Fireflies

Last night, we let Malcolm stay up late to catch fireflies.  This is the first year he is old enough to do it, and he was very good at it.



First, daddy explained all about fireflies and how to catch them.



It wasn't quite dark enough, so had a little extra time to play on the play set.



Checking out the first on in the jar.



He had caught one, but it climbed out of his hands and flew away. That blur at the top of the photo is the firefly he caught.

Once he figured out how to spot them, he was very fast at catching them. When Kevin put him to bed, he caught him whispering to himself while acting out hunting fireflies. Today however, I am reconsidering how wise it was to keep him up late because he is a whiny mess. I'm glad he had fun though.

Randall Oaks Park

We are very blessed to have so many wonderful parks around here.  I already had a post about Fountain Park and today we went to Randall Oaks Park.  We have plans to go to many other parks this summer, so if I can remember my camera, I'll try to do a little write up about them.  We have a play date set up for Monday at a new park that I hear is spectacular, so I'll try to review that one next week.

Anyway, today we hit an old favorite, Randall Oaks.  There is a lot to love at Randall Oaks.  First, it is very large.  I don't know how many acres it is, but it is large enough that we have never walked the whole thing.  There is a good combination of open spaces, hills (sledding in the winter), a large and a small playground, and lots of large shade trees (mostly oaks).  There is also a little zoo that is a good size for toddlers and preschoolers.  We get a season pass each year so that we can go frequently and don't feel like we have to spend a huge chunk of time visiting. While I didn't take any photos of just the park itself, maybe you can see some of it in the photos of the kids playing.



The zoo is set up great for the kids to be able to see the animals. It is not set up so that I could get any decent pictures of the kids looking at the animals.

There are benches near most of the enclosures and it gives Malcolm just the right boost to be able to see over the railings. The horizontal boards are at just the right height that Dorothy can look between them while either standing or sitting in the stroller. There are some animals that the kids can feed, and there are holes cut so the animals can stick their heads out right at stroller height. Dorothy thinks it is hilarious when the sheep, goats, and deer stick their heads out at her. They are always disappointed that we don't have food for them, but the kids don't usually ask and I don't offer to buy animal food.


This is how Dorothy spent most of her time at the zoo.



The raccoon was out in his wading pool, and it was a special treat to see him. Usually, he's napping.

The zoo has made a few changes this year. They now have a rabbit again after 3 or 4 years of not having one. They also use to have rats and I wish they would bring them back. They have also added some guinea hens and two porcupines. I don't know why, but I never realized that porcupines spent some much time up in trees. While we were there today, one of the volunteers was working in the tortoise area and was holding one up for the kids to touch. Much to my surprise, Malcolm touched it. He is starting to get a little braver about touching animals sometimes. That was the only animal he touched today, but the last time we were there, he pet a sheep and a deer. He wanted nothing to do with the cow though.

Once we done with the animals, we headed over to the smaller of the two playgrounds. Malcolm was very excited to run into a little boy from his school and they played together a bit. The playground is built for littler kids and has a nice sand pit. I save empty plastic containers and scoops from our laundry soap and take a bunch of those with us when we go. That way, there is lots to share, but I don't care if something gets broken or wanders off. The kids spent at least 30 minutes just digging in the dirt.










Malcolm had a bit of a breakdown when I told him that he could not take a shovel out of the hands of a little girl (his school friend's little sister).


After digging, they were ready to climb a swing a bit. I didn't get any good pictures of Malcolm because he is much too fast. He and his friend played on the teeter-totter a bit, but they both need to weigh a little more to get it to really go.


Yes, she is wearing a "Hogs are beautiful" shirt. It was mine when I was little and was most likely some sort of promotional item from hog farmers. I'm not a big fan of screen printed, graphic T's for kids, but this on makes me giggle. I wanted to get a picture of her with the pig at the zoo, but there wasn't a way to get both of them in the shot at the same time.







It was lunch time when we left, and as a treat we stopped and had lunch at Culver's, a hamburger and frozen custard place. 

Dancing Day!

Today, Malcolm had his first dance class at the studio.  When he got up this morning, he told me that it was dancing day and that he wanted me to make him a dancing breakfast.  I'm not sure what a dancing breakfast is, but he had a blueberry pancake and green grapes.

