Our New Pet-venture

Okay, it's true.  I have a weak spot... for animals... and for my boys... and for well, okay I don't want to fill you in on ALL of my weak spots, you might call me with an offer I can't pass up!

Last week I got a text message from my mother in law asking if we would like 2 hamsters.  You might not know this, but I had hamsters as a child, I was fascinated of them - and terribly afraid that they would bite me.  I like them, but didn't REALLY want to touch them.  Yep, I'm kind of funny like that.

So, I said "Sure".  And that was the end of it.  Last night, our new pets: Peanut and Rhino came to our house.  Now, Peanut and Rhino are the names these boys came with.  We could not leave them like that.  Our boys quickly found much more um.. suitable names.  Manasseh wanted to name them "Nasa and Cash" after him and his brother.  Cassius wanted to name one "Chicken".

So here I will introduce to you Nasa and Chicken.  Nasa is slightly larger than Chicken.  The curious (hungry) cat?  That's Farlow.

Children's Museum Adventure

 

We love to adventure with the boys - especially when our adventures include an educational element.  This week he had the opportunity to visit the children's museum in Indianapolis.  The boys LOVE the hands-on exhibits.  They wore themselves out exploring our great big world.  I love watching them learn and greatly look forward to them getting a little older so they can take more time reading and understanding the fantastic displays!

Here is a peek at our adventure this week:

 The Dinosphere is an incredibly cool experience with life sized dinosaur skeletons!  There are computerized simlations, an archeology digging area, costumes and play eggs, toy dinosaurs and so much more.  We had to visit this area first - all 5 of the "big" kids insisted.


Manasseh got to touch a REAL dinosaur bone.  Many of the displays are models, and he was excited to have the opportunity to put his hands on a real bone from a real dinosaur.  That is big stuff for a 4 year old (or a 34 year old).





All 6 Poppy's Posse members: Princess, Bugman, Spaceman, $, Moo, and Scout.   They had a blast together (they usually do).

 

Princess said her favorite area was "Jolly Days" - the seasonal exhibit.   The boys, therefore, also said it was their favorite.  They liked climbing, fishing, skating, and taking care of the reindeer.  I got a kick out of my guys, Spaceman (above) found a bucket in the reindeer room and decided he should milk the reindeer.  His brother, naturally followed suit.

The Hot Wheels exhibit was pretty cool too.  the boys loved playing with the cars, especially the large ones they cold climb inside.  In the picture above, Cassius had enough of waiting for a turn and climbed inside on top of Bugman's lap so he could drive.

 

We stayed for just under 6 hours.  My boys were exhausted.  Scout fell asleep in the Hot Wheels exhibit and missed the end of the day.  The other boys fell asleep before we were out of Indianapolis.

I give the Indianapolis Children's Museum 5 stars for their hands on activities and family friendliness.  Parking is free.  There are food options in the museum, however they are more pricey than I like.  We brought a sack lunch and ate it in the van.     The museum is very clean and offers hand sanitizers in many locations.  Although the restrooms are very heavily used, they were always clean when we used them (with 6 kids we used the restroom quite a bit).

Money, We like it

Okay, so who doesn't like money?  It helps us get the "stuff" we enjoy - new clothes, heat in our homes, food for the table, fancy televisions, the list goes on.  We like money.  Even more than we like money itself, we like spending money.  And even more than that - we like knowing that we have the money to spend.

We do not like worrying about whether or not we will be able to pay the bills, how we will scrape together enough food in the pantry for the next meal, whether someone at the power company will listen kindly and help us out in our troubles.

Honestly, in our 5+ years of marriage, we've been on both sides of this.  At times we have chosen to go into debt just so we could scrape by for a few months.  We went in search of credit cards that would allow us just a little bit of wiggle room until we could pay them off because our situation had changed.  Other times we have had an abundance of money - we were able to buy a house almost entirely with cash on hand.  It was a very cheap house - but we own it outright, no threat of foreclosure, no mortgage.... but then.. there's that other house that we still, after 5.5 years have not been able to sell.

Our life is an adventure, a roller coaster at times.  Usually the stresses are brought on entirely by ourselves.   I've heard it said that finances are one of the biggest causes of stress on a marriage.  I believe it is likely the truth.  I also believe I am incredibly lucky to be married to Randy.  I get very stressed about finances, but he has helped me to learn not to make it the focal point of my day.  We will make it through to a better place.  We have time and time again.  We will again in the near future.

That's right, we are not in the best financial place right now.  We are making it work though and once we're through the next 2 weeks, we will be on the up side again - I think.

We have decided that we are going to take an opportunity to attend Financial Peace University.  Now, I am not looking for the way to become a millionaire.  I just want some wisdom about how to better manage our lives so that we do not consistently find ourselves in this predicament.  I've known several people who have attended Dave Ramsey's courses and have gleaned a lot of wisdom from them, that we already put into practice.  But I want to look at money in a new way.  I don't want to live as a slave to money, but know how to make money work for me.  That's the way it should be, right?

I hope to share some of our success with you in the future.  We start January 9, the day after Cassius turns 3.  We're looking forward to this step in our life adventure.

Have you had an experience with FPU that you can share?  Has it made a positive difference in your life?  Do you have a negative opinion about it after having taken the course?  Please leave comments in the box below.

Apple Activities: for preschool and elementary

I'm super excited - not only do we get to have regular adventures with some of our preschool friends, we are now scheduled for a once a week date with 2-5 of our elementary aged friends.  You better believe I don't plan on letting these kids run wild around the house for 2-3 hours while I'm with them.  I hope to be sharing regular preschool and elementary activities as we experience them with our dear friends!

