It all started out by being awoken by rain. I love the sound of rain falling on a tin roof and wish we had a tin roof, but when you are planning on going for a hike with little ones, rain is not ideal.
I was really looking forward to todays walk as I wanted to collect some moss to make our terrarium since we now have a couple glass bowls. I figure I'll use the bigger one, and Sierra can make her own in the smaller one. I am sure Aayla will get her hands in there too. She is really the one who loves the dirt! (especially the dirt in my planters-yeah an indoor sand box..NOT!) Both girls will help to collect the moss I am sure.
Mom was supposed to arrive mid morning to go on our walk, but at lunch called and said she was running late, at 2:00 called to say she wouldn't make it until suppertime, so we spent most of the day waiting. (no worries mom, I know your day didn't go as planned for you either) Not enough time to feel like accomplishing anything much. (I did work on tiding my craft room a bit...) But by the time she arrived... it was supper, bath and bed for the girls basically. The day seemed to just drift away. I really hate days like that. Time is so precious, that wasting a day, that is a day gone forever, makes me depressed that I didn't make better use of the time. (perhaps I am being hard on myself)
The other thing I accomplished was finally catching up on all my photos to flickr. I was up late last night doing them and periodically today through the day, and now I can officially say I am caught up. (Since Dec 08 there were a lot of pictures!)
Mamakopp has a store here and she made a new group on flickr for pictures of people playing with her toys she makes. (Poor Lorilee must feel like I am stalking her as I am constantly in contact with her, or blogging about her fantastic toys. I just can't help it. Her toys are so beautiful. You can see and feel the love she puts into creating each one.)
I'm adding a couple pictures here of Sierra playing with some of her wooden animals that mamakopp made.
One set is a frog lifecycle set which contains an egg, a tadpole, a tadpole with legs, a frog, a lily pad and a felt pond. It is so much fun to watch Sierra's imagination develop. The stories she is starting to tell... the actions she puts her toys through... it's so much fun to watch.
The other set was a custom order I asked her to do for the story The Mitten by Jan Brett. (Jan Brett has a fantastic website for kids and educators.) Sierra asked all by herself to have the book with the animals, and then asked for paper and crayons as she wanted to draw the animals. This was a first for her. She loves to draw, colour, scribble but to try to represent an item other then a happy face on her own, I find quite amazing.
She traced around the owl, fox and mole and then added in their characteristic. She also wrote out what she was drawing represented by the squiggles on the top left side of the page. This was also the first time she has ever tried to draw a sun and she did an amazing job! She asked me to draw her one, but I asked her to try. I ended up doing one on a scrap paper for her but she did it all herself! It has hair so it's hard to see the little rays but they are there! (proud mommy moment)
Sierra doesn't know it but she is getting the Brown Bear brown Bear set I had custom ordered for her birthday in June so no pics of that yet. There is also another box on it's way but I'll wait until it arrives before disclosing it's contents ;)
Now I'm going to try to upload some pictures to facebook as I only have a few to catch up there, then I am off to bed. After all these pictures, I guess I can feel like I accomplished something, perhaps tomorrow I'll get my forest walk in :)