He has been begging me for about 2 years to take dance class. When he was two years old, he took a class at the park district and we had to walk by the dance rooms to get to his class. It was all I could do to keep him from barging right in to the dance classes and he would stand in the doorway and watch until I would drag him away. They had some old recital photos on the walls and he would point at them and say that he wanted to do that.

I was very happy to find out that the preschool we chose had a dance teacher come in once a week, so we just had him do dance while at school. It was nice not to have to try to add another activity to our schedule. Dance class is one of the only things he has ever talked about from school and he just loves it so much! I told him that for summertime, he would have to choose if he wanted to take dance class at the dance studio or if he wanted to take gymnastics at the big gym. He very enthusiastically chose to dance.

For now, he isn't really into separating everything into "girl" things and "boy" things, but we did talk about how there might not be any other boys in his class and if that would be OK. I didn't want him to be surprised when we went to the studio and there weren't any boys in his class since at school, the dance class was mostly boys.

He looks just darling in his white shirt, black shorts, and black shoes. For the past two days, he has gone and put on his dance shoes and demanded that I dance with him. This is a huge change from the toddler who would shriek at me, "No! No! No! No dancing, please!" I only managed to snap a couple of quick pictures on our way out the door, which didn't come out real great because I am holding Dorothy in one hand and the camera in the other. He just wanted to go and had no interest in posing for any photos.



He had a great time in class and was just adorable.  He hopes that they do "animal actions" or "freeze dance" soon since those were his favorites from dance class at school.

Photography, Week7: Pruple

Purple.  Purple.  Purple.  Why did I think a color would be interesting or inspiring?  Maybe next time it will be because I have lots of other colors coming up in this experiment.  I did play around with some new (to me) settings, including macro.  I took the easy way out and didn't get too creative this week, but the irises were still in bloom, and we have at least 3 different shades of purple.







Small change of perspective.

Swing Set

I have had my eye on a Cedarworks swing set for a while now.  After looking at several different brands, this was the one I chose because of the durability, low maintenance, and really fun play options not available with other sets.  The problem was that they are very expensive and only go on sale once a year, in September. We had decided to wait and purchase one during the sale. I hadn't been searching, but I looked on craigslist just in case, and found a great set for a steel. The catch was that we had to go, take it apart, and bring it home ourselves.

That turned out to be a bit more of an adventure than we planned since the 4x4 tower did not come apart and the original owners had just put in a fence with a 3 foot wide gate. We also ended up having to rent a truck from Home Depot since the tower would not fit in either of our vehicles. Even after all of that, it is a fabulous set and the kids are having lots of fun with it.


Malcolm helps dig it in a little. Never turn down child labor.



It's strong enough to hold mom.



The kids take it for a spin before we get the tire swing attached.



With the tire swing added.



The finished product. It came with two blue swings, but we bought a baby swing for Dorothy. There is also a tire swing, slide, tower with steps inside to climb up, a knotted rope, trapeze (hanging off the back and hard to see), and monkey bars across the top of the swings. When the company has its yearly sale, we are thinking about getting a few accessories like a trap door for the tower, skateboard swing, two seater glider swing, and a rope and bucket with a pulley to transport treasures.  The blue swings it came with are not in the greatest shape, but they will get us through the summer.

Dorothy 1, Irises 0

Last year, Malcolm had some birthday photos done by a photographer who does outdoor portraits on location.  Since the irises were blooming then, I asked if she would also take some of Dorothy with the irises since her middle name is Iris.  They turned out beautiful.




How hard could it be? I've been getting a little better at taking pictures and decided to give it my best shot. I picked a few irises and sat Dorothy on the bench at the back of the yard. The lighting was pretty decent, and I thought she would sit, looking adorable while holding an iris or maybe gaze at the flower a little. She had other plans.


I have no intention of sitting nicely or smiling.



This is what I think of your silly irises.



Hold one up? How about I just put this piece I ripped off on my nose?



No? Then how about I pick my nose?



These seem shredded to my satisfaction. My work here is done.

Photography, Week5: Light & Week6: Feet

Between the holiday weekend and family visiting, I didn't get my photography project posted last week, so now I'm doing two weeks at once.


