Sunday, June 9, 2013

Bernheim Forest

   A couple of days ago we visited Bernheim Forest which is outside of Louisville, KY. It was such an amazing place; I am sure we will be going back. We barely scratched the surface!  It was so great to be outdoors surrounded by green, green, green everywhere!!! There were so many different trees and plants.  The kids enjoyed exploring so much and Jack and Emma had a lot of fun identifying some different things they had learned in botany this year. (Hey! You know who! Botany is not boring! ;-)) 
 Walking on a trail...Janey Kate walked a really long way that day up and down hills.
 We passed an area where different faere homes were built. The kids are ready to build their own now.

 Creed said, "Take my picture by this little habitat. (Habitat is one of his favorite words)
 Just because...
 Some people shared some bread with us and we fed, geese, ducks, and turtles.
 We explored the are around a neat little pond. This turtle was sunning itself.
 One of several frogs we saw.  God's design in camouflage is amazing.
 We saw lots of lichen and moss.  The forest was so damp compared to Texas. We were amazed at how wet(and cool) everything was and the wide variety of vegetation.


 Mom! Mom!  It is a squirrel barrow.  We think he meant burrow.

 See the moth?


 We went into an educational center and they had this amazing beehive. I don't know if you can see the tube by the hand but that is how the bees fly in and out.
 Walking across a model of the land in this region.  The knobs region is the area of Kentucky that is characterized by a lot of hills the same size. If you look out across the countryside, you can clearly see rolling hills of the same size. It is my favorite region.
 How Louisville bats are made.


They had all these pieces of woods for the kids to build with.

Creed, being very thoughtful and purposeful about what he was doing. I wish I had taken a picture of his finished product. He built a spider habitat and it was really neat and he explained what each part was.
 We finished up with a picnic snack and play in this great children's play area. There was a playground but even better than that lots of different things to explore and rocks to climb on. If we lived near by, I'd take them there all the time, stretch out with a good book and let them play and explore. The grand finale was JK's first trip to an outhouse, but I have no photographic evidence of that!



Thursday, May 23, 2013

Creed turns 5!

Now that he is five he is all cool you know.
He has been just crazy about working with wood lately. He doesn't know it but he has a present that was delayed in getting here that is a montessori-type woodworkig tools with a drill and saw that really work along with a hammer and tape measure and a book of ideas. I can't wait until he gets it.

Blowing out his candles.
Showing off his birthday outfit. I happened to be testing a new pattern from Peek-a-boo pattern shop this week and made these shorts from the pattern called Coastal Craze Baggies. I love how they turned out and he loves them because they are soft and comfortable. I made the shirt(stenciled and painted) because he is always wanting a puppy and my facebook friends like to joke about #teamcreed that wants him to get a puppy. He was terribly happy to get a puppy on a shirt!
Showing off his mad jumping skills.
I could eat him up!
"Mom, help me be more stable. This isn't very stable."

Birthday goggles for a birthday boy going for a birthday swim.
 
He has been doing great this week learning to swim.
He was so worn out from the day that he fell asleep in the car at 6:30 dropping his sisters off at youth group. We were headed to Jack's baseball game but headed home instead to work on his new legos he got from Grandma.