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A Walk on the Beach




This week was school vacation week in Massachusetts. The third Monday of April is a state holiday called Patriots Day. It also is the day the Boston Marathon is run and so many roads are closed down for parts of the day. Since we did not have any of our normal activities, Steve took the week off of work and we took a mini-vacation the second half of the week to visit my parents at Cape Cod. We packed up all three of us and the two cats to drive two hours to my parents. It wasn't a bad trip except Fluffy does not like the car and meowed a good part of the way there and most of the way home--though she wasn't as bad as I expected. She may be getting more comfortable with the car. Hopefully.

Sharing Saturday #16

Wow, what amazing ideas were shared last week. I had a hard time choosing some favorites or should I say not choosing too many favorites. I know there are many ideas we are going to be trying at my house.

Going Exploring for Ant Hills

Last week Hazel and I bought a critter cage that came with a small net, magnifying glass and tweezers and we bought a nicer magnifying glass at Michaels. They were on sale an not very expensive. Hazel has been afraid of bugs for some time so I thought it might help to get rid of some of the fear. On Sunday we pulled them out. Hazel started by gathering rocks in her net and critter cage. Then after a bit she told me she wanted to go exploring and look for ant hills. I'm not sure if she really knew what an ant hill is or what one looks like, but we did find some.
Our front yard actually had many of them. We always seem to have ants around. Hazel had the best time just looking and searching.
We discovered the magnifying glass that came with the critter cage was not very good. It was rather blurry. So Hazel kept telling me she would share the good one with me. She was having so much fun.
Getting a better look
We also of course continued using our senses like we did on Saturday. After all exploring really requires one to use your senses. We found some feathers, bees (but they moved too fast to get a picture). Hazel took the first feather to put in her critter cage. I'm not sure it ended up there though.

Hazel also noticed that an airplane left lines in the sky.
Then we went for a walk to explore some more. Daddy joined us and Hazel wanted to be pushed. But she constantly wanted us to find something to put in her net. I finally picked up a rock for her. Steve had been doing some yard work and we moved her sand box out of the garage now that the weather is turning warmer. She was very excited to have it outside. She was serving everyone dinner at her swingset picnic table.
She asked if I was hungry and of course I said yes, so she gave me the best one.

I am loving our days spent outdoors. Each day seems to bring some new adventure, exploration or game. What have you been up to outside?

Oh, I know I have mentioned this book previously, but I am trying to relate our activities to books whenever possible. Since we were exploring for ant hills, it of course makes sense that we mention one of Hazel's favorite books, Ant and Grasshopper by Luli Grey. If you visit my previous post  you will see one of the crafts we have come up with to go with the book. I still plan to make Ant's house out of tissue boxes with Hazel. Stay tuned for it.

Some other creative play we have done lately:
Blowing Bubbles
Wind Wand--finally playing with it outside!!
Stove/oven for cooking with her sand table
Yes, she told me she was grilling chicken on her table!! I love it!!


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Seeds, Sprouts, Plants, Flowers, Fruit & Vegetables

So back in March, one of my Sharing Saturday features was from The Artful Child on investigating peas growing in your window with contact paper and a water paper towel. We tried this in Hazel's bedroom window. She now calls our pea plants elephant trunks. However it is neat to see the roots.

A great book to help see the plants and roots is How Does a Seed Grow by Sue Kim. It has fold out pages and shows both the underground and above ground parts of the plant to grow different fruits--tomato, pepper, peas, oranges, blueberries, etc. Hazel of course loves it because of the fold out pages.

On the Monday after Easter we planted some seeds with my father. My parents are avid gardeners and grow amazing flowers and vegetables. We are going to bring some of our seeds to my parents to grow in their garden since they have better space and sun for gardening. However I promised Hazel we would try some gardening. The one thing I want to do is grow a sunflower garden for her to hide in. So sunflowers are on our list as well as watermelons, pumpkins, celery, carrots, zucchini and green beans oh and snap peas, of course.
By Friday we had some sunflowers already popping out. It was so exciting for Hazel to see. My father had cut two milk cartons in half for us and we used them to plant some of the seeds that would take the longest to harvest. Here are the seeds we planted.
We just filled the carton halves with soil and planted the seeds as deep as the package said. Then stuck them in nice sunny windows and watered them often.

We labeled the carton on the top part with what type of seeds we planted. We have one sunflower container, one pumpkin, one watermelon and one celery. Once they start growing we will replant them into cups and then eventually outside in our garden. We will also grow some carrots, marigolds, basil, zucchinis and tomatoes. Do you have a garden? What do you grow?
Sunflowers Day 9
Pumpkins Day 9
Watermelon Day 9



Since our sunflowers popped up first, we have started doing some sunflower crafts.I went to DLTK's Crafts for Kids and found many sunflower crafts. All of these came from there.
Sunflower Mask
Tissue Paper and Sunflower Seed Craft
We also started the You Are My Sunshine Frames for Mother's Day gifts. Now I just need to get a good picture of my little sunshine. She is in her I hate pictures stage. She colored these with her dot markers and they remind me of the flowers in one of her favorite books (see below). We will share them when they are completely done as well.

We also read How a Seed Grows Into a Sunflower by David Stewart, and one of our favorites is My Garden by Kevin Henkes.










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Cooking with Hazel and Easter Leftover Ham

So I needed to use up the leftover Easter ham. I decided to make some scalloped potatoes. I wanted it to be Hazel friendly and use my crock pot. I found this recipe on All Recipes and of course adapted it to us.
Since Hazel loves chopping, I decided to add some vegetables she could chop--carrots and green beans. I also added some broccoli, but she didn't want to chop it. And we learned not to let her chop the onions since she tends to rub her eyes while doing it.
Ingredients:
3 lbs. Potatoes (I used four Russet potatoes)
1 chopped onion
1 diced carrot
1-2 cups chopped green beans
1 cup broccoli florets
1 cup shredded fat free cheddar cheese
1 cup cooked ham
1 10.75 oz can of Healthy Choice Cream of Celery Soup (we don't like mushrooms in my house so I always substitute cream of celery for cream of mushroom in every recipe that uses it)
3/4 cup water
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1 cup frozen peas thawed

Slice the potatoes very thinly. We used the food processor. Then put in slow cooker. Add onions, carrots, green beans, broccoli, cheese and ham to slow cooker and stir to mix up.
Combine soup, water, pepper and garlic powder in 2 cup measuring cup and mix together.
Pour sauce over vegetable mixture and stir a bit to mix it in. Cover and turn slow cooker on to low. Cook for 7-8 hours. Half an hour before you will serve add thawed peas. Stir to mix before serving. Enjoy!!

It came out pretty well. Hazel and I both enjoyed it. Steve had filled up on ice cream and skipped dinner completely. Guess he shouldn't have finished Hazel's ice cream for her. Oh, well.

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