A Nice Evening Stroll

We headed out with Matt tonight for a short stroll before dark. It was just nice to get outside and to have it be daylight long enough to enjoy the evening a bit. The creek was much more melted than last week's visit, but there was still a good amount of ice. The moon was huge and bright, so we attempted to capture it here for you....

A Balmy 55 Degrees!

We had to get outside on a day like today, especially since it is supposed to rain/snow tonight and then be arctically (a word??) cold the next several days again. So, we headed to a park near us and walked along the frozen creek for a bit. The assignment, in addition to just enjoying being outside, was to practice walking quietly and listening and then to come up with one word to describe what we heard, two words to describe what we saw and three words to describe how we felt (thanks to Barb at the Handbook of Nature Study blog!). The girls and Liam all had a great time. It was wonderful to be outside!!

Our list:

One word to describe what we heard:
Katy: caw-caw-caw
Darsie: chick-a-dee-dee-dee
Mary: awakening (ice melting, birds calling, leaves rustling)

Two words to describe what we saw:
Katy: water coming (she wanted to say water coming out of a hole, but that was too many words, so she shortened it to this)
Darsie: the feathers (a pile of feathers on the path)
Mary: winter snow

Three words to describe what we felt:
Katy: I felt chilly!
Darsie: warm and tired
Mary: I love outside!

Darsie's list of what she thought she might see on our walk:
a tree, a creek, leaves (not sure what the grid-looking pictures are).

And Katy's ideas:
tree, ladybug, butterfly, cherry and acorn.

Liam was just glad to be outside and walking around on non-icy surfaces.
He LOVED it!

Part of the creek where the ice had melted a bit.
It was a wonderful sound to hear the water running!

A friendly jogger stopped and asked us if we would like our picture taken, so here it is. :)
(I'm sure Sarah Beth or Sara K. would do the same thing. :) )

The creek was still pretty frozen. I showed the girls how to pick up icy snow balls and lob them onto the creek and watch them explode. They loved it!

Isn't she beautiful??!!

So is she!!!!

And look at this cutie!

A view from the path....

The waterfall had huge chunks of ice hanging off of it, and the creek above it was pretty frozen!

The ruins of an old house built in the 1700's. It was a tenant house, had two doors leading into separate rooms on the first floor. The upstairs had a separate exit door called the funeral door for when someone died in bed and had to be taken out. Apparently, the front staircases were too narrow to carry a coffin down, so they put in another door that opened to the outside to get it out that way. Interesting....

This video is just to show how interested Liam was in the creek. If you listen carefully, you can hear him say "ice" and "bye water". I also had to get a video of him calling the girls by name, because you can actually tell the difference between their names now when he says them. "Da da" for Darsie and "Day dee" for Katy.



And what are the kids doing now as I post this? Liam is sleeping and the girls are outside without jackets (though I did make them leave on the long-sleeved t-shirts under their short-sleeved ones) playing in the remaining snow and enjoying the swingset. There will be lots of mud and wetness when they come in, I suspect!

More Footprints

We found more footprints on our walk Tuesday afternoon.
These are our fat squirrel trying to get more food from our trashcan.


These, we think, must show a great bird feast, with whatever they ate sitting in the middle, and the crazy hopping and positioning to get near enough to it.

Reminds me of the Princess Bride, on the Cliffs of Insanity, when the Prince waltzes around, tracing the footprints and explaining what must have happened there - a giant, a sword fight,..... :)

Mysteries...

When we went outside to play today, we found several sets of footprints in the snow and are planning on copying them into our nature journals after naps and trying to figure out who they might belong to. Isn't snow fun??!!

Maybe a cat (on our driveway)?


A squirrel (next to our trash cans)?


A house sparrow or other bird (next to our front bushes)??

How the Squirrel Got His Tail by Katy and Darsie Foreman

In the spirit of Kipling (and after reading How the Camel Got His Hump, How the Whale Got His Throat, and How the Rhinoceros Got His Skin), here is a story the girls made up today:

Once upon a time a long time ago there was a squirrel with a long skinny tail. He always hung upside down from a tree branch and stole animals’ food when they went under the tree. The animals got very angry at the squirrel, so they called a genie and they told him their problem. The genie went to the squirrel’s tree and the squirrel took his food! Well, the genie gave the squirrel a bushy tail so that he couldn’t hang upside down anymore. And that’s how the squirrel got his bushy tail!

She Did It!!

Katy came into our room yesterday morning while Matt and I were reading our Bibles, and she decided that she wanted to read something, too. So, she went into her room and came back with "The Foot Book" and said that she was going to try to read it. Then, she sat down in our glider, opened the book and proceeded to read the whole thing! By herself! every now and then she wold stop on an unfamiliar word and ask what it was, but she was able to sound them all out by herself, and after a while we realized that she was sounding them our without even asking us anymore! It was very exciting to hear her read, of her own volition and to realize that it is beginning to click with her! Praise God for His faithfulness in answering our prayers for her! I can't wait until she can read her Bible!

Westward....

While Matt was gone on the youth retreat this past week, we created another covered wagon and ate a campfire dinner (pancakes and eggs) under it. The girls were happily entertained for days with the wagon (and I have to say, it was a joy to finally take it down and have my living room back!). Who knew pool noodles were so useful to have around?!