Week 5: Light
I didn't do so great with this one, but I did try out my night setting which had never been used before. I think that if I had used a tripod, they might have come out much better.


My neighbors put up some cute red, white, and blue, star shaped lights. I couldn't hold the camera still enough though.



I had the same problem at the intersection by our house.



The cats cooperated, but they have evil, laser eyes.


Week 6: Feet
I envisioned a cute picture with both kids' feet together and another with each of theirs with mine, but they had other ideas. I ended up with a lot of missed shots, a couple of kids who were cranky with me, and duck butts.



I'm not entirely satisfied with the composition, but at least the statue held still.

Summer Fun

Summer is nearly here and we have been having some good outside fun.



I found this little guy inching his way across our railing and called the kids out to see him. We had an impromptu nature lesson and talked about caterpillars. Malcolm gave him a few leaves (maple seeds) and loved watching the little guy nibble on them.




Dorothy has discovered a love of corn on the cob. We can't convince her to turn it long ways though.



Malcolm's school had a picnic at a park that had a very long slide. He really wanted to go down, but was a little scared and he talked me into sliding with him. I only had to do it once, then he was fine to go by himself.



We went to one of my favorite parks, Fountain Park. It was a little cool, so Malcolm wasn't as interested in splashing, but Dorothy was game.






Next to the fountain area is a playground and Malcolm much preferred bouncing.



Both kids liked the teeter-totter.



Malcolm took a little time to have some quiet reflection while watching the river.



Some of my pictures are starting to turn out a little nicer. I still need more practice, but I am improving.

Malcolm Turns 4!

I'm way, way behind on a few posts, so I will be spending the next few days catching up.  For now, I will do the most important one first.

Malcolm turned four last month and it has been quite the celebration. The day of his birthday (nearly a month ago now) his school had their field trip to Brookfield Zoo, so we spent the morning there hanging out with the animals.


What you can't see here is that the tiger had just caught a wild bird who had wandered too close and the tiger was in the process of eating the bird. Malcolm was not nearly as impressed as the adults were.


After nap time, we headed outside to get down to the important things, like "pesnents" (presents).

He was very impressed with the 4 dollars that were in some of his cards.



His big (only) gift from us was a balance bike. He likes the idea of it, but it might take him a little while to get the hang of gliding with it. He has tried it a couple of times since we gave it to him and he is doing better, but is still just walking it.




Nana and Papa gave him a basket ball hoop which he is surprisingly good at.




After dinner, we had Oreo cupcakes as requested by the birthday boy.






Dorothy also thoroughly enjoyed her cupcake.


The following week, he had his friend party at Monkey Joe's (and indoor, inflatable bouncy place). I think having his friends there made it extra fun. It was also the first time he went down any of the slides there. He followed his little friends up, then I think he might have gotten pushed down as they all came down in a big group. The lighting isn't so great and the kids move so fast that none of the pictures came out very well. This is the best I could do of him on the slide.





After about an hour of bouncing, we went in to the private room and the kids had pizza, drinks, and cake. I made s'more cupcakes and strawberry cupcakes. None of the kids wanted the s'mores kind, but I thought they were really good.



Malcolm got to sit in the giant chair and meet Monkey Joe while we sang, "Happy Birthday." When we checked in they asked if we would like for Monkey Joe to come in; it's included in the package, but some kids don't like it. We decided to give it a try, even though we weren't sure what Malcolm would think. He was a little apprehensive, but he liked it.



We are very lucky that Dorothy is so easy going. She was too little to do much of anything there, but she was happy even when it got to be past nap time.





Nana and Papa bought 3 tickets to see a local production of "Cinderella" for Malcolm's birthday. We went the day after his friend party and he loved every minute of it. It was a very, very small theater, so we were nice and close. He is now obsessed with stages and has been talking about different aspects of the show. He was very excited when the restaurant we went to after the show had a few tables up on a "stage" and we got to sit there.



Over Memorial Day weekend his uncle and Grandma and Grandpa came for a visit, and that meant more presents to open. He is very, very good at opening presents.  The slip and slide has been a big hit with all the kids in the neighborhood.

It has been a very busy and exciting month!