Ladybugs on the Loose!

We have some vegetables growing in our backyard: green beans, cucumber, broccoli, tomatoes, basil, yellow squash, peppers, and more!  Sounds delicious, right?  Well, the bugs think so, too, and they are eating away at all my delicious vegetable plants!  So, a few days ago we took a trip to our local plant nursery and purchased a container of ladybugs.  For $7.99, you get 1,500+ ladybugs, ready to take on all the pests in your garden!  Well, I had the container sitting on the kitchen counter (we were waiting to release them later in the evening).  In comes my wild child, knocks the container off the counter, pulls off the lid and lets at least 150 ladybugs loose in the kitchen!  Luckily, they didn't try to fly away and we were able to collect most of them.  We have 4 cats, so let's just say that they took care of any ladybugs we missed.  I'm so sorry little ladybugs! :(

Anyways, we were able to release the majority of the little red beetles into our garden, which made for an awesome nature observation experience for Olive (as if 150 ladybugs crawling on the kitchen floor wasn't enough).  She helped me spread them about our garden, allowing them to all find their new homes.  Then we spent about 20 minutes just watching them.  Listening to Olive exclaim, "Ohhhh", "Ahhhh", "Oooooh, nice!", "Oh, bugbug!", was so precious and memorable.

Making friends...

Up close and personal.

"Ohhhhh!  Bugbug!  Nice!"

I love these next 4 pictures.  They show such a great progression of feelings.

"Hmmm, this is interesting, but I'm not too sure yet".

"Oh yes, I think I like this!"

"Okay now ladybug, you're getting a little too close.  You aren't going to go up my sleeve, are you?"

"OMG!  She's on my shoulder!  Be still, be still!"

We had such a pleasant time watching the little ladybugs crawl and fly around us.  Even if you don't have aphids or other unpleasant bugs in your garden, I highly recommend picking up a container of ladybugs.  Set them loose and watch your little one burst with excitement!  Just remember to release them outdoors, not in the kitchen.  :)

Blocks and Beans

I thought about putting these into two different posts, but they're such simple ideas that I just decided to combine them.  These are great activities to do outdoors, but both can be done inside as well.   Up first....Blocks!

I found these wooden blocks a few weeks ago at my local lumber store (Ganahl Lumber).  They were being sold in a big bag labeled as "firewood" for $7.99.  I think there were about 30 blocks in the bag.  I started painting some of the blocks and then realized I should probably sand them first, so that's why some are painted and some are not.  In any case, I love these blocks!  They have so many possibilities.  I plan on going back and getting at least 2 more bags full.  Olive and I have used them to build towers, create corrals for her animals, and on this day - create a movable and repositionable balance beam.

Olive is a climber, a reacher, a jumper, a stretcher, a mover, and a shaker.  She has such strength and coordination and I am constantly looking for new ways to challenge her.  The blocks are great because we can move them around and create new paths to follow or even make little steps that she has to walk over.

  I tried to hold her hand as she followed the path of blocks but she kept yelling, "I do it!  I do it!".  Okay, okay, girlfriend, simmer down.  You can do it.  :)

Success!

I love those strong little legs!

Okay, moving onto...Beans!

No, I'm not the first one who thought of playing with dried beans.  But they are such an amazing and simple activity, I can't resist sharing!  Sometimes we play with beans inside, but today we took them outside so she could play near her new outdoor kitchen (which is really just an old TV cabinet that I've yet to "cuteify").  I have a mixture of beans in her box:  garbanzo, kidney, white & lentils.

Daddy got into the mix for a little while (in the middle of finishing up Olive's new light table - post coming soon, I hope!).  

Things you need to play with beans:  Beans, beans, and oh yeah, more beans.  But if you want to make it more fun, add some cupcake tins, pans, spoons, colanders, bowls, and other miscellaneous containers.  Also, I bought this outdoor carpet square for $20 at Lowe's a while back and it was so helpful.  I was able to sweep up all the beans without having them mixed in with leaves and dirt.  

When I told Olive we were going to play outside with the beans, she insisted on bringing out her chair. Everyone sits on a chair in front of their stove, right?  I love how she confidently makes her own decisions now.  She's getting to be such a big girl!

Blocks and beans - 2 simple ideas for fun outdoor play.  What are some of your simple outdoor play ideas?

