Reesie Reesie Quite Contrary...

Rachel here. Last week we had a little fun with a garden theme. Actually it was more than a little fun. :) We started the week at the Horticulture Gardens on campus. I love living so close to Tech... I can show my girls everyday where Bryan and I met, fell in love, and chose to love them as well. Totally cheesy but super sweet nonetheless. I joined kidsparkz.com and got a membership for the year, and I LOVE IT. All of the printed activities you see are from there. Awesome stuff. This was a sweet little 9 piece puzzle. Reese is a pro, and has done puzzles up to about 50 pieces... so this seriously took her 2.2 seconds. Sunflower lacing. Sandpaper letters... letter sounds sorting. Coloring the parts of a potato plant. Reese has never really been into coloring... until lately. And frankly... she's pretty good at it. The girl can stay in the lines like no other. I threw in a little bit of Earth Day. This was a really cute book on recycling... "Hey That's Not Trash!" There are little cardboard cutout items that you can actually sort into recycling bins. ;) Categorizing what does and doesn't grow in a garden. Letter sorting... this is an old activity from Montessori for Learning.Flower transferring... Emma Grace does it without the tongs, as she hasn't come close to mastering them.Garden tool search and find. Counting to 12.Now for the fun outdoor activities. The weather here in The Burg this past week was anything but luxurious... with the tornadoes and all. We got out when we could, but the weekend was BEAUTIFUL, so we did quite a few of our activities then.After playing with their garden sensory box, the girls planted a "1/100th Acre Farm." A really cute activity I found on FamilyFun.com. I even made the girls a barn out of a shoebox... can't wait for the grass to grow and watch the girls play with the farm animals. The girls also planted their little flowers from their Easter baskets. Rumor has it the Reester Bunny found them in the dollar section at Target. :)We also worked on a couple of activities from Pink and Green Mama. Gazing balls. These actually turned out really cute, and I don't have a great picture of them... I'll have to get one or two. Next Bryan mixed up some good ole concrete, and the girls made stepping stones for their garden. Super cute.We spent ALL DAY Saturday transplanting our little sprouts into the big veggie garden. We decided not to grow anything last year because we were becoming increasingly discouraged by our resident groundhogs. We literally did not get one vegetable the year before last. :( Needless to say it took us forever and a day to get the weeds cleared out of both beds, but they look great so it was worth it.Before and after of the veggie bed.We also have a large bed that we used to use for our pumpkins. This year we decided to turn it into one large sensory box for the girls. They love it! Emma Grace picked out all of the tacky trinkets to hang in the trees and stick in the ground. Reese and her butt crack really give maintaining the bed their all. ;)Before and after.Hoda and Kathie Lee chillaxin. I'm going to take that little table and paint it for the girls to match their chairs... you know... when I should be sleeping.And with all that time spent outdoors... we had our first bee sting of the season. Or should I say 3... within seconds of one another... on one sweet little face. Luckily she's nothing like her mom and she didn't hardly scream, and she's not like her sister in that there was very little swelling. :(