Our backyard playground

Well, looking back at my previous posts I realized that I had pictures of our travels to various parks, but did not have any pictures of our own backyard where we spend most of our time!  So, welcome to our backyard playground (as Nathan calls it!)

Here is the kids' playset

 

Nathan and Elizabeth love to play in the "fort" part of the playset.  The top part is their "fort" and the bottom part is their "house".  It's so interesting to hear them pretend in both the "fort" and in the "house" as the play is very different in both areas.

Both kids love to swing!  I would have to say that right now swinging is the most favoite activity for both kids!  Nathan has finally learned how to swing by himself which I am so very excited about!  It's exhausting pushing two kids for what seems like hours on end!  Now I only have to give Nathan one push to get started and then I can just stand there and push Lizzy.

Here is the slide.  Of course Nathan goes up the slide just as often as he goes down the slide...

And, an update on how the shed is progressing... well, the floor is all the way done now!  Next John just needs a weekend and some helpers to get the actual shed put together!  We are so close!

Nathan is such a good helper.  He is going to building things all by himself before we know it!

Homemade Laundry Detergent

Call me crazy, but I am in the process of abandoning store bought cleaners.  "What!" you say "Who does that?"  Hear me out and give it try for yourself, I think you will like it! 

First on my agenda is homemade laundry detergent. Let me tell you I LOVE this stuff! My husband has a most sensitive nose ever and he even says that the clothes smell better now than they ever did with regular laundry detergent. Not only does it get out odors, but also stains! My little Elizabeth for being a tiny little girl is so hard on her clothes! She goes through about 3 outfits a day and all of which have some sort of mess on them. This laundry detergent gets out the stains!

So, you want to know how it's done?  I'll show you! 

Here are the ingredients:

1 bar Ivory soap

1/2 cup Borax

1/2 cup Washing Soda

First slice your bar of Ivory Soap

Next put your sliced bar of soap, 1/2 cup each of borax and washing soda into the food processor and mix

Finally take your mixed powder and put in a container.  You don't need anything too big, the finished product in just a little over a cup.

Now you are ready to wash!  Use 1 TBSP for normal loads, 2 TBSP for heavy loads (I have never had to use more than 1 TBSP per load)

Good luck! 

First Yorktown Picnic 2010 & Fun in the Pool

I love the area where we live!  One of our family's favoite places to go is Yorktown.  Yorktown is beautiful, has a beach, a small shopping area (with a Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream I might add) and a wonderful picnic area.  Yorktown is also full of history as this is where the Revolutionary War officially ended when British General Cornwallis surrendered to George Washington. 

We love to come and picnic here at Yorktown, and last night we came out for our first Yorktown picnic of the season.  Here are John and the kids waiting for the food to be passed out.

Elizabeth enjoyed a Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwich.

After eating we get to have fun!  Nathan loved climbing on the rocks and learned about barnicals growing in the water. 

 

While John and Nathan discussed sea life Elizabeth and I started walking down to the beach.  This took quite awhile as Elizabeth wanted to walk all by herself, and carry the bucket of toys all by herself.  This combined with her being easily distracted by cars driving by or by people or even people with their dogs walking by, this journey took quite awhile.  By the time Lizzy an I made it to the beach, John and Nathan had almost caught up with us!  Here is Elizabeth - we have finally reached the beach!

Nathan had a great time wading in the water and throwing rocks.

Elizabeth spent all her time trying to fill up the bucket with sand.  We had such a great time, and the weather was perfect!

Today it was hot!  Last I checked the thermometer said 89, so today was a great day to blow up the kiddy pool!  It is kind of small, so I think I will start watching for good pool sales so that later on in the summer the kids will actually have a little more room to play, but it worked for today!  They had so much fun! 

Easter!

"He isn't here! He is risen from the dead, just as he said would happen..." Matthew 28:6 NLT

What an awesome truth!  This just brings tears of joy to my eyes just thinking about how awesome this truth is!  Jesus, being fully human, endured the torture and shame of the cross and the events that led up to the cross.  Then Jesus, being fully God, did not stay dead in the tomb, but came back to life after 3 days!  Because Jesus took my punishment I can be free!  Thank you Jesus for your love! Thank you that because of what you did I can celebrate your life!

Here are pictures from our Easter!  It was especially fun this year as both kids got into all the Easter festivities! 

Nathan got in his Easter basket from Mimi and Grandad a pair of binoculars - he was so excited!

Elizabeth loved looking through the plastic Easter eggs to find Easter Marshmallows!  Notice also the adorable cupcake purse!  Love it!  Elizabeth loves purses!

After Easter dinner we headed outside for our Easter egg hunt.  We had real eggs for the egg hunt, good thing we did not intend on eating these eggs, the kids were pretty rough on them, but they had fun and that's what counts!  Here Elizabeth and her little friend Noelle Cornett get ready to head out the door.

Nathan beat the girls outside and was the first to find an egg.  John was very impressed that Nathan remembered every egg from a few nights earlier when we dyed them.  He could tell you who made each egg and what each egg was about.  Nathan loves this pair of Easter bunny ears.  He had to wear them for the whole egg hunt.

