on their picnic tables.  4 moms and 10 kids.  I am sure Whole Foods employees were thinking, "Oh Yay!  Look who is coming to visit!" (said in a sarcastic tone), as we all came up the escalator from the parking garage.  But, it was such a great time there and we made some lasting memories for the kids!  What a fun day with friends!

Strawberry Pickin'

Last week, we decided to make our school lessons strawberry-related since we decided (sort of last minute) to go to Sweetberry Farms to do some strawberry picking.  The kids really enjoyed all of the fun seatwork we found here: http://moneysavingmom.com/2014/04/free-strawberry-printable-pack.html.

The fun lesson pack was geared towards kindergarten/first grade, but I was able to adapt it for Abbey as well.

There were so many fun activities, like this "color by sight-word" coloring page.

And it seems we can always find a way to bring legos into our schooling.  One morning last week, we used Lego figures for our mathwork. 

On Thursday, we made the beautiful drive to the farm to pick the strawberries.  I was in awe of the beauty of the spring landscape all along the way.   I saw so many beautiful wildflowers and scenery; and honestly, if the kids were not with me, I would have stopped many times to take pictures of the beauty so I could share with Drew.  It truly was breathtaking!  

We had a lot of fun at the strawberry farm picking strawberries.  Here are some of the photos of our little adventure.

 

there were plenty of strawberries to pick!

trying to decide on the best ones to pick...

Look at that concentration!

She looks pretty proud of her find, doesn't she?

Another big juicy strawberry!

It took quite the planning to find the perfect row, because on each end of most rows was a ton of mud.  I finally found a great row and a way to maneuver around the very deep mud that was at the end of it.  We worked our way to the middle of the row and began picking. A few minutes later, I decided to step over the row we were on to the next row.  I brought Abbey along with me.  I figured that way we could cover more area and get the best strawberries in the middle (and dry area) of both rows.  We were picking strawberries for about a minute in that new row and I looked up suddenly to find Luke at the end of our row stuck in mud.  Both feet were almost entirely covered in mud.  I guess he heard Abbey and I's "oooooo's" and "ahhhh's" over the beauties we were finding on our row and he felt he was missing out.   He must have gone back down the original row we entered rapidly and tried to trek up the very muddy entry of the row we were on at lightning speed, because we weren't on that row long at all before we saw him stuck.  I literally had to pull him out of the mud, because he couldn't move his feet. 

Only the very tops of his white shoes were untouched by the mud.  Oh, boys!

Muddy hands and strawberries

She looks up to her big brother.  It looks like she is trying to copy him in this picture.  :-)

Abbey was really distracted during the strawberry picking because she kept hearing the goats.  She was excited to see them.  So, we picked quickly and then went over to visit them.  Poor goats.  Luke and Abbey were afraid to get too close with the grass they picked (in hopes to feed them).  This was as close as Luke got.  :-)  He threw the blades of grass at the goat, hoping one might land in its mouth.  Ha!

He has a pitiful, "feed me" look.

And, of course, we had to finish our trip with some jumping on the big bouncy pillow.

Abbey had to take a little rest and check out other people.