I have been wanting to visit the Cedar Valley Arboretum for a long time--especially after seeing some recent blog posts by other blog friends. It's a bit of a drive, though, so I hadn't made it there yet. Thanks to a flyer sent home from school, I learned that today was their annual Fall Harvest Festival with all kinds of fun things going on. Austin was busy tiling, but the kids & I headed there after church. The weather was absolutely gorgeous. We enjoyed a packed picnic lunch before exploring the grounds.
Koi pond with waterfall
They had a scarecrow decorating contest with a story book theme. I didn't take pictures of some of the cool storybook characters. These were the kids' favorites.
They have a running garden train. I knew Lincoln would be enthralled.
There was a little cable car that went back and forth. It was on a timer,
but Lincoln was convinced that every time he pushed the rock it made the train go.
Lincoln also loved the giant sandbox area.
They had several fun craft stations set up. Emily made a pinecone birdfeeder, a tissue paper pumpkin and a little leaf person. She also made a cute scarecrow bag puppet. Unfortunately, the overly eager volunteer lady pretty much ended up cutting out all the pieces for Emily and even glued most of them on for her. Um...hello! Emily was too shy to say anything, so she just played along and made her own scarecrow puppet when she got home (below right).
They had some neat live animals. I avoided the snakes and tarantulas. :op
They had a pioneer village set up with displays and demonstrations.
The kids each got to turn a crank to make their own rope.
The kids listened to a Little House on the Prairie book.
It was a fantastic (and cheap) way to enjoy a beautiful day. The grounds themselves are gorgeous. I didn't even take any pictures of the flowers and trees. We will definitely be returning next summer!
Emily has not slowed down with the intricate paper projects. Here are some of her latest...
After a Sunday school lesson about Jesus and the faith of the centurion, Emily used the take-home finger puppets to create a map of the story. Then she hauled out a picture Bible and made a replica of the tabernacle that God commanded Moses to build complete with an alter, a washing basin, priests and sheep & cows for sacrificing.
Another day after school she decided she wanted to take pictures of the Wild West. First she made her own camera. Then she set up some of her stuffed animals as lawmen in a jail scene and pretended to snap away. I love the little details.
I apologize for the almost obnoxious amount of posts about Emily & paper. One of the things that makes this all work and go well is the fact that Emily is not a big hoarder or saver. She is pretty much okay with trashing everything she makes within 24-48 hours of completion. By then she has usually moved on to something else. I have discovered that a messy, overflowing "art" space crushes her creative spirit and curbs any future projects. She appreciates a clean workspace more than past projects, so we have a tub in the corner just for recycling her paper projects. She has only dug something out once and ended up not "playing" with it like she said she would. I stuck it back in two days later and she never even noticed.
I am becoming much less of a saver, too. Taking lots of pictures and posting them on the blog for the permanent record allows me to emotionally let go of her creations. And that makes everyone happier (although it would be even better if all the little paper snippets vacuumed up themselves off the carpet)!
I guess since the trees budded out six weeks early this year with the exceptionally warm March, it shouldn't be a surprise that they started dropping leaves early--especially with the hot, dry summer. We've already had some big leaf piles to play in and a subsequent trip to the yard waste site to dispose of a stuffed pick-up load. That also means I've had a chance to try and capture pictures in the leaves. With the help of the hi-speed burstsetting on our new camera, I got some good ones (although very few of the kids together since I was mostly chasing after them as they ran back and forth between three different piles of leaves). I could spend hours editing and making fun collages, but I'm already two weeks behind in blogging as I type this, so I'm just going to post a whole bunch of my favorites. :o)
When we made out our summer bucket list, Emily suggested "Do a musical day." She talked about it often over the summer. Today was finally the big day. She spent the entire morning creating scenery and costumes while Lincoln & I did yard work outside. By mid-afternoon she was ready for the show. It had twenty "acts", each of which consisted of a stuffed animal in costume doing a "dance" to a carefully selected song from the prerecorded ones on the keyboard. It was very impressive (although we only had to sit through six acts before she got tired)! Here is her scenery and a sampling of the acts. The larger stuffed animals were outfitted from the dress-up box and all the smaller ones had paper costumes (even the stuffed snake from the fair).
Emily is very much an introvert. She definitely needs her alone time. One thing I have quickly discovered is that you can not expect anything or ask anything of her the first hour after school. She is oftentimes droopy, mopey and/or extremely irritable when she comes home. But give her an hour by herself to decompress and rejuvenate and she is the happy, bubbly, talkative girl we know and love. Lately, she has been spending her "decompression" hour making paper projects. Her therapy tools are a scissors, pencil, a ream of white paper and a roll of Scotch Tape. Here are some of her creations...
One day was all about paper trains. She had an alphabet train with a car for every letter. Then there was a number train. Then a train for carrying milk and mail (even to Canada!).
Next came a three-room house in 3D. It includes a bedroom, bathroom and kitchen complete with beds, books, food, fixtures and even toothpaste & toothbrushes. There are doors between the rooms and a bus with Lego seats thrown in for good measure.