Something for the Birds

Spring is around the corner and what better way to welcome it than by making something for the birds!  I saw this idea on Juniper Moon Farm and thought it was a fantastic, easy project.  The original idea uses a metal suet feeder, which you can purchase at a home improvement store.  I, always looking to save money, had some strawberry baskets and figured that they would work just as well.

Basically, this is a little basket of yarn scraps that you can hang outside in your garden.  Little birds in the neighborhood will (in theory), come by and take the yarn scraps to help build their nests.  It's very simple and I'm pretty sure you can figure out how to do it by just looking at the picture, but then you'd miss my wonderful pictures! :)

Materials you need:
2 clean strawberry/berry baskets
yarn
scissors

I got this HUGE (you really can't see the whole thing) bag of yarn at an estate sale a few months ago for $15!  The previous owner had passed away and the bag came with a few half-done crotchet projects with the needles still attached, which was slightly creepy....But once I got over the creepiness factor, I reveled in my awesome deal!

What to do:

1) Cut a bunch of yarn into 1"-2" pieces.  Cut enough to fill up both baskets.

I started cutting the pieces by pulling out a strand of yarn and making one cut at a time.  After about 5 minutes I realized, duh, I could be doing this faster.  I blame my "duh" moment on mommy brain.  It does exist!  You probably already thought about this, but I'll share it anyway.  

Wrap the yarn around your hand a bunch of times.

Cut the bundle into pieces.

See?  Faster!  You're welcome.

2)  Fill the baskets up with the yarn pieces.  Attach the baskets with, yes, you guessed it, some yarn.

3)  Attach a long piece of yarn to the top and find a tree to hang it from.  And that's it!

I'm pretty sure when I hung this up that all the birds in the neighborhood yelled, "Woo hoo!  Yarn!".  I think I heard it, although it sounded a lot like their normal sounds...

I gave Olive some safety scissors (they only cut paper) to "help" me while I cut the yarn.  If your child is old enough and you feel comfortable letting them use scissors, this is a really easy project they can help you with.  When I give Olive the scissors she says, "Seesos! Appa!  Toes!"  (Scissors! Open! Close!).  She still can't actually get how to use them, but she definitely thought she was helping me!

A Little Green Thumb

Oh boy, has this been a holiday whirlwind!  After Christmas, I spent a fun 3 days sick with food poisoning.  Yuck!  But now, I'm back to my old self and ready to start the new year (well, almost new year!) with something healthy for my body, and my family's bodies as well.

I've been wanting to start a vegetable garden of some sort for awhile now with my daughter.  I found this really awesome website called Sprout Robot where you can put in your zip code and it tells you what to plant and when to plant it based on where you live.  Cool, huh? Based on my zip code, now is a good time to plant broccoli, leaf lettuces, radishes, cabbages, peas, and a few other things.  I decided to go with peas because Olive loves them and I've heard they're pretty easy to grow.  I'm going to try cabbage, too, but that will be in another post.

We made a trip to The Home Depot and picked up our supplies: potting soil & seeds.  We already have a few pots.  The organic soil was twice the price of the other soil, so I figured I'd get one of each and mix the two together so I could save some money but get some of the organic goodness as well.

 Some cute toddler-sized gardening tools don't hurt to have either! :)

Let's play in the soil for a while...That sounds fun!

Let's pour some soil onto the already growing thyme plant...That sounds fun!

Finally, planting the pea seeds.  The directions said to push down 1 inch...We'll see how they do!

Make sure you water the new seeds! (With Mama's help to ensure the water gets on the seeds and not everywhere else!  Normally, I wouldn't care, but it was kind of chilly outside and I didn't want a soaking wet baby!)

Also, make sure you eat some tomatoes that aren't really ready to pick and are kind of sour and gross....Ay yai yai!

After all was said and done, she wasn't really interested in what we were actually doing.  Playing with the soil, eating growing tomatoes, running on the grass...yes, yes, yes.  But planting the seeds?  Not so much!  We'll see if she's more interested when they start to sprout and then grow actual peas.  After I put the camera down, we played around the backyard, finding worms, pulling grass, digging rocks, and getting dirty.  That's what she wanted to do, and when it comes down to it, that's what really matters.  Even though I want her to be interested in the process of growing the peas, she's more interested in other things, and that's okay.  I sometimes forget just how small she really is and I end up expecting her to want and to be interested in different things, when in reality, she's just a little 19 month old baby who wants to eat sour tomatoes and rip apart grass.