Photo by Granddad

Every kid needs a cupboard to hide in!

How could I forget?

This was my favorite photo from Stone Mountain...he's listening to the pulleys turn.

Our latest adventure

We try to have a new adventure at least a couple of times a month and yesterday was the day!  We took the Skylift up to the top of Stone Mountain.  It's about ten minutes away, but it had been years since we'd been up to the top.

It's quite a view!






 It was such a beautiful, clear day that we could see the skyline of downtown Atlanta in one direction and all the way to the Appalachian Mountains in another.

The Chipmunk was fascinated by the Skylift and LOVED that he got to "fly right up there!"

But mostly, he loved the pulleys.  We had to have a family portrait taken in front of them :)




Stone Mountain is a granite outcrop called an igneous intrusion.  It's known for a lot of reasons (the carving, for a start), but Little Man was mostly interested in the pulleys and the puddles.

And jumping, of course.









 The puddles were for throwing rocks in, of course.

 

He made several new friends

And believe me when I say we all got a lot of exercise!!!

Comfy?

Our dogs are a little strange!

Bird study

Granddad gave us a wonderful bird feeder for Christmas last year and we've been enjoying it more and more as the Chipmunk gets older. The past few days we've been doing a lot of bird watching and studying. It's really interesting to sit and talk about which birds eat on the ground and which ones like the hanging feeder. We've been watching them open seeds with their beaks and even noticing flight patterns (the chickadees are our favorites!). Of course, you have to talk about eggs if you're going to talk about birds, so we have a little nest to play with.

Our little goldfinch has been so loved that his beak fell off somewhere!



My little man loves to know the names of things and he's been asking about every bird that comes to the feeder, so we made a little bird book to help him identify what he was seeing.




We're definitely going to keep expanding our bird feeders and studying our birds over the next few months.  I have some food experiments in mind and I think we'll try to find some clear feeders that we can attach directly to the windows.  We are also working on a little Valentine's surprise for the Chipmunk's friends and family so that they can enjoy their birds too!

Letter Practice

It's fun to use words that really mean something!

Dodging raindrops

We've been having to play outside in between the rain showers this week and we're both getting a little stir crazy.  While we were outside yesterday, he got out of sight and I called him:

Mama:  Chipmunk!  What are you doing?

C:  I'm just over here looking for mushrooms and poop.

He found them, too.

Barely an hour later....

Chipmunk: I want to ride in that elevator (at the grocery store)
Me: That elevator is for the employees
C: What's that?
Me: Employees are people who work at a store.
C: I'm going to work here do that I can ride on that elevator
Me: OK, well, first you would have to ask for an application and fill it out, then they will decide if they think you would be a good employee.
C: OK

Later at the check out...

C: May I have an application please?
Check out lady: What did he just say?
Me: He asked for an application. He wants to work here so that he can ride in the elevator. I've told him it's possible that he's not old enough.
COL: well, yes... He might have to wait a few years...

Conversations with the Chipmunk

Mama:  Please go get in the car, bug!
C:  *runs outside, opens door, runs back in *
        I can't!  I can't get in my seat.  Its broken!
M:  What do you mean, its broken?
C:    I don't know, but I cannot get in it so I have to go back inside and watch Thomas
M:   ...