Outdoor Playgroup

Yesterday was my turn to host playgroup this month. And since it was forecasted to be a beautiful and sunny day, I planned everything to happen outside. Michael was sick though so our group was a little smaller. Mattie got to stay and play with Isaac though, so that was nice.
Our first activity was making bubble prints. The product turned out to be not nearly as impressive as I was expecting. But the kids had fun with it. The basic idea was to blow bubbles into a bowl of soapy colored water. Then you lay your paper down on top of the bowl and the bubbles pop their designs onto the paper. But like I said the product wasn't all that impressive. Blowing the bubbles was definitely the best part.



After the bubble prints, we ate lunch on a blanket in the yard. The kids were asking what we were going to do next, so I gave in and told them. (I always like to keep things a surprise.) Next up was toe painting--just like finger painting, but with your toes. After my announcement, Justus looked at me and said, "Rachel, you know better than that." What a silly kid.


I'm sure this is a crazy site to most of you to see a baby in a kiddy pool with snow right next to it. But I assure you that the temperatures were somewhere around 70. We are down to just a few patches left in our yard. We get so much snowfall that the piles get pretty dense so it takes a little extra to get them to melt. I predict that it will all be gone from our yard in about a week.
But I had the pool set up so the preschoolers could quickly wash their feet after their toe painting. Isaac though had no problem with the chilly tap tempertures. He just walked right in and actually sat down. Oh and I took this picture afte he stepped in with his shoes. I got those off of him and he still wanted to get in the water. He is my little water boy for sure.
We also used the pool for a quick game of float or sink. I had a bunch of things in a bag and they had to predict if they thought it would float or sink. They did pretty well for 4 and 5 year olds, I thought.
Hope you're enjoying a warm spring like us.

Finding Joy in a Bag of Bread Heels

Yesterday, was another glorious day of sunshine in Juneau. We all wore short sleeves and I even wore flip flops! That's saying something for Juneau. So I took the two little monkeys in my life to the park to feed the ducks and play. And we also took our lunch with us. Carly has always enjoyed feeding the ducks, so I knew that she would at least enjoy the trip. But Isaac also found a new past time to enjoy. He did a pretty good job of making me nervous though. I felt like at any moment he was going to just take off and go right into the pond with the ducks. So needless to say I stayed right by him for almost the entire feeding time.

Our duck feeding view. Eat your hearts out you lower 48ers!

This picture ended up being a bit blurry, but oh well. It still shows the who, what and where. I didn't even check it before we left. Isaac had run out of patience, so it was time to move on. So it is what it is.

Hope you've been able to enjoy the sunshine lately.

Sunshine in Alaska

No, my title is not an oxymoron. It has actually happened quite a bit this week. Yesterday was a particularly glorious day of sunshine, so I took the kids to Twin Lakes Park (at least that's what we call it)--along with every other mother in town! Yesterday and today are inservice days for the public schools in Juneau, so it felt like there were 500 kids at the park yesterday. Fortunately this is a huge park and most of the extra kids were all school aged that played mainly in the bigger kid area. I was able to keep my two on the less crowded little side.
This is a really neat park too. It was built by volunteer man power two years ago. So it's very new. It is also very personal to Juneau with paintings of eagles, orca whales, etc on the equipment. Even the huge tower for the slides is decorated like an ice castle. It is a very cool park. And my kids loved it yesterday. Isaac even kept his hat on! Maybe there's future hope for his easter hat.

Carly was such a good, sweet helper for Isaac. She was always willing to help him climb up the tower steps to the slide. And she made sure he got seated down at the top of the slide instead of just taking a doosy step and toppling down. Isaac is so blessed to have such a kind sister.

Coloring Eggs

We colored our easter eggs two weeks ago, but I just keep forgetting to post the pictures. It was really fun for everyone. I was the family photographer, so there's not any pictures of me, but that's ok. I was so glad I did this when Shawn was home, because we really needed "man-to-man" defense for this activity. Isaac thought it was just fantastic. His word of the night was, "WOW!"
Enjoy the pictures.

Airport Walk

I can't believe it's already been 4 days since we took this walk. This week has just flown by--and the funny thing is we haven't been abnormally busy. Anyway, we had beautiful sunshine streaming down on Monday, so I took the kids out to wetlands walking trail near the airport. I wasn't sure if the trail would be muddy, so I put the kids in their rain boots. Actually it was the first time I'd put Isaac in Carly's old red rubber boots. (That was for you Sharon.) He seemed to really like them as you can tell from these pictures. I also got brave and at one point let them both out of the stroller to walk for themselves. I usually like for at least Isaac to stay in the stroller so I can keep a better pace. But I gave in and set him free. He loved the freedom and was not happy about getting back in the stroller when I got tired of repeatedly going off the trail to get him back in the right direction.
So here's a photo journey of our walk. The picture at the top is the view to the west or northwest (I believe) where the Mendenhall River meets the Gastineau Channel and then goes out to the Pacific. Below the kids enjoyed a snack of apples.

The frozen floatplane terminal.

The view of the glacier from the walk. My favorite point of the walk.

Isaac enjoying his freedom and his red rubber boots.

Sitting on the bench where we often turn around to go back.

The view from the bench.

monkey see, monkey do

It was really windy so it made us feel a bit chilly--glad we had our jackets

He just cracks me up!

Found his pockets

Momma's helper