nature mobile

Let's face it.  Unless you're in Florida or California, this winter has been a bit of a beast!  Full disclosure: I enjoy winter and I love snow, so I'm not exactly hurting here.  But we do feel a bit restless from more days spent inside than out.  So when the temperatures warmed up this week, we took lots of walks and played outside for hours.  It feels like Spring!  But it doesn't really look like it... yet.

On our walk today I took a bag and had the littles gather anything that they thought looked like Spring. It was a little sad.  Some brown oak leaves, pine cones, and twigs don't exactly scream SPRING IS HERE!!!  So I threw in a few dried flowers when we got home, pulled out some left over gold sticks from Christmas, and decided we'd make mobiles for their rooms.  I just used black twine to tie our treasures to the gold sticks.  And I let them choose what they wanted on their own mobile.  They had fun directing what would go where, and argued a bit over whose pine cone was whose.  For the record, the pine cone covered in bird poop wasn't wanted by anyone.  And of course I didn't notice until it was all over my hands.  Blech.

 They were so proud of their mobiles!

 And they took their time choosing the perfect spot for them to be hung in their rooms.

 So they don't exactly evoke Spring in a huge way, but they do reflect what it looks like around our neck of the woods right now.  We were pretty happy to see tulip leaves peeking out in our front flower bed, though.  Come on over Spring!  We're ready!

botanic gardens

We decided spur of the moment-like to go to the Missouri Botanic Gardens this past Sunday.  If we ever planned an outing in advance, it would be shocking, really.  It was especially spur of the moment since we had meant to go to the butterfly house, which is on a different campus.  But we decided to stay and look around the gardens and save the butterfly house for another day.  It was a great decision.  The sky had opened up and poured rain earlier in the day, so some of the stifling heat was held at bay, and the gardens were all but empty.  The littles absolutely loved it.  Just loved it all.  And it made my heart feel so happy that they enjoyed it so much!  Brian and I have visited gardens all over the world, and this one ranked in the top 5, for certain.

 There was a lot of Chihuly art featured throughout the gardens, which I liked.  I do like how his art echoes nature, and it really doesn't detract for me.  I know others don't like his glass sculptures that well, but I enjoy them.

 Especially when I can use his sculptures for funny pictures of Brian.

 These are water lily pads.  They were about 3 feet in diameter.  Whoa.

These nymphs cavorting below really sparked an interesting topic of conversation with Fletcher after Brian told him that I used to be a nymph that he had "caught."  Oy.  Lots of questions about me living in the forest and dancing naked ensued.  Thanks for that, Brian.

 The littles really loved the Climatron, which was basically an indoor rainforest.  There were lots of waterfalls and tiny creatures to examine, and it was hard to get them to leave.

 Tiny creature alert:

 There was a children's garden that we didn't get to, but we plan on checking that out on our next visit.  The littles didn't mind missing out on it, since there was so much to see.

 Fletcher insisted upon running through this fun fountain.  Rowan just watched.  She didn't want any part of being wet.  I really resisted the idea of Fletcher getting soaking wet, since I assumed we'd never hear the end of how wet and uncomfortable he was the rest of the trip.  I was wrong.  He laughed and ran and enjoyed it so much, and then didn't say ONE WORD about being wet or uncomfortable later.  Proud moment for me!  And a learning moment for me to trust my littles a bit more.  They are starting to gauge what they can handle.

 The Chinese garden was a favorite.  Especially when we found a massive bullfrog singing away.

 I loved the box hedge garden, and I heard a tour guide say there was an actual labyrinth garden on the grounds, but we didn't get a chance to find it.

 The fruit and vegetable gardens were rife with fat bumblebees and butterflies, and we stayed for a while to watch them work.

 I think Brian's favorite garden was the Japanese garden.  We didn't get a chance to fully look it over since littles were complaining of tired feet and thirsty throats.

 Fletcher took off his shoes after running through the fountain, and didn't want them back on.  So we let him wander around barefoot and happy.  It gave him better access to splash in puddles and water anyway.  Both my littles are drawn to water.

 There were a lot of original structures all over the gardens, including this gate house.  So cute, right?

 My little peeping Toms.

We're planning on becoming members and taking advantage of all the campuses around St. Louis that are connected to the Botanic Gardens.  It was really an amazing day that we all could enjoy.  Once Rowan got past the fact that she wasn't allowed to pick any of the flowers, that is!  I can't wait to go back when the Fall foliage makes an appearance.

the neighbor's garden

It was a 3 day weekend, and it was full of parties and exhausting fun.  The littles were so worn out by today that there was a lot of tears and tantrums.  But we managed to squeeze in two bright spots between the tears.  Brian put up our tents in the backyard in preparation for an upcoming camping trip (yes, he was a boy scout).  Fletcher and Rowan loved this, and spent quite a few hours in the hot tents playing.  And we strolled down the road to our neighbor's beautiful yard and picked his garden clean with his blessing.  He is ripping out the cherry tomato plants to make way for cabbage, kohlrabi and other fall plants, so he wanted everything gone so that there would be no waste.  And we were so happy to comply!

A lot of the cherry tomatoes didn't make it to our bucket, and the kids were sticky with tomato juice before long.  Sticky and happy.

The stickiness attracted some of the bees that our neighbor keeps (he's a beekeeper, too!) but no harm was done.

We really lucked out with our neighbors here.  We've become such good friends with a few different families and it just makes life a little sweeter.