Wedgits

Okay... the new toy in our house was something Jeremy received for his birthday. It was something we discovered at the Smith house a couple years ago... okay, maybe it was only last year. Bethie was in love with them at the time, but everyone seemed to have an eye out anyway.

So, Wedgits came to our house.... The jury's still out, but we think we like them better then (dare I say) Legos!

Here's just a few of the things we've done with them:

And I love that everyone can enjoy them... yes, they do make a 1+ type (soft block style) and a 2+ type (larger for little hands style), but as you can tell, Peter has no problems with these ones. And I have no problem with them being played around C. (the baby we watch). Lots of fun... another way to manipulate and build (The frog even "jumps" with a little help). They are, however, large... when compared to Legos.

The kids are looking forward to adding to the set... so many add ons... Gabi can't wait for the wheels... I want more pieces... yes, I'll confess, I spent a good couple of hours playing with my kids building things! (But then again, Bob spent an hour or so the first night we got them... so it's not just me!)

Civil War

Gabi loves to read things that are stories using real information... books like Magic School Bus, Magic Tree House, Laura Ingalls, and many others. For her birthday a few months back she received some books from the Sisters in Time series and she really enjoys them. They are all history stories about little girls and the effects of the world in their lives depending on the era.

Well, not long ago Gabi read Janie's Freedom... a story about young African-Americans at the end of the Civil War. This, of course, led to many discussions about the war and the after math.

Then we heard that Norlands was hosting a Civil War weekend... so we made arrangements to go. It was a very, very, very small re-enactment, but it was fun to walk through the camps. We didn't go through all of them... after all, it was me and a friend and our 10 kids collectively. Many of whom were really too small to fully enjoy the event. But we did get around to seeing most of everything.

Our little family, on our way to meet our friends, talked about the Civil War and several of the facts relating to it. Gabi had a good deal of knowledge from before, but Beth and Jeremy didn't know anything about it (and Peter was asleep). So it was a great way to get them ready for the event we were to see.

All the kids agreed that the battle was the best part (even if it was only 15 minutes and so small it was almost silly)... though they enjoyed watching the blacksmith and getting an "old fashioned" picture done. At the end, they "played army" in the field and tall grass around.

To cap off our day, we gathered for dinner at our friends' where play continued in and among the trees. Then off to Giffords for a wonderful cold treat! The perfect way to top off a wonderful day!

To see more pictures go here. I had limited space since I'd had trouble getting the dance pictures off the camera before hand.

Tad Poles

Our little eggs have hatched... the little tadpoles so tiny they were merely specks in the water... okay, so that was all weeks and weeks ago... like they were done with that about a week after we found them, maybe less....

They've been growing... Gabi loves to check on them daily. So much fun for her. She is, however, like her mother.... impatient.... though I've had lots more years to work on that.... she's trying to be patient, but frogs are not like caterpillars....



The caterpillars went from caterpillars to butterflies in about a week total. Frogs take much longer... the average time being about 3 months (from what we've read) though some can take a year or longer.. and very few can take less.

Our little tad poles are growing... they still have tails.... but there are starting to be signs of little legs starting to "sprout" (if you want to call it that). It's fun to watch them get up on the side of the pool, hold themselves there for a moment and then slide back into the water.


Though it's slow going, at least Gabi has fun watching them and playing with them. We tried to take some pictures (I had to delete off a bunch of pictures to make space for other ones so I'm hoping the ones I kept were ones you can see them in... but they are small... and black... and blend in nicely the with the muck!)