cloud gazing, bird watching, & flower picking

No matter how annoyed I get with my kids (which is a lot lately......I chalk it up to Kaya being 2 1/2 years old and Zander being 3 1/2 years old) the outdoor wonderfulness always puts me in a better mood.

So we have started a daily routine of cloud gazing,  bird watching, and flower picking (you gotta love the south......it has been a low of 60 degrees and a high of 80+ degrees each day this week). 

So I take out of blankets and we just enjoy nature (in between my laundry and housecleaning...which has really suffered this week....oh well!)

We first lay on our blankets and gaze at the clouds.  We also read books in-between each cloud gazing moment.  The book-lover I am,  this is the perfect life.

I've even added some science lessons to our little adventures.  Zander & Kaya can now identify puffy clouds aka cumulus clouds and Zander can even tell me about stratus clouds now.  I told him that stratus clouds stretch across the sky and he said,  "So mom, since stratus clouds stretch across the sky is our blanket a stratus blanket?  Because we stretched it across the grass."  

I told him "No,  that is so smart of you to think of that,  but blankets are just blankets...not like clouds."

While we stretch out and watch the clouds,  we also look for birds to visit our feeders.  I only got a picture of one because like Zan says "Kaya is always too loud and scares the birds away while we are outside."  He really wanted me to get a picture of our red robin and cardinal that visits us daily.......when we are inside.......away from Kaya's noise!

After we watched the clouds and birds we went for a walk around the house to look at the flowers growing.  On our trip, we found this little guy.

He was scared of us, of course, and hid in the bushes.  The kids tried to get him but I told them that he was trying to camouflage in the green leaves because he was scared of us.  They thought he wanted to come in our house to see his friend.  Yes,  we have a lizard in our house now.  He won't leave.  I tried to chase him out with the broom the other day.  He ran behind the dishwasher.  Now he comes out onto the kitchen floor every day while the kids are napping.....and runs behind the dishwasher when he sees me.  If that thing ever crawls on my face at night when I'm sleeping........well,  I'll just say my little lizard I call "Stripey" may come to an early demise.

Once the lizard ran away from us, we were ready to look at our flowers.  I love having a flower garden but what is even more fun is seeing the joy the kids get from it.

And once you pick flowers........shouldn't you spend some time to stop and enjoy the scent?