Butterflies, Astronauts, and a Rainy Garden

Today was a pretty rainy day. We went to the farmer's market and bought the girls their now-weekly sugar cookie to split and a bunch of carrots to crunch (this week we also got some beets, some sunflowers, and fresh eggs!). But the girls had had enough of being out in the drizzle, so we came home to make butterflies.

First, they used markers to decorate coffee filters cut open along the sides:

Then, they took watercolor brushes and water and painted over the filters:

Ta da (or tee da, as Clara would say) - Butterflies!

We had another fun activity today, courtesy of Grandma (Christina's mom). She sent the girls an astronaut kit - they made astronaut shoes and ran all over the house. We couldn't get non-blurry pictures of them at all - so here's the best we got. The girls LOVED wearing their astronaut shoes! We must have taken them off and put them back on dozens of times.

In the afternoon, the rain lessened and we headed out to our garden to see how everything was growing. The flower part of the garden was looking so lovely today - poppies bursting out in red, phlox in their little blue, delicate blossoms, and the tall lupine in purple were just gorgeous.

Elena was especially interested in the poppies today. We spent a lot of time sniffing them, looking at the unfurled buds, and talking about how a little green bud would pop open into a big red flower.

Steve showed Clara how our chives have started blossoming and reseeding themselves. Clara really likes investigating things she can smell, and you can really smell chives!

The poppies don't smell as good, but Clara was drawn in anyway:

Elena, still puzzling over those poppies:

Steve stops over to investigate with her:

Christina got in on the fun, too - laughing with the girls as we shook water off the flower stems:

Trying once again to explain how poppies "work:"

Blurry but fun - Steve catches a peek at his three girls through the flowers:

One last thing to investigate in the garden - the gargoyle downspout! They both used to be scared of this guy, but they have overcome that fear, and now like him (especially on days like today, when he's dripping water!).