Last but not least...Summer's End Part III

We had several play dates over the course of August with these two cuties...

Ruthie and Elsie are the daughters of my cousin Jessie and my girls always love playing with them.  We had them over to our house for a little reading, drawing, cupcake making and playing.  We read a couple of books by one of our very favorite authors Mo Willems and used them as inspiration for our drawings.  We have quite a few of Mo Willems' books in our home library including...

Mo is a big fan of something called Family Draw Night where you get your family together around a big piece of paper and and take turns choosing a theme around which everyone draws.  Just look at some of the fun things here and here he and his family and friends create on these evenings.  I love this idea and so I adapted it to our play date.

I pulled out our big ream of butcher paper and taped it to our dining room table, threw some crayons in mason jars and placed them at each child's seat and voila...an easy and fun activity for the kids.

 

I was absolutely amazed at Ruthie's drawing abilities.  She sat down at the table and whipped out this dinosaur in about 5 seconds....

The girl is good!  She gets it from her Mama who has a degree in Art and who entertained Lily with her drawing of Lily and her best friend...

Mo feels that drawing is becoming a lost art with many kids who would rather be sitting in front of the tv or playing a video game.  I must admit that I am not one to just sit down and draw with my kids so this really was a fun activity.  Ever since this play date I have seen an improvement in Hannah's drawing skills and there is no more "Mommy what should I draw?"  She is more confident with using her imagination to create a drawing and picking a subject to draw...

After our little draw fest and lunch I brought out some cupcakes and sprinkles and the girls decorated and devoured their treats...

There is nothing like being able to put as many sprinkles on a cupcake as you want! 

We also spent some time with Ruthie and Elsie at the Birmingham Museum of Art for Family Day.  This is a day for families to spend together creating art, participating in a scavenger hunt through the museum galleries and looking at the Museum's permanent and traveling collections.  The Family Day that we attended was focused on the exhibit Fashioning Kimono.  The kimonos were beautiful and I wish I could show you pictures but, since much of it was on loan, visitors could not take photographs.

I did get a couple of pictures of Ruthie and Hannah in the Sculpture Garden.  I like to think they were contemplating the art historical context of each piece :) ...

We had lots of fun with these girls and hopefully tonight after supper our family is going to once again pull out the butcher paper...

Summer's End Part II

I was supposed to post this many, many days ago but again life took over.  Thank you to my sister Bekah who has persistently called me each day for the past 15 days to remind me that yet another day has past and I have not kept my promise of the next "Summer's End" blog update.  Thank you sister for keeping me on my toes (and quite aware of my blogging failures.)

We have had a busy couple of weeks trying to get back in to the swing of school and Mother's Day Out.  Hannah has started her 3 day a week 4K program and Lily goes to Mother's Day Out twice a week.  Fridays are now my day with just Lily and it has been quite an adjustment for my little one.  Lily is used to having Hannah by her side all day when she is home and has been a bit thrown off by her solo time with Mommy.  She asks quite often where "Hannie" is and does not like having to drop Hannah off at school.  I am working hard to show her though that solo time with Mommy = lots and lots of fun!!!  Here are my girls on their first day of school last week...

Ok so now as promised I want to finish up my posts on our August adventures...

A few weeks ago my friend Melissa and I packed up our kids and left Birmingham for a quick overnight trip to Huntsville. Our sweet friend Rachel and her family just moved to Huntsville from Columbus, MS at the end of July and she was nice enough to invite us up to see her new home and let all of our kids have some play time.  Rachel, Melissa, and I are friends from high school and we, along with a few others, always make it a point to get ourselves and our children together a few times a year. 

This is Rachel's beautiful almost 3 year old daughter, Campbell...

and this is her sweet son Davis...

They live in a very cute neighborhood built around several ponds. The ponds are stocked with fish so we were able to take the kids fishing after supper.  This was Hannah's first time to ever fish and can I just say that after catching 3 fish she is now hooked :)

Her first priority when we arrived back in Birmingham was to figure out exactly how she was going to get her very own fishing pole.

