Going to the Zoo

I love to go to the zoo with Little Guy. Lately, it has been even more fun. Little Guy now is able to look for and spot the animals, at times getting excited when he sees them. He likes to walk around, not always ride in the stroller.
Now that it is fall and a little cooler, there are much fewer people there. Our most recent visit to the zoo was on Halloween. I think we saw between 10 and 15 other people there.
Anyway, the two tigers were very active, pacing around their enclosure and occasionally playing with each other. Little Guy was just tall enough to see over the window ledge. He watched them walk around, pointing occasionally. We must have stood there for 10 minutes watching them.

Little Guy likes to sit on the baby tiger seat.

Then we walked to the small animal kingdom. In this area of the zoo, there are things for kids to climb on and play in. Little Guy loves to check these things out now! There is a life size komodo dragon. 

Hmmm...I wonder what this is?

Of course, we must visit it before moving on!

I have conquered the dragon!

There is a tortoise shell that you can climb in.  Little Guy wanted to see what was inside, but never crawled all the way in.

What's in here?

One of the last things are some huge shells.  Glad I didn't have a baby big enough to fit in it!

My new seat!

We love going to the zoo!  What are your favorite parts of the zoo?

Corn box

At the beginning of October, Little Guy, Daddy, Grandma and Granddaddy A, and I went to a farm and pumpkin patch.  (Read about our visit here.)  One of the things that we did on that trip was play in the corn box.  Little Guy (okay, all of us) had a great time playing in the corn box.

Since that was so fun, I wanted to create a sensory tub for Little Guy using that same type of corn.  Well, this week I finally did it!

Little Guy's very own corn box!

For the container, I ended up using Little Guy's water table.  Since it is too cool outside to put water in it, it had just been sitting on our patio.  I cleaned it off, took off the blue tower in the middle, and Viola!  the perfect container for Little Guy's very own corn box.  We visited a feed store to get the corn, purchasing whole kernel feed corn.  We bought a 50 pound bag, and used probably about half of it.

Little Guy enjoyed scooping the corn.

 

Measuring cups are great for helping him to scoop with success.

 Little Guy was quite excited to see the corn box!  I added simple materials from the kitchen for him to use in the corn box.  I added plastic spoons, measuring cups, and washed cream cheese and sour cream containers.

I was a little worried about the corn box being open and available to him all the time, but I actually think this is one of the best parts!  Little Guy will go over, play in it for a little while, then go away and play with something else, and then come back to the corn box.  He seems to be enjoying the flexibility of playing in it when he wants.

I did cut a cardboard circle to act as a cover.  Little Guy also enjoyed taking it off and on!

I can put the cover on!

What ideas do you have for sensory boxes?

Halloween!

I know this is a couple of days late, but I still wanted to share pictures from our Halloween.  Last year, Little Guy was only 4 months old, so we only Trick-or-Treated at a couple of friends houses.  He was a bumble bee!

Our little bumble bee!

Our first Halloween as a 3-person family!

This year, Daddy really wanted Little Guy to be an Ewok, from Star Wars.  I think Daddy decided this last year, and was looking forward to dressing Little Guy like this all year long.  So here is our little Ewok!
 

Our cute Little Ewok!

Daddy and Little Guy!

We bought a bear costume for him, then I made the hood, satchel, and walking stick to complete his Ewok ensemble!  I think it came out pretty good!

Giggles

Earlier this week, Little Guy and I took an afternoon to play at the park.  Where we live, the leaves have mostly all changed colors and are starting to fall.  Although Little Guy was around last year at this time, he was only four months old and didn't get to experience the fall leaves.  So I wanted to make sure we had some time to play in the leaves.

We went to a new (to us) park, one that has a swimming pool open in the summer, and still has big trees and a play structure open all year. Our first stop within the park was to play in the leaves.  I would throw the leaves up, and Little Guy just giggled and loved to see the leaves falling down.  We kicked the leaves, and tried to run through them.  We had fun.

I love being outside!

Look at all those leaves!

Wait, did I tell you about the weather   I think the high that afternoon was in the mid forties.  It was pretty cold!  We were bundled up.  Little Guy had on a puffy coat, a hat, and those cute little toddler mittens with no thumbs.  I just had on my coat; I forgot my hat and gloves at home.
Anyway, after the leaves we went to the play structure.  Little Guy really enjoys the slide and swing. We stopped at the swing first.  He looked so happy to be on the swing.  This is the sound that melts my heart...giggles!

 He loved going down the slide, and has figured out how to scootch his bottom so he will start to slide down.

At the top of the slide!

Down I go!

After a few times on the slide, we had to leave.  It was starting to rain fairly hard, and since I had forgotten my hat, I was getting very wet.  But we had a great afternoon at the park!