Never a dull moment! Crafting and Spending Time In Nature

We've had a pretty busy couple of days.  We spent lots of time crafting, playing, and exploring nature.  One thing I have learned is that life with three boys is never dull.  It's messy, loud, and always keeps me on my toes.  Even a simple trip to a nature center is never quite so simple.



Last night I took the boys to the 7th Annual Reading In The Park... what a fabulously fun night all centered on reading!

They had 10 (yes, 10!) different craft stations set up where the kids were able to participate in crafts related to different books.

There was entertainment , a wonderful children's singer named T- Bone who was very lively, funny and entertaining.  Here is a link to his page  http://www.t-bonemusic.com on which you can find his touring schedule.

 Each child received a free book at the end of the night and they handed out water bottles and snacks.

 Oh and did I mention this was all FREE?!

My kids loved it.

We met my sister and nephew there too.  Then we started right in on the crafts and each of the boys made a few; sadly we didn't make it to all 10 stations; Alec gladly would have but his brothers lost interest after a a bit.  They played on the climber for a bit and then we sat and ate a picnic in the park.  I turned around and witnessed my two older boys and my nephew make up their own game to play and before I knew it they had at least 3 or 4 other boys joining in and they were all giggling and rolling on the floor laughing.

I'm always asked if I'm worried about my kids finding time, opportunity and other kids to socialize with and then I see them make friends in an instant and I know I have nothing to worry about.  T- Bone's show started soon after that and all the kids were called up to sit, sing, and participate.  When the music was over they each picked out their free book and we headed home.  Alec read his entire book on the ride home out loud to everyone so they even got some bonus reading time in!  We'll definitely be back again next year!


The craft projects & one of the books we brought home
We're sure having fun! 
This morning while the boys were playing, I quietly set up an art project; I found some plastic 3 ring binder dividers at the dollar store in an array of bright colors and thought ooh! cheap colored plastic!

I cut them into strips, triangles, circles, ovals, etc and put them in a bin.

I then taped clear contact paper to the windows sticky side up and let them create abstract art.

I did point out that if they overlapped the pieces they could make new colors but after that I left them alone.  It was a wonderfully quick, no- mess art project.  Perfect for a day we have plans outside the home.






We headed to my sisters house and we took all the boys to a nature center.   It was a really neat nature area set up to teach all about nature here in New England.

Inside they have birds, turtles, frogs, snakes and a cute show all about animals that come out at twilight (it's very dark in the show room but amazingly my kids didn't care!).  Outside there are owls, red tailed hawks, falcons, a butterfly garden a cute little tree house where we ate lunch (it's only about 4 steps off the ground so the boys were a bit disappointed; they wanted to climb a ladder), and many walking trails through the woods, around a duck pond and lots of rocks for climbing.

My boys love to climb, unfortunately this lead to disaster and injuries today so our time at the Nature Center ended rather abruptly.

My middle child was on a boulder trying to help his cousin climb up when the extra weight threw him off balance and pitched him into the air head first.  Luckily he managed to land on his butt, however he landed on a rocky mound and continued to tumble the rest of the way down to the bottom head over feet.

 Amazingly enough he walked away with only a few minor scrapes and bruises on his arms and lower body.  But we left and headed off to find him some ice, Tylenol and to let him rest.

I thought for sure we were going to be calling my husband to meet us at the emergency room.  It was awful to watch and one of those days/ things that I know I'll never quite forget.

The boulder that caused all our problems. 

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