A Garden Day

We've decided to let grass grow between the raised beds - makes for a very green, and um, natural look (hee hee!).  It was very Martha Stewart a few years ago when we first put the raised beds in, with sawdust in between & everything in lovely neat rows!  Now we just wander through and collect whatever God has given us, not worrying too much with the weeds ;0)

Yesterday was one of those bizarre July days where it is cool and damp, but still feels warm enough to play in the water.  So the littles got on their swimming suits, turned on the sprinkler, and we had a garden day....I even had a last minute idea to prepare a take-along bag w/ snacks & paints so we wouldn't have to run back into the house for anything.  I wanted to stretch our time outside as long as possible :0)

The bag I used to pack everything in - water bottle to drink, jar of water for painting, an apple w/a knife, graham crackers, little animals & a few cars, my camera, paints, brushes & paper (which Tweeters soaked in the rain buckets for wet on wet!)

Sunflowers going crazy!

Lisa at http://ourcountryroad.blogspot.com/ inspired me to bring the paints outdoors, as we have some random morning glories coming up along the fence.  I brought out tap water for the paints, but we also got some out of the rainwater buckets (not the ones w/ baby mosquitos squirming around, yuck!).  Lisa was actually doing a science lesson - and I think they planted the flowers with that in mind!

painting the dandylions red - but we were singing roses like Alice in Wonderland!

waiting for the can to fill up so his turtle could have a puddle (yes, that's as high as the sprinkler was turned on - they were sooo happy with just the simple running water to add to their play!

We found this old plastic turtle in the playhouse while looking for kitchen toys to use in the sandbox & water.  On a whim I recited this from my Title 1 teaching days:

There was a little turtle, he lived in a box
He swam in a puddle & he climbed on the rocks.
He snapped at a mosquito, he snapped at a flea,
He snapped at a minnow & he snapped at me.
He caught the mosquito, he caught the flea,
He caught the minnow, but he didn't catch me!

Jam asked me to repeat it like 3 or 4 times, then he went off to make a little puddle & 'rock' (bowl) for his turtle.  It was so precious!  He played there for at least 30 minutes, and Tweeters played in the sandbox just as long!  Beautiful to hear all the pretending and make believe :0)