A Fall Walk in Nature

Well, Fall (or Autumn) is officially upon us! Fall can be such a beautiful time of year. Days and nights are often cooler and we can see things changing outside as our warm days of summer transition to Fall. Now is a great time to take a walk outside and see what things you can find. Here are a few things we found on our walk…

#1.) Toadstools. It’s always fun to imagine fairies or tiny creatures hiding under a toadstool in the rain.

#2.) Tiny wildflowers growing in the grass.

#3.) A lone dandelion…maybe the last one for this year.

#4.) A pile of brown dried leaves

#5.) Beautiful colored leaves

And the trees that still have the colorful leaves on them.

Maybe you will find a weird looking tree like this one with half of it having colorful leaves and half of the leaves that are still green.

#6.) And then there’s the bugs…like a grasshopper

#7.) A katydid

#8.) Or some creepy looking bugs…maybe a stink bug.

#9.) Plants whose flowers have died now

#10.) And plants that are still blooming with beautiful flowers!

#11.) Milkweed plants that are now spreading their seeds for next years plants.

You may find different things in nature than we found. Maybe some caterpillars or some pine cones, an interesting bird or another kind of bug. Whatever you find, I hope you will spend some time out enjoying nature this Fall! 🙂

Fun Pencil and Paper Games

Are you looking for an entertaining game to play with a group but you don’t have many supplies handy? All you need for these crazy drawing games is some paper and pencils. Give each participant a sheet of blank paper and a pencil. Let the fun begin!

For the first game one person gives out the directions for what to draw. The funny part is that everyone is given the same directions, but all the pictures look differently. These are the directions we used:

1.) Draw a tiny oval body.

2.) Add a giant head.

3.) Draw 2 short legs and 2 arms.

4.) Draw 2 little eyes and a mouth.

5.) Add 2 ears.

6.) Add a long tail.

Pretty simple, right? Now look at the 9 different pictures we ended up with:

We all had a good laugh when sharing our pictures. 🙂 I think you can easily find the one with the longest tail! Haha!

For our second game, each person thought of something simple to draw. It can be anything you want, but you will be drawing it 4 times so you probably want to make it fairly easy to repeat. For the first drawing, everyone draws with their dominant hand. In other words, whichever hand you write with is your dominant hand.

Drawing #2 is drawn using your non-dominant hand. If you are right handed, this one you draw with your left hand. You can compare the first picture with the second picture to see if you can notice any differences.

For the 3rd drawing, draw the same picture as before using your dominant hand again, BUT draw it with your eyes CLOSED! No peeking allowed! 😉 You can see that it was hard to keep things lined up!

For the last drawing, you must place your piece of paper on the bottom side of the table. Yes, under the table! Again, no peeking! Hopefully you can each find a smooth spot on the bottom side of the table to draw on. Look how crazy these pictures turned out!

Pretty funny! You can probably think of more goofy ways to draw if you want to make the game last longer. Like putting the pencil between your toes or placing your paper on the top of your head. You’ll all have a good laugh when you share your pictures with each other. 🙂 Have fun and happy drawing!

Taste Testing Tuesday #57 – Fun With Leftover Snacks

Hello again! It’s Tuesday and you know what that means! Time for another taste test! Sorry to be so late in posting, but I’m fighting a cold and not feeling the best and my computer has decided to act up.

So, do you ever have one of those days where you want to serve the kids a snack but all you have left are odds and ends of different kinds of snacks? And there isn’t enough of any one snack to go around? Here’s a fun idea to save you! 😉 Collect up a few of your small amounts of leftover snacks and turn them into a fun snack time!

Start with a cup, plate or small bowl for each person who will be having a snack. I like to use the 5 oz. Dixie paper cups.

Take each type of snack food and put a small amount in each cup. For example, maybe you have enough Cheese Puffs to give each person 3 pieces.

Continue adding small amounts of each type of snack until the cups are full.

I’m betting your kids will find this fun since it’s an out of the ordinary way of having a snack. 🙂

Maybe the kids will want to barter with each other to get the snacks they like best. Say, 1 Cheez-it cracker swapped for 1 fruit gummy.

It’s a great way to use up leftover snacks and not have to listen to the kids fight over who gets which snack…they all get ALL the snacks! 🙂 As always, you can make a chart for your taste testing and let each kiddo tell if they like each snack or not. To make it even more fun, try hiding the cups around the house for the kids to find before they enjoy eating their snack. Have fun and happy snacking!

A Beautiful Place to Vacation

Sorry for fewer posts this week but we had the nicest family vacation in the Outer Banks in North Carolina. If you’ve never been there, you should definitely add it to your bucket list. We love the beaches!

There is so much to do and see that a week is barely enough time to scratch the surface. Like fishing…even though we didn’t catch anything big enough to keep.

Some people caught things they wished they hadn’t caught!

There are lighthouses to see.

Sand to play in…sand turtles to make.

Footprints to leave behind…even if only for a few seconds before they are washed out to the ocean.

