An update

Well I am so behind on the blog now I really need to catch up a bit! There is so much going on here with fall and halloween that we haven't spent much time at home :) Until I am caught up I will be mixing old and new photos otherwise you won't ever see any recent stuff we have been doing


This week has been a bit quieter. We had a scare on Friday night as T was struggling to breathe and had a nasty cough :( We woke the doctor who called in a prescription and Ken had to drive into town at midnight to pick it up. Luckily we made it through the night and we visited the doctor in the morning to be told it was croup. The worst is now over but you get a cold afterwards and today T was coughing and sneezing so we had to cancel our plans yet again. I am not feeling so great today either.



Rather than infect our friends at music class I decided to take T to the Greenburgh nature center where they have a crafts and critters class on a Wednesday. I figured we would be less likely to spread germs outside and T has been itching to see someone other than me all week!

First of all they had to help Dean (who ran the class) fill the birdfeeders with sunflower seeds.

After that it was off to feed the turkeys and chickens and put some sunflower seeds at other wild bird feeding spots

On the way back to the manor house Dean made a drum from the seed bowl and a stick. T was happy to take it off his hands and lead everyone back!

Just outside the house were some piles of kindling and logs and the children all had to bring some into the house. There Dean set them to work scrunching up newspaper for the base of the fire

He showed them how to add kindling and logs and light it with a match. This is the finished result which soon got the room cosy after the fresh air outside :)


While the children settled down for story time Dean went to fetch a special guest. T is touching it here but I didn't manage to get a great picture. I asked to touch the lizard too, it actually had harder skin than I imagined

Here is the guest of honour bravely resting on a floor full of toddlers! Once the spotted lizard was safe again we read a story about a chameleon and how it changed colour.
After storytime it was time for a craft activity. They did a sponge painting of a chameleon using a stencil. I don't have a picture of T's finished product but you can see someone holding one up at the back.

After the class we were allowed to view the other exhibits in the house. Upstairs was an area where the children could touch some of the animals. Here is T with a chinchilla
And watching a tortoise

We hadn't been to the nature center class before as we are usually at music on Wednesday mornings. Now I am thinking we might have to shuffle things around so we can go to this more often. I loved that some of the time was spent outside and it will always be unless there is extreme weather. I also loved that they did practical things such as filling the bird feeder and laying a fire. Dean was totally engaging and the children and adults enjoyed the story and crafts and there was also enough to see afterwards with the animals to make it a complete morning out.

There are also nature walks around the grounds and T enjoyed running through the leaves today on the way out