Little Campers :: Service Project

For the kickoff to our homemade summer camp, we arranged to visit the school of Keri's daughter, Piper (and by 'we' I mean Keri did all the arranging), and we worked in the campus garden for almost an hour picking up trash, pulling weeds, and harvesting the veggies. For a motley crew of Mamas and kids ranging in age from almost 9 to not quite 4, we got some pretty good work done, and I'd like to think the campus is a bit better off for our efforts!

We then took the early summer harvest over to Our Daily Bread, a church-based community soup kitchen that the school garden program benefits, and gave all those cabbages, carrots, tomatoes and other odds-and-ends to the head chef Lisa for use in the lunches prepared for those in need. She told us they serve about 350 lunches per day, and the fall of this year will mark about 800,000 people served to date! She assured us that they would use every part of the harvest we brought them.

Those sweet people then gave us cold bottled water, special drinks for the kiddos, and those coveted super-sugary sleeved frozen ices that ended up making the kids feel over-the-moon good about helping others, ha!

The kiddos also earned their first Little Campers trinket, a "Service Heart." They seemed pretty happy with them.

Made from wooden cutouts found at a local craft supply store, I just sanded them down, gave them a good base coat, and then did my best to paint that classic symbol of helping on each one. They already had small holes drilled in each cutout, so they will be easy to whip-stitch onto their Little Campers sashes... eventually...

We got hot, we got dirty, and a few of us got plum worn out (Henry is conked out as I type this), but I think it was a great start to this little endeavor we've launched into, and everyone is excited about the next session, so high five!

Next week: Gardening Project!

So. Much. Water.

We've had quite a rainy spell these last few days, and this morning looks like it'll be keeping with that trend. It's always been hard to get up and get going when one wakes up to a rainy morning (or is that just us?), but this morning we'll have to muster it because we have stuff to do- first on the agenda, the kickoff to summer swimming lessons! And by the looks of things, we may need to swim just to get to the car!

With all this rain, I bet my bees aren't finding much to forage on, but wowie wow wow are the blackberries going crazy! We'll be making jam and jelly and wine in the near future for sure! In the meantime, though, no cat you can't go outside, wow I'm missing our gutters right now, and hmmmm I wonder what the hubs would think about adding rain collection barrels to one of our future to-do lists?

So.
Much.
Water.

Happy (soggy) Monday!

Weekending :: (Play)Home Improvement

This weekend we decided it was time for another one of our seasonal playhouse clean-out sessions. We marched out there Sunday morning in our grubby clothes and opened it up for the first time since the holidays... and happily discovered that much of what we'd cleaned last time was still in pretty good shape!

However there had been a little water leakage where the main building ties on to their "bedroom" extension (aka the repurposed dog house), and as a result there was a nasty stain and a musky odor. My first thought was to that time Audrey lived in a moldy room for who knows how long and developed quite a reaction to it, so I decided the water stain needed to be sealed up stat. That then led to the whole playhouse getting a bright white coat of Kilz, which the kids likened to the whitewash Laura Ingalls Wilder referenced in her books, which then got the kids talking about being "Ma and Pa" after their nap/rest time this afternoon in their freshened up "cabin in the woods."

I'm so proud of my Littles- they stuck with this job to the very end, legitimately helping the whole time while also encouraging each other and me. I must have heard them say twenty times, "It's OK, everyone makes mistakes!" when paint would dribble or an elbow would bump a wet wall... but no fighting! It was as refreshing as our bright and clean finished project.

Aaaaaaaaaaand now I'm wondering to myself why we didn't paint the interior in the very beginning, because look at how cute it is now! I think I'm just as excited about it as the little homeowners themselves. Love it!

Another One in the Books

(See Bubba's meet-the-teacher night and their first day of school here)

It's the last day of school, and my kiddos are sad. (Well, Henry is conflicted, because he's also looking forward to getting his fidget spinner back, which he's been grounded from for almost a week because he brought it to school... he gets it back at the end of the day today.)

