We went to the park. I found it incredibly one dimensional. There was a climbing structure, shade trees, picnic tables, and a whole lot of grass. That’s the norm out here. Out in Georgia, many parks had forested areas, streams, rivers, or ponds, and certainly more than two types of plants. I miss the variety. A trip to such a full park would take up a few hours. After the play-structure got old, there was ducks to admire, frogs to find, flowers to pick, and streams to wade in.

There will probably never be quite as full parks as there was in Georgia. The climate doesn’t grow as many trees or include as many waterways. But  as I was sitting at this park, which became dull in a half-hour, I wondered how hard it would be to include some sort of  wilderness area or garden. I remember several parks growing up that included overgrown areas. We could explore there, enjoy forts made from sticks, find insects or birds, dig in the dirt a bit. One of those parks has recently undergone a transformation to “beautify” the place. Lawn replaced the areas that had long been ignored. And it ceases to become a place for exploration, but turns into a one-dimensional place that will only engage a child’s mind for so long.

Too often our yards and landscape mirror this trend. In my own yard, my sons does not spend his time playing on the grass. He watches the flowers emerging and blooming, he spends hours digging up dirt with shovels and dump trucks. He picks dandelions and weedy hyacinths.

Many in my community strive for long areas of green grass. There is no place for weeds, for shrubs and perennials. A good park or yard seems to be one that looks nice. But I go with my children and I miss the wild overgrowth that speaks so strongly to children to come explore. I doubt I’m going to convince anyone to let the weeds grow up…but maybe instead we can put in a garden. Flowers can come up and bring in insects. Shrubs and trees can provide homes to birds and make places for hiding and discovery. Children need more than lawn and climbing structures: they need nature they can interact in.

I love doing school with PB. We focused on spring this last week. Here are some of our activities.

Simple spring sensory bin.

The box PB is painting was just a piece of cardboard I got out to avoid paint on the table. He decided it would make a better cocoon.

Butterflies the next day to complete the metamorphosis.

Otherwise, life was uneventful and a little too cold. We tried a bike ride and froze. On Saturday, we went to the park and played disk golf. Good remedy to sitting around and getting distracted by screens. I tied Joe, at least with an extra throw on ever hole. It was a little rainy and so we had the course to ourselves  It was also the first time we’ve played disk golf since Georgia. There are not as many trees to hit here. And I wasn’t pregnant or wearing a baby so I could actually throw a disk.

I want to know everything.

The garden requires faith that the seeds I sow will grow.

I live impatiently.

The garden will not grow or thrive unless there is time.

I love to go out on adventures.

The garden calls me home, creates a sanctuary of deep roots not easily abandoned.

My mind whirls in activity, enjoys intellectual challenge.

The garden proves there is decency and honor in simple labor.

I am overcome with emotion.

The garden is a place where I can channel anger into a pickaxe, frustration into weeding.

I plan the details, try to make everything perfect.

The garden thrives or fails on far more circumstance than I can control.

I am cloistered by walls.

The garden brings me beauty.

I have paid better attention during Conference. The whole time I was thinking that I’m very glad these come out in writing so I can actually get some inspiration from them. I read better than I listen. I already have them on my Kindle and I am enjoying reading the talks. My favorite was this one by Elder Holland.

We did encourage PB to pay attention. Here are two activities that worked:

Sensory Table: With his hands and playful spirit engaged, he actually listened a little bit

Find the apostle: I put the pictures of the apostles up and as one spoke he could go and find who it was.

This isn’t what outside play should look like in April:

Wait…this looks better:

Well, all accept toddlers are flower murderers. He is not looking at the flower because it is pretty…he is looking at it because he wants to rip of its head and eat it up.

We  spontaneously went to Baby Animal Days with some of my in-laws. It was fun, but super crowded. I did not expect Disneyland crowds at a farm. PB still got to hold a baby duck, pet an assortment of farm animals, and wait in a line for approximately two hours.

So before, I was never a great fan of billions of people holding baby animals. They must be traumatized for the rest of their lives, or simply just die. But then I had my own kid, and suddenly I was much more interested in making him happy then worrying about baby ducks.

In another unrelated but awesome event, PB got a new bike. This bike:

The bike is wonderful for him. He does not like to actually pedal. So he lets mommy do all the work:

Although pedaling around an extra 100 lbs isn’t easy, I’m super stoked to be able to ride bikes on the wide roads. Except apparently it is still winter.

We had a lot of fun with Easter this year. We did Easter activities all week long before Saturday.

Confetti eggs


Math with jellybeans

Learning about eggs

On Friday night we dyed eggs and they turned out very cool. We used a method I saw on a blog almost a year ago and actually remembered. Simply place drops of food coloring on a paper towel and roll. Super easy, not too messy and it makes for awesome eggs. We did get out the cups of dye too.

On Saturday we had an Easter egg hunt in the morning with just the boys. I made my kid wear the bunny ears we made earlier. PB had a lot of fun. I filled some of the eggs with confetti, not candy. C really enjoyed them, and it mean less candy, more play.

The kids were dropped off at Grandma’s and Joe and I did a session at the temple. Great way to focus on Christ and not just eggs. That afternoon we were back at Grandma’s for a cousin Easter egg hunt. My sons had horrible egg finding skills. PB would walk past twenty eggs in the open to get to one he spotted far away. It just means less candy, no complaints.

On Sunday, we had an uneventful almost peaceful day. (Two small boys create a new definition for peaceful.) We went to church, ate our traditional dinner of fish, asparagus and sweet potatoes, and watched bible videos.

Here are our activities for Rain/Rainbow week. We started to do themes for our play/school and I enjoy it. I don’t think it benefits the kids that much, but it makes play more fun for Mommy. We were hoping for rain and and rainbow would have been awesome…we ended up with a bit of rain and a snowstorm. (I shared these photos before in a previous post, but decided to go back and edit.)

Paper squares. Simple and fun. 

We squirted an old piece of fabric with watered down paint. I think Mommy enjoyed this more than PB. It was way fun. 

This was C’s first real sensory bin. I was happy to see that he didn’t try to eat all the colored rice. PB had a hard time sharing at first, but he eventually realized it was either play with C or not at all. 

PB pointed out that pouring the rice down the stacking cups sounded like rain.

PB enjoyed this simply math activity. At first I didn’t have raindrops on painter tape for all of the numbers, but I was quickly making more so PB could do the whole set 1-12.

We also played outside with an umbrella and hose. Later on we played umbrella tag in the rain. PB or I would have the umbrella and run away, the other person would come steal the umbrella, lots of laughing too.

Random pictures of the kids. I keep trying to get good pictures of Curtis but he always goes for the camera the second he sees it out.