Children's Museum

Sometimes its hard for people to know what to get this chaotic family for gifts, especially with the "we don't need more stuff" mantra from this mama!  However, my parents got us one of the most awesome gift ever when they bought us a family membership to the Madison Children's Museum.  We love that place.  Big time love.  We go there as often as we can.  Because of the membership, we no longer rush through the place trying to see everything at once.  We get to take our time in one area all day if we want because we know we can come back again and do another part of the place another time!  We also get to share this great gift with friends.  These are the pics from one time this summer when we went with our favorite little pal next door =) 

 Inside, there are lots of fun things to play with and do.  I only have a few shots; maybe next time I can stop playing so much and get more pictures of the inside:

Ready to get going!!!

Automated legos to play with...wicked fun.  Otter needs to learn how to do this so we can start building Lego robots to clean the house.

Playing with wooden musical instruments.

 

 

 

 

 

Smoosh always heads for the veggie garden to plant things!  LOVE it!

Looking at the Madison Square from the rooftop.

The rooftop is my favorite place in the Museum.  Gardens, chickens, a clubhouse full of baby chicks, turtles, and seedlings - what's not to like?  Maybe one day my backyard can look like the rooftop...

Possibly the only thing cooler than backyard chickens are rooftop chickens!! Maybe our coop can look like this one day?

Exploring the pond...

...climbing the rocks...

...wondering why jumping in the pond is not allowed.

This is how the girls play with the fish...."ha doh widdle fishie..."

...so sweet...and cute.

And this is how the boys play with the fish...never still, always moving..climbing and conquering the foul beast from the depths.

Definitely one of our most favoritest places to visit =)  We'll show pics next time of the awesomeness inside!

Strawberry Pickin'

We love our fruit over here...we go through bananas, apples, grapes and oranges like it is our job.  But, we especially love our fruit when it is fresh from the vine, tree, or plant.  What better to do than on a windy, still-chilly, summer day than head out to the local organic farm to pick some delicious strawberries...especially since our own little strawberry patch at home is still growing and still enjoyed by the birds before us on most occasions (stinkin' birds...gonna try that bird net on the strawberries next year as well as the cherries!).

Now, strawberry picking is not just some simple event that you go out and just do.  There is a certain protocol to follow when grabbing the plump berries.

STEP 1:  Jump out of the car, running and hollering like banshees while making a mad dash to the strawberry field.  All the while being too loud or too excited to hear any responsible adult calling out "slow down" "be quieter" or any other such silly nonsense that just slows down the aforementioned mad, loud dash. 

STEP 2:Try to wait patiently while the fine details of strawberry picking are explained.  Feign interest and attentiveness, only to demonstrate failure to comply with most of the fine details (but who really notices anyways?).

STEP 3:  Shove as many strawberries as possible into your tummy before even having them reach your basket.  This is the only fine detail that was paid attention to (and probably the most important one!!).

STEP 5: Finally settle down and start grabbing those berries!!!

Well, one of us wanted to go back to STEP 1 with running and screaming like a wild banshee.

STEP 6: Proudly display your day's harvest and happily head home with baskets and bellies full of berries for some strawberry ice cream and jam making.  And maybe a cup of hot chocolate as it was a tad bit windy out there.

Big Girl Bed I

I do so hope my laziness in blogging will be forgiven...I'm making a go at it....again!



It's always an exciting transition in life when one moves from the crib to their own so-called big bed, in this case, a big girl bed.  The transition began for Squeakers with a girl-only trip to Ikea to get the big girl bed that would be replacing the crib and Bean's old bed.  After a run through Ikea and a giggle-filled lunch at the cafe, the new bed was brought back home.  The bed had to be painted white....and maybe Huck needed a little paint, too.

















It was a full family affair assembling the beds, some of us even needed to get dressed up for the occasion.

The event went on beyond the time anticipated, so we worked on through dinner.  Well, one of us worked, the others of us enjoyed dinner.

 And then...it was done.  And of course once a new big kid bed is installed, it has to be tested out by everyone:)

Girl on the Run

Ok, this will be an actual real-time post before I get back into "catch-up from summer" blogging mode.  Seriously, I will stop eating my bon bons, lying on the couch and doing nothing so I can get back to writing stories...