They love going to school, they loved their teachers this year, and they're going to miss all their friends. I am so pleased that they are still loving school enough to be sad when summer break starts.

Our big man "graduated" from Kindergarten, and was very serious about the whole process...

...and now I can't wait to tell them about all the fun stuff we're planning for the summer! It's a wrap, people, Kindergarten is through forever and my babies are on their way to First and Third! Another good school year in the books!

(Looking back at Audrey's Kindergarten graduation)

Netting the Run

We recently inherited two huge pool leaf nets, and this weekend we finally put them to good use- leaf nets no more, they now span the majority of the chicken run for hawk protection! Look how fancy the girls have it now!

 If not for the net, they'd still be confined to their coop, because they're still a good snacking size for the big red-tailed hawks we have around here. But now that they're roofed in, we felt secure enough to let them out into their very own yard for the first time.

The Chicken Friends were on hand to coax them out and encourage them to explore, and those girls only hesitated for a moment before bursting past the kiddos and out into the yard. They had no trouble finding their way back and forth after that first pass, and spent the rest of the day roaming through the brush.

We still need to work on a proper door of some kind so they can be more easily closed up at night (right now they come and go through an open flap cut into the hardware cloth, which is closed at night with a few wires... fine for them, not very convenient for the chicken keepers).

Though the entrance into their yard is not ideal, I couldn't wish for a better setup for the yard itself, and I've gotta say it sure is fun to stop by and watch them in their new space!

Little Campers

With only six days of school left, I'm guessing parents everywhere are beginning to wonder what to do to fill the hours and days between now and when school starts again in August... at least I've been thinking about it, anyway! My dear friend and fellow Mama, Keri, suggested we figure out a way to do some kind of Scout-esque "summer camp" for our kiddos. As we chewed on the idea, it began to flesh out, and lo and behold "Little Campers" was formed (named by said friend's 6-yr-old).

Every Tuesday this summer we'll bring our kiddos together and guide them through a themed activity, topic, or project, each one earning a "badge" once the meeting is concluded. She'll be making them all matching sashes for these badges to be displayed on, and we're going to have a little conclusion ceremony at the end of the summer to celebrate their accomplishments. We're even planning on making them little placards. It'll be adorable.

And thankfully, they don't care that the whole experience will be homemade and kinda an off-brand of the Scout programs... ahem... so that's a win.

So in this time before our first session- set to kick off the first Tuesday of June- I'm putting together a few of the tokens they'll earn each week. Our sessions will be as follows:

6/6: Community Service Project

6/13: Gardening Project

6/20: Nature/Solstice Project

7/4: First Aid Lesson

7/11: Wild Plants/Foraging Activity

7/18: Movie Making Project

7/25: Cooking Lesson

8/1: Craft Project

8/8: Photography Lesson

8/15: Conclusion Party

With permission from Keri, I'll be sharing what we do in our homemade summer camp, including the resources, tutorials, and materials we utilize to pull it all together, so follow along! And if you happen to know a better way, OR if you participate along with us, please feel free to let us know!

Happy camping!

After They've Gone

 The end of the school year is fast approaching, and I've been making a deliberate effort to really enjoy the hour or so in the mornings immediately after the kiddos go to school. Our daily rhythm is about to drastically change, and though this won't be wholly new to us, this will be the first round concluding with both kiddos away. In a little over a week I'll have to shift gears from making my own schedule and filling my own day to having my Littles back with me full-time.

When the school year first started and my last baby started Kindergarten, I thought I'd struggle with some kind of pseudo-empty nester feelings... but of course like everything else in life a new rhythm developed and everyone adjusted. Throughout the course of the year, I've actually come to relish the freedom that comes with six hours a day all to myself!  

There will be a lot of fun to be had in the coming summer months, to be sure! But I know there will also be mornings when I miss the quiet, stillness, and solitude of post-drop off school mornings. So for now, while my babes are off doing all the fun things that their dear teachers have planned for them in these last few days, I'll be here at home trying to appreciate every quiet moment that I get after they've gone.