I love this picture.  I was very happy with how well Elizabeth did with the egg hunt.  She had a lot of fun picking up the eggs and throwing them (literally) in her basket.  There were many times that I had to go behind her and pick the eggs up because she would loose eggs as she was running from one hiding spot to another.

Here she is finding another Easter egg.

Nathan had such a great time finding eggs and he did a fantastic job!

Nathan with a basket full of eggs, still determined to find the last egg...

I really did not get any of the kids together in their Easter clothes, but here they are seperately.  Very cute, but I am a little biased!

 

Happy Easter!  He is Risen!

It's been a little longer than I realized since my last post!  We have been busy though! 

We are all so excited to be able to get outside.  One of my projects is my vegetable garden.  I am very excited about this new project.  I still have not yet decided on my garden layout yet.  I have been talking to people about the square foot garden, raised gardens, and then traditional gardens - but there are all sorts of different garden layouts. So making up my mind as to what I want to do it something that I need to hurry up and do.  Here are pictures of some of my vegetable seed packets and John and Nathan planting the seeds for me in egg cartons.  I already have several that have germinated.  It has been fun having Nathan to help me very day water the seeds, take them outside on sunny days to get some sun, and to check to see if we have any new seeds growing.  This garden project will not only be good for me, but for Nathan as well.

Well, gardening has not been the only thing that we have been doing.  We have been able to make it out to several different parks.  Here is Elizabeth climbing the stairs to fun!

Our first trip to the park Nathan noticed several other people bringing a picnic lunch and he and Elizabeth thought that was so cool.  So, now I am the prepared mom... I bring a picnic lunch when we go to the park.  I am so glad that the kids like to picnic, it's so much better than having to stop somewhere on the way home or get home and then try to fix lunch while I have hungry kids hanging on me. 

This morning we took our first trip of the season to Blue Bird Gap Farm!  This local park is so much fun!  There are turkeys, ducks, goats, horses, cows, deer, peacocks, rabbits, and others I am sure I am forgetting right now...  The kids love looking at all the animals, and then there is also a playground and a picnic area - and the best part... It's all free!  So we can go as often as we like!  Yea! 

 

Here are Nathan and Elizabeth looking at the ducks.  As much as Nathan knocks his sister over and hurts her at home, he was so protective of her here.  He would not let her go to close to the fences.  He was so nervious that she was going to stick her fingers thought the fence and get them pecked at.  It was really sweet. 

The picture below is of Elizabeth quacking at the ducks!  If I had been fast enough with the camera I would have loved to get a video of that!

Okay, so I told you we have been busy!  This past weekend the weather was so wonderful!  Mimi and Grandad had at their house a Power Wheels Jeep that had been given to them by some very kind neighbors.  Well, we brought the Jeep home for Nathan and Elizabeth to have at home - it was a hit!  Yesterday Nathan even graduated to the faster speed (there are two speeds - just barely above a crawl, and normal walking speed - he is getting brave and trying the faster of the two out now!)  I just loved this picture of Nathan driving his little sister around.  She was having so much fun!  There is even a working radio in it and they insist on always having the dial tuned to K-LOVE!  I am so happy for a good christian radio station!

Now, these last two pictures are just of my cute little girl - talking on my cell phone.  It's already started - she loves cell phones!

 

First trip to the playground this year!

This past Monday was a beautiful spring day - finally!  To celebrate the beautiful day I decided to check out the playground at the new York County Sports Complex.  All of you mommies here in the York County area - if you have not checked it out yet I definately recommend it.  I have pictures below of the two sets of playground equipment.  As I was getting everything in the car to go Nathan decided to take pictures, so here is one of Lizzy in her car seat.  She finally hit the 20 pound mark so that she can face forward in her car seat!  Yea!

Here are the two sets of playground equipment.  They are side by side in a fenced in area.  One is technically for the smaller kids and one for kids over 5 years old.  As you can see in the following pictures, my kids enjoyed both sets!  When we got there we were the only ones there, but I think about 6 other families came while we were there.  They have two benches next to the larger playset and also a covered picnic table.  If I had been smart I would have brought a picnic lunch... maybe next time I will be a little more prepared...

  

Here is Nathan starting out on the little playset.

And before I know it, Elizabeth is climbing up on the big playset!  She looks especially tiny on this big playset, but she was having so much fun!  This little girl shows no fear at all!  If Nathan can do it so can she is the attitude!

So, now at the top of the playground there are three big slides.  As you can see here, she is so tiny up there!   So she has a choice, go back down the way that she came, or down one of the slides... At this point I decided that I needed to stay on the ground to catch her just in case she decided to go down. So, here she goes!  My little fearless dare-devil!  Makes Mommy proud!  She was so happy!

Nathan of course loved to go up the slide.  Nathan was so glad to get to go outside and play.  He was such a great big brother.  He played hard, but he also took the time to take care of Elizabeth and help her when she got scared.  He would help her at the top of the slides by giving her the little extra push - man she would fly down when he would push her!He just had such a great time playing.

This slide was more her size!

(I am not really sure how this picture got so out of order, but oh well...)

I am so excited for more warm days and more trips to the playground!