Happy Family Times #7

 

Kelly at Happy Whimsical Hearts and I run a link party to share your family times every Tuesday. Please link up below and visit Happy Whimsical Hearts to read about her quality family time!

This weekend we spent most of our family time outside. On Saturday we got the pleasure of feeding the ducks. They actually came up to the driveway next to our garage and we fed them there.

Hazel was of course very excited but we kept her pretty calm and quiet so we could watch them from only a few feet away.

My taking pictures is actually what scared them away. Off they flew to the brook, but we went to do other things away from the back yard and they came right back. I got another picture from around the corner of the garage.

Then after they left this time they hung out in the brook near our bird feeders. We do think they have a nest back in the corner where the brook turns.

After feeding the ducks, Daddy and Hazel rebuilt the fairy house since something had knocked it down a bit.

And I found them relaxing on the patio as well.

Sunday after church, we did some gardening. Hazel and I planted the impatiens while Daddy dug a new garden for me to plant some hollyhocks and gladiolas. We are hoping to grow a natural fence along the driveway a bit for more privacy with them.

A few of our impatiens

Our new garden

Then we played on the swingsets. Hazel was having a blast. We have been working on pumping on the swings, but it has not stuck yet. So we took turns pushing her. Then of course she wanted to play zoo train with me and made me ask her if we were there yet a hundred times.

Then we ended our outside time by watering everything we planted and cleaning up. Hazel of course wanted to help with the watering.

Now it is your turn to share how your family has spent some quality time lately.

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Ok, now for our PARTY!! Please share your FUN Family Times!!

The Colors of Us--Exploring all the browns of the world

Just a quick reminder that Sharing Saturday and Homemade Mother's Day Gift link parties are still open. Please come linkup with your child-oriented crafts and activities and your great Mother's Day ideas! And of course visit to check out all the wonderful ideas already shared!!

This week I'm going to share some multicultural story books Hazel and I have discovered and liked thus far. With one of them we have tried  a painting activity, so I will share that with you as well. Some musical resources for this book would be DARIA's song Beautiful Rainbow World (on her Beautiful Rainbow World CD and her I Have a Dream CD) and Kevin So's song Individual (on his Individual CD and Along the Way CD). (I will share more about Kevin So's music at a later date, but Individual goes along with this book, so I'm sharing it here.)

Mother's Day Gifts

With Mother's Day only one week away, I thought it would be fun to share some homemade Mother's Day gift ideas. So if you have any from this year or previous, please link them below.

I thought I would share with you the gift we made last year for all of Hazel's women in her life. I took pictures of the one I kept, but we gave them to her grandmothers and aunts as well. (I can't remember if we made one for her godmother or not). This poem is floating around on-line. I believe the place I got it from was DLTK's Kids. (There are several Mother's Day poems at that link.)

Sharing Saturday #18

Wow, we got some great crafts and activities shared last week. If you haven't stopped by to check them out, please do. Also if you have a family time post that you would like to share with us at Happy Family Times please stop by. It is a great place to get some ideas on what you can do as a family. A new one starts on Monday night (Tuesday in Australia for my co-host).

Fairy Houses, Fairy Gardens & More

Last weekend our next door neighbor (a 10-year-old) came over to play with Hazel. They decided to build a house. They started with a fairy house. They started by gathering materials--sticks, rocks, pine cones and leaves (though I had to stop them from pulling up all the lily of the valley leaves--oops!). I also brought out our collection of treasures from our nature walks. I think they did a nice job.

Hazel has been getting into fairy houses a bit more since we discovered the book Fairy Houses by Tracy L. Kane. It is a wonderful book about a girl whose family takes her to an island off the coast of Maine and in the woods there is a place where people build fairy houses following the rules of the woods which are posted. At the end of the book, there are ideas for building fairy houses in all four seasons.

On our walk through the woods at Mass Audubon, we looked for fairy houses or at least good places for one. We liked this one below. A fallen tree with another tree winding around it. It looked magical to me.

Last year I saw at The Magic Onions her fairy garden contest. Hazel and I entered it. Here is my entry. Here is Hazel's entry. Then Hazel wanted to put the three little pigs in it and build their houses, so here is that one. Donni at The Magic Onion is having the contest again this year. Now I'm really going to work on getting Hazel into it. We shall see what we can come up with this year. I always like to get Hazel thinking about such magical things.

My plan this year is to take Hazel to pick out plants/flowers for it and find a good container to put it in. Then we can add the rocks and furniture, etc. We shall see where Hazel's imagination takes us this year.

How about you? Will you entertain some fairies this year?