The Franklin boys, Thomas and Hudson, were both great fishermen...

I am pretty sure that the worms were not big fans of Campbell's but she sure liked them...

The fish were actually tiny but I don't think the kids would have been any happier catching a giant snapper...

Rachel was such a sport putting on all the worms and taking off any fish that were caught...

All the kids were worn out after our evening of playing and fishing and so thankfully everyone, including Lily, slept soundly all night long.

The next morning we headed to Earlyworks Children's History Museum.  It is a beautiful children's museum full of really fun stuff like a talking tree, an old general store, a keel-boat, and a great children's play area.  I wish I had better pictures but the talking tree greeted us when we walked in and terrified Lily so she was on my hip the rest of our time at the museum.  Oh and my poor Hannah was having a massive allergy attack so I was handing out tissues right and left.  The camera took a back seat to my kids and so I don't feel like I did Earlyworks justice with my pictures...it really was so interesting and pretty.

This colorful tree was in the atrium and was a great place to sit and have a little snack...

The kids could climb on a wagon (that is the huge boat in the background)...

and explore the process of making cotton...

They had a giant building area with huge tinker toys and legos...

The kids learned about the history of music in Alabama with larger than life instruments...

and had a great time in the play area for the little ones...

This is a great little museum and definitely worth a visit if you have children and are ever in Huntsville.  We left the museum, had a yummy lunch at a little restaurant in downtown Huntsville and then after a super quick visit to our favorite store Dirt Cheap...yes Dirt Cheap...we headed home.  (If you ever come across a Dirt Cheap store make sure to stop in.  Rachel introduced us all to the store when she lived in Columbus and they just opened one in Huntsville.  They get the overstocks, etc. from stores like Target and Bed, Bath and Beyond.  We have found some of the biggest bargains EVER at this little hole in the wall store.)

Our trip was over way too quickly but it was lots of fun for the kids and the adults.  Thanks Rachel for a great time and we hope to see you again soon!!!

I will be back soon with our final post Summer's End Part III. 

Summer's End

We have been trying to make the most of the end of summer by enjoying as much time as possible with our friends.  School starts next week for Hannah and Mother's Day Out for Lily and I must admit that I am a little sad.  This August, with no Mother's Day Out, no school, and no schedule, has by far been my favorite month of summer. We have played, baked, gardened, traveled and just enjoyed being together all day morning til night.  We have actually had so much going on the past couple of weeks that I haven't had time until now to go through all of our pictures and sit down and write a post.  I can't possibly fit everything in one post so I am going to have the next few posts recap all that we have been up to lately.  So without further adieu....

We celebrated National Aviation Week by taking advantage of free admission to the Southern Museum of Flight.  For those of you here in Birmingham it is located close to the Birmingham Airport and is worth a visit.  There were lots and lots of airplanes to see and thankfully most all were inside so we did not have to brave the August heat.

We prepared for our visit by making our own paper airplanes with Daddy...

Hannah and Lily had a good time flying these around the house and carried these little planes with them everywhere we went for about a week.

When we arrived at the museum we found planes all around us.  They were inside and outside, suspended from the ceiling...

and on the ground...

Hannah and Lily were even able to sit in a cockpit and pretend to fly...

The museum also had a children's area where you could build your own airplane out of things like legos...

I was surprised at how large and family friendly this little museum is and we will definitely go back for another visit.  Fyi...I also think this would be a great place for a birthday party (particularly for a boy) if you are looking for something a little different and fun.

That same week Hannah's classmate Mary invited all of the girls from her upcoming 4K class over for a little swim party.  Hannah was so excited to see all her friends and of course spend some time in the pool.

The girls (along with a few younger siblings) had a great time swimming and playing together.  We are looking forward to seeing all of these sweet faces on a regular basis when school starts back next week!

I will be back tomorrow with our Summer's End Part 2...