Today, Beans ran her first "official" 5K run with Girls on the Run.  The day started out with a nice protein-filled breakfast and lots of race flare for Beans and her fan club.

Daddy and Beans headed off to the race, while I got the rest of the crew ready.  Maybe there was a little bit more yelling and frustration then happiness and cheer as I got the other 4 kids out the door.  Seems like a fun family event doesn't really get started until their is some dysfunction, tears, and sore vocal chords.  One of these days - right?  But they pretended to be happy and smile for one pic before we left....it looks convincing right?

I think the fan club and I walked a 5K to get to the race, barely making it there in time for the start....so typical.  This is what we got to see at the start:

But don't worry sports fans and rubber bands!  We had a live, one-the-scene reporter there to grab the crucial moments of this girl's run:

And in the middle of the race:

We were all anxiously waiting for her at the finish line, even though some of us wanted to run down by the stream and throw things in it.  Said person required threat of bodily harm if they did not stand still at the finish line and cheer happily for their big sister:

I think he finally got the message.  We at least got to see her cross the finish line and that really cute, live, on-the-scene reporter also shot the winning moment:)

you can barely see the reporter filming the rockstar as she runs, she has pink leggings on.....

And her adoring fan club was there in the end to celebrate her great accomplishment with her....

The on-the-scene reporter with his little clone:

Our walk back to the car was oddly peaceful...maybe that had something to do with the little clone going with the Big Daddy, maybe.

It was a great day, despite the frustrations, and Beans was happy and tired at the end.  She wanted nothing more than to go home, snuggle up under her covers, and finish her Nancy Drew book. Well-earned I would say!

Butterflies A'Plenty

Each year we love going to the Olbrich Garden's Bloomin' Butterfly Event.   They fill their conservatory with butterflies.  The outdoor gardens are also full of butterflies.  We prepare about a week early for this by getting all the butterfly books possible from the library.  We printed out butterfly lifecycle worksheets and books and became butterfly aficionados before the event.  The day of, everyone decked themselves out in butterfly gear - butterfly T-shirt for me, dresses for the girls, and Smoosh picked out a bright colored shirt so "butterflies would think I'm really good food."  Otter followed suit with a not-so-loud red T-shirt.

We read more butterfly books and listened to a butterfly book on CD on the way there.

Once at the gardens, we met up with our friends and had a great picnic to make sure we had plenty of energy to do all that lookin'!

Yeah...butterflies!  They have quite the collection of specimens donated from a local butterfly enthusiast!

Beans is explaining her journaling to Jo Anna.

Staring closeup at butterflies.

...investamigating...

She's trying to lure butterflies onto her fingers.

Discussing very important matters.

And, as with all of our adventures, we came home tired (not so cranky this time!) and had nice long naps...at least the littler kiddos and I!!

Chillin'

And a Happy Friday to all:)

Getting Buggy with It

Smoosh has been very into the bugs lately.  He collected several mosquito larva and we watched as they molted, formed into pupae, and then hatched into mosquitoes.  I was a bit at a loss as to what to do with the adult mosquitoes as they were, after all, mosquitoes.  Anyways, his interested was peaked and we decided to get lots of books on insects and then found this great website:  Home Science Tools.  Like a kiddo on Christmas morning, I eagerly browsed through pages of petri dishes, forceps, beakers, and other cool stuff before I settled on some basic science goodies for the kids.  Smoosh counted down the days until we got an exciting package in the mail:

Smoosh wasted no time at all in collecting specimens to study:

He even set up a bug museum next to Beanie's lemonade stand to display his collection to any neighbor interested in the local bug fauna.

The sign says "Free Bug Museum;" we suggested he might want to offer it free as a community service.

I mean, really, who doesn't want to stare at a fat grub in a petri dish?  Since our science tools have come, he has been spending so much time outside collecting insects.  It has been pretty neat to see the diversity he has found in the pool, garden, and all about the house.  I'm not quite as excited about the jars of Japanese beetles, mosquito larva, and the terrarium with the slug in it hanging around my kitchen, but at least he has not found any snakes to bring home.