An aquarium to visit…

And you must beware of shark attacks in the local gift shops! 😉

We had some stormy weather during our week but still had some beautiful relaxing days to spend with some of our family. The time always goes by so quickly and then it’s time to go home. But we love our time spent in the OBX! 🥰

Fun Things to Do at the Beach

Going to the beach is always so much fun! (If you like sun, sand and water, of course!) But sometimes the kids get “bored” while the adults would still like to have some time to relax. Here are a few suggestions to keep everyone enjoying your day away.

Look for wildlife in the area. They can be quite entertaining. 🙂 Birds…

Depending on what type of beach you go to, you might be able to find some little crabs.

And you can make a nice little bunker for a crab. Haha!

Of course, building sand castles is always fun.

Depending on where you are, fishing might be permitted.

Drawing in the sand is another option. We had some creative artists. 😉

And there is always burying yourself in the sand. Lol

And collecting treasures of pretty shells and stones.

It can be fun seeing what other people catch while fishing. 😳😱

And watching the moon rise in the evening can be a great way to end a wonderful day at the beach. ☺️

A New Butterfly!

Something exciting happened at our house today! For the first time ever, we had an Eastern Black Swallowtail butterfly, that we raised from a caterpillar, hatch! As you may know if you follow this blog, we have been raising Monarch butterflies for a few years now, but this is the first time we raised an Eastern Black Swallowtail. And wow, is it ever pretty! 🙂

The top side of their wings looks different from the bottom side. So the last picture was the top side, and this picture is of one half of the bottom side.

I think it is beautiful! Have you ever seen the chrysalis for an Eastern Black Swallowtail? Here’s what it looks like:

It almost looks like a piece of the stick, doesn’t it? Notice the “string” that is holding the chrysalis to the stick. Pretty cool to think that a caterpillar made that! The next picture shows you what the chrysalis looks like after the butterfly came out.

Can you see that the top part is open now? Check out this really cool picture where you can see down inside the empty chrysalis. 🙂

It’s hard to imagine how a butterfly fit inside there! Wow! Soon it was time to let the new butterfly fly off to his new future. He (I THINK it was a male, but not absolutely sure on that) stayed on my hand for a few minutes and then he moved on to the flowers.

And then he was off and flying! Good-bye, beautiful butterfly! We’re so glad we could be a small part of your life! Safe travels! 🙂

Ahhh, isn’t nature wonderful? 😉

Wacky Wednesday Tongue Twisters

We haven’t done any tongue twisters for a while, so let’s try some today. Wiggle your tongues around to get them loosened up and here we GO!!

Trying saying each of these 5 times fast. 🙂

1.) Mixed biscuits

2.) Pirates Private Property

3.) An ape hates grape cakes.

4.) Willy’s real rear wheel. (Oh my, this one is hard!)

5.) A happy hippo hopped and hiccupped.

Wow! Some of those I had trouble saying right just ONE time! Haha! I hope you have fun trying to say these! And be sure to try them out on your family and friends! 🙂

Taste Testing Tuesday #56 – Lunchables

It’s Taste Testing Tuesday time!! Gather around and let’s see what we have to taste test today. Hmm…what could it be? It’s Lunchables!! There are quite a few kinds of Lunchables in the cold section of your grocery store, so let’s take a look at 5 kinds of Lunchables today. 🙂

#1.) Chicken Dunks. This pack contains breaded chicken white meat nuggets, chocolate creme stuffed cookies and ketchup.

#2.) Turkey and American. You can make little cracker sandwiches with this one as it comes with turkey lunchmeat, American cheese, crackers and chocolate sandwich creme cookies.

#3.) Nachos Cheese Dip & Salsa. It comes with nacho cheese, tortilla chips and salsa. Sounds pretty tasty, doesn’t it?

#4.) Pizza with Pepperoni. This pack includes pepperoni, mozzarella cheese, pizza crusts and pizza sauce. (Mmmm! I think I know which one will get my vote for favorite Lunchables!)

#5.) Ham & Cheddar. Included is ham, cheddar cheese, crackers and vanilla creme cookies.

Ok, those are the Lunchables that were available at our local grocery store. Which one do you think would be your favorite? Would you like to try tasting them all and then pick which one is the best? I’m pretty sure the pizza one would be my favorite! Have fun and enjoy Taste Testing Tuesday! 🙂

Fortune Cookie Day!

To be honest, I didn’t know there was such a thing as Fortune Cookie Day, but my calendar says today is the day!

My hubby has been sick, so today I brought some Chinese food home for him. And it included a fortune cookie! Ta dah!

If you’ve never had a fortune cookie, this is what they look like, up close and personal.

They are kinda like a folded over cookie that’s then bent in half. But first, a small slip of paper is placed inside the cookie, which is supposed to tell you your fortune when you break the cookie open. 🙂

So what was my fortune today? (My husband doesn’t eat the fortune cookies so I always get to eat them and read the fortune. So does that make it my fortune or his? Hmm…) 😉

“You are heading in the right direction.” Well, that’s good to know! LOL While I don’t really believe in the fortunes, it is rather fun to eat fortune cookies and read the fortunes. I hope you’ll try some soon and that your fortunes will be good! 😉