This week we enjoyed apples (because last week we picked apples)!  One activity I completely forgot about was "Does it float".  We were going to test apples to see if they float and make guesses about why they float.  Please add your ideas for great apple activities at the end of this post so we can try them out next season (or even later this year).

Did you know that if you slice your apple through the side, you find a star made of seeds?  Some of the kids were surprised by that.  They had fun counting the seeds in their own apples when it was their turn to cut apples.

I gave each child an apple and a butter knife - these were very dull butter knives and they had a hard time cutting the apples, with 7 kids working on cutting it was best to have dull knives though.  I monitored closely as they cut and helped as needed.  This was a great activity for patience, cooking skills, social skills, math (counting seeds - it could also be used for fractions), and so many other important skills that young children need to develop.

While hard at work, we noted that the apples turned a little brown.  One of the kindergarten students was able to explain why they turn colors (they have been learning about apples at school this week as well).  He felt confident and wise because he already knew this fact.

While the children sliced apples, I made a simple pie crust with vegetable shortening, flour, water, and salt.  Then divided it into muffin tins so that each child had 1 mini pie.  The kids each smashed their crust down around the edges with their fingers.  That was a great sensory activity and a couple of the kids had a hard time with this.

Next, we added cinnamon and sugar to the apples, each child that wanted a turn, helped to stir it.  Then each child filled his/her own pie crust with as many apple pieces as they wanted.  I threw them in the oven and started on the next activity while we waited for our sweet treat.

Next we made apple prints.  We used 3 halves of apples to paint on cardstock.  My intention was to have nice, apple shaped prints - they didn't work out like I planned.  Instead we had some neat, colorful artwork. The kids practiced sharing, patience, color mixing, spacial relationships, and more.  Do you see the coloring sheet on this picture too?  It is a potato head paper - my intention was to cut out the apple prints and make apple-heads... that didn't work, so they just colored the pages.

This apple got a lot of pretty colors on it.  One of the boys noticed that when the colors mixed just right, we ended up with brown instead of green, yellow, and red.  Good observation!

When our mini-pies were cooked (the apples were soft in the middle), I cut the muffin tins apart so each child could have their mini-pie to themself.

Mini Apple Pies were a hit.

The kids had a great time playing with apples. 

What are your favorite fall learning activities?  Do you remember any fun apple experiments or games from your childhood?  How do you entertain a large group after school and keep them learning?

Free Family Fun at Hoosier Outdoor Experience

Do you ever accidently stumble into an activity that you are pretty sure will become part of a long-standing family tradition?  That is exactly what happened to us this weekend.  I highly recommend that if you live anywhere near the Indianapolis area, you consider making the Hoosier Outdoor Experience part of your family plan for next year!

Mr. Crum is completing some volunteer hours for a class that he took this spring.  He received an email last week that there was a need for volunteer bus guides during the event, and he chose to go.  We decided at the last minute that the whole family would head to Indianapolis with him and spent a little bit of time checking out the event on their website.

Let me tell you what, the website did not prepare us for the actual magnitude of the event.  There were over 50 activities for families to participate in together.  This is designed to give people just a small taste of what adventures lie ahead of them when they spend time outdoors.  I'm talking everything from biking, to hunting, to tennis... and so much more!  (Did I mention that all of the activities are FREE?)

Here is a brief overview of what I did with our 3 little guys (now ages 11 months, 2.5, and 4):

We started our afternoon by learning about how to use a pump and filter to get drinking water in a river or lake.  The boys participated in a contest - I'm pretty sure we did NOT win that.

Next we got to see and touch a variety of animal pelts.  Here are a raccoon and a beaver.

The boys really enjoyed digging for artifacts and bones in this little simulated dig area.

Abe Lincoln paid a visit at the park.  The boys were much less interested in hearing his stories than their mama was, so we moved on pretty quickly.

My big guys each got a turn to try and shoot arrows.  Manasseh really wanted to take one home with us - they were actually fairly reasonably priced, but mama was holding out for some other type of souvenir.

There were several large stuffed animals to get photos with - this is the only one I actually got all 3 boys to stand together in.

The boys used tulle and suite cakes to make little bird feeders.

I wish I could have gotten a picture of Manasseh's little cheer when he got his frisbee into the disc golf basket.

There was a lot of food - if I had planned ahead we would have carried sandwiches in with us. The boys loved the corn and hot dogs that they got to eat while we were at the park.

Manasseh decided to learn a bit about the outdoors while we waited in line for the rock wall.

My sweet 4 year old getting ready to scale the rock wall.  He's been climbing since before he could walk (I'm not joking, not even a little bit) and I knew he'd do well.  He surprised me and got nervous, he didn't make it up very far.  But it sure was fun watching him try something new.

A real tortoise that they got to touch.

AND they touched a snake.  They are fascinated by the ways different animals feel.

One of the stations was building bird feeders.  This was a great activity.  We love building together AND we get a new feeder to put near our new patio!

We caught a fish!

Manasseh begged to take the hook out of the fish's mouth - his mama sure wasn't going to do that.  I was going to let this friendly DNR guy do it.

There were cool tents all over the place.  Manasseh played in this one briefly before we boarded the bus to get back to our van.

Waiting for daddy to be done with his work, the boys enjoyed playing together in the median by the parking lot.

