Mary Faith would have been happy to hide the entire bowlful by herself!
We also draped pieces of yarn in the bushes for the birds to use in their nest making. The children are eager to see if any of their yarn will show up in nests in our yard!
I love Noah's sweet little hands so much.
He was fascinated by the way the goopy water/gelatin/seed mix had turned into solid eggs. In typical investigative fashion, he pre-tested an egg to see if he could pick off any seeds. He was concerned the birds wouldn't be up for the job, but concluded that if he could get a seed off with his fingers, then their beaks would also do the trick.
Mary Faith took a thoughtful approach to placing her eggs. She was very interested in trying to figure out where the birds were most likely to find the treats . . . up high? In the bushes? On the ground? I guess we'll find out!
Noah draped LOTS of yarn around the yard. Here's hoping lots of mama birds decide to take up residence at the Estes house!
Jake didn't want to be left out of the fun. He LOVES ball toys of all kinds and I have a feeling he'd have happily "unhidden" those ball-like-eggs if he'd been given a chance, so Sarah kept him close at hand.
I'm pretty sure Noah would have draped our entire yard in yarn if I'd let him. He really enjoyed this part.
Noah was ecstatic when an inchworm landed on his finger!!
That silly little fellow kept swinging from Noah to nurse Ty to Mommy and back again no matter how emphatically Noah urged him to just hold still!
We had to enlist Daddy's help to reach way up high and put some eggs in the birdfeeder attached to Noah's window. The birds visit there each morning and he's looking forward to seeing them dig into their goodies.
Sweet Sarah hiding an egg. She is our nature girl so this project was just her cup of tea!
I can't believe how fast she's growing up - in every way! At 11 years old she is now several inches taller than I am. (And yes, I know being taller than Mommy isn't saying much, but STILL! Noah and Mary Faith are now the only children shorter than 5' tall Mommy.)
We also took advantage of the lovely weather to do some other nature projects. Noah loves anything to do with the outdoors but he can't get up close and personal with a lot of nature things as readily as his siblings can. Sarah and Timothy went around the yard and picked all sorts of interesting nature items representing a variety of colors, shapes, and textures for Noah to explore.
Noah had a great time checking out all of the treasures his siblings had collected . . . .
. . . . but he was even more excited when he realized we were going to do a nature project! (Yes, those are some of his IV pumps photobombing this shot. None of them are gravity-dependent so nurse Ty just plopped them down next to Noah once we got him out of the wheelchair. This is a perfect example of doing something very outside the "medical box" so Noah can live as freely as possible. None of the connections were on the grounds, so while this might look reckless, it was actually very safe. The biggest problem was untangling the mess of lines once he was finished LOL!)
First he carefully planned the placement of his selected items,
then he moved them onto some solargraphic paper in our "dark box." When the paper was moved into the bright sun, it gradually turned white at which point we soaked it in a pan of cool water for a few minutes. In short order the paper turned back to bright blue with white images left where the nature items had blocked the sun. I used to do these when I was a little girl and I did them with the older children when they were small - it was so fun to see my youngest three so enchanted with their project.
Noah with one of his finished masterpieces!
Sarah eagerly waiting for her paper to turn white.
Mary Faith with her lovely creation!
We had a wonderful afternoon outside together and now my nature sleuths are eager to see if they can spot any birds taking advantage of our seed eggs. I got the seed egg recipe from Family Fun magazine. To make them, mix 2 packets of unflavored gelatin (like the Knox gelatin) in 1/2 cup of very warm water in a medium size bowl. Stir in 2 cups of birdseed. We let it sit for a few minutes after stirring then stirred again to really get the gelatin to coat the seeds well. We sprayed the inside of plastic eggs with non-stick spray and packed the seed mixture inside. This was a very sticky job and I ended up doing it with plastic gloves on as none of the kids liked the feeling of it. I found that eggs which broke into 2 separate pieces worked better than ones that were still hinged - I could pack each side then connect the pieces. We let the eggs sit overnight and I was pleasantly surprised at how sturdy they turned out. We got 13 eggs from this recipe and only one broke coming out of the plastic egg. I tried to think of a way to close a string/yarn loop inside the plastic egg so that we'd have loops for hanging the eggs from trees, but once I got going with it I couldn't figure out how to make the egg close securely with any kind of string coming out. As I'm writing this, I'm thinking I probably could use thread and still get the egg to close - if anyone tries this and figures out how to make a hanging loop, let me know!! (I also considered tying string around the eggs once they came out of the plastic, but they were a bit slippery from the non-stick spray and I think they'd have slipped out as soon as a bird landed on them.)
What are you doing to celebrate spring?
Blessings,
Kate
