I try to have some sort of outing each day for the kids.  We did not join a pool (I’m not a huge hang at the pool girl anyway) and since I am trying to get ready for a show next weekend, the kids are spending lots of time at home doing not much while I sew away.  I have found that a few hours of concentrated time with them each day seems to fill them up enough that I can get work done the rest of the day.  Eases my mom guilt quite a bit too!

Our daily activities include quick trips to a neighbor’s pool, bike rides, the library, visits to friends & last friday was a trip to our local audubon nature reserve with a printed out scavenger hunt.  This was a great hunt- fun and easy.  I was as determined to get it done as the kids were!

After the obligatory playing by the water fall and then playing billy goat gruff on the bridge (this is a tradition that my husband played on this same bridge as a child and we HAVE to play it everytime we come to the sanctuary- I was the big billy goat gruff and although I don’t have a picture you can imagine the scene of PG billy goat fake kicking her 4 year old for yourself.), we got down to business on the trail with our hunt.  The whole excursion took about 2 hours.

We also added our own things like seeing a chipmunk, hearing a bull frog and seeing lots of mushrooms…

The kids actually had to take 3 of the 4 mushroom pics since after taking the first one my ever growing belly was not letting me back down on the ground in that position again.  Good job kids!  Anybody a mushroom expert out there and can tell me what kinds these are?

Most of our simple outings are not too memorable but this one was really nice.  Thanks to chainsg super mom for making up the scavenger hunt list!  I am always looking for easy & FREE ways to help entertain the kids so I hope this may inspire you too!  Now back to that sewing machine…