Bucket Listing

School may be in session, but we are still working on enjoying the fun things on our "summer bucket list".  I am also trying to soak up every last minute of time with my girl.  Today we went on "an adventure" to a new science museum.

With her map in hand, our tiny girl walked through the giant dinosaur exhibit in complete awe.  Her eyes were big, and she wasn't quite sure what she thought of the enormous sets of bones.

We officially have a map obsession going on.  Whether in Disney, at the zoo or visiting a museum, the map must be consulted regularly.  By consulted, I mean we stop, sit down and spend some serious time reviewing the lay of the land.


Most of the exhibits were far beyond her understanding, but pushing buttons was a big hit. 


A major highlight of our day was panning for gems.  She LOVED panning through the sand and water in search of tiny, bright gems to collect in her bag.  Our girl is a true gold digger!

We spent the most time pretending to be palentologists. We apparently had hidden abilities in this area, as we had quite the fossil find.   You might soon read about us in the newspaper, as we discovered an ancient set of dinosaur bones.  We'll happily sign autographs.

Crafty Fun

We are still having fun doing crafts and art. It is a fun creative outlet for all of us. I love finding ideas and dreaming up art projects. Marko loves to help and gush over finished masterpieces, and Picasso Jr. loves it all.

We made this cute stoplight several weeks ago (from No Time for Flash Cards), as a result of an obsession with them while we were driving!

Fun apple prints Although we love crafts, mostly we want our little artist to do open ended art. She does tons of painting, gluing and coloring!
Saw this cute apple craft on a blog, but can't remember which one to give credit to!

Bringing shells home from the beach was a big hit. We have done lots of fun things with them, including make a thank you card to the grandparents that we visited.

One of our favorite things to do is to paint with other tools.
The tiny paint roller is a favorite.

Art is not a thing; it is a way. ~Elbert Hubbard

Apples, Apples, Apples

Last weekend we went apple picking, a new Fall tradition! What fun we had!

To see the cutest apple picking video that you have ever seen, click here.
Thanks, P and J!

To see more cute pictures and a processing technique that we copied, click here.
Thanks, T and L!

tasting

munching
milking Buttercup
pretending
jamming to some country dance tunes
dancing on stage (and hating every minute!)
airborne

family

touching

sweet little inquisitive peeking

learning about life

simple thrills

shared experiences

the preciousness of life

riding along with friends

chillin' and sippin'

fun, fun times

Apples

Red and juicy, shiny, sweet,

apple you're so good to eat.

Crisp and crunchy, healthy, too.

This core is all that's left of you!

~Author Unknown

Autumn Moon Playdate

Thanks to Angela, we had the opportunity to do an early celebration of China's Autumn Moon Festival. In honor of the holiday, several Chinese adoptive moms got together to make crafts, wear traditional dresses, and eat a great lunch.

Angela calls this S's "Clint Eastwood". (Maybe she is showing her unhappiness with the unreasonable wait?) We got a chance to wear our "Big Sister" t-shirt.


The girls made a moon collage and learned the Chinese word and symbol for moon.

Next, they made lanterns and stuck fall stickers on them.

All of the moms talked about how we want to make a real effort to expand our ability to make some authentic dishes. The traditional mooncakes from this festival though, may have to be ordered! They look very complicated.

We enjoyed quite the Chinese feast under our cute lanterns.

Our goal as a family is to honor, understand and appreciate Claire's birth country.
We hope to regularly participate in (and host) events like this.

Information about the Mid-Autumn Festival:

In China and throughout many Asian countries people celebrate the Harvest Moon on the 15th day of the eighth month of their lunar calendar. The date in the Western calendar changes yearly. This year, it falls on Saturday, October 3, 2009.


The Harvest Moon or Mid-Autumn Festival (Zhong Qiu Jie) is a day of family reunions much like a Western Thanksgiving. Chinese people believe that on that day, the moon is the roundest and brightest signaling a time of completeness and abundance. During the Mid-Autumn Festival, children are delighted to stay up past midnight, parading multi-colored lanterns into the wee hours as families take to the streets to moon-gaze.

The Joy of Baking

Anyone seen Julie and Julia yet? We loved it, and came home as even bigger wanna-be foodies. Feeling inspired, my little co-baker and I embarked on an effort to make apple, raisin muffins.

Just to channel some Julia, we used our best French accents to read aloud the recipe.

We were soon lost in the joy of baking, as we sniffed and tasted cinnamon, sliced apples, measured, poured, stirred and mixed.
As helpful as the little baker was, the temptation to place raisins in interesting places caused her to lose her focus for a bit. On the milk carton lid...

and down the paper towel roll.
After the strategic raisin placement, it was time to start placing the muffin cups in the pan, counting as we went. This proved to be quite interesting, so we did it approximately 11 times.

Luckily, just when or energies were running on low, a member of our back-up baking team arrived. In order to allow him to participate, we asked him to prove that he was up for the task. I am happy to say that his skills cut the mustard. He had a mean stirring technique that ended up making all the difference.

From there, it was game on for tag team toddler baking.

As you can see, they took their roles very seriously.

“In the childhood memories of every good cook, there's a large kitchen, a warm stove, a simmering pot and a mom.” ~Barbara Costikyan

Cheap, Simple Fun

Some of the simplest things make the most fun toys. Here are a few things we have thrown together with simple everyday things, that S. loves to play with. All ideas were snagged from books or blogs.

Our "sensory tub" has been a big hit. This one is just a big dollar store tub filled with a couple of jumbo bags of pinto beans. Thrown in are measuring cups, a plastic bowl and a toilet paper roll. Sometimes I hide fun things to find under all the beans. S. loves to pour the beans over and over. We usually pull this out while trying to cook. To mix things up, we are going to fill it with pasta next. The beans have to stay in the tub or on the blanket that lay underneath it.

Another idea that I found was to play matching with paint swatches. We grabbed a giant handful of these at our local home improvement store (very incognito). We lay them all out, and then try to find matches. Or we lay them all out, and then run off to play with something else.
Finally, this is the easiest thing EVER. After seeing the idea here, we saved a Parmesan cheese can. We just washed it up, and grabbed a handful of cotton swabs. Sophs can spend ten minutes trying to put the swabs into the can through the holes. It is great practice for fine motor skills. Another version is use the other opening of the can, and fill it with craft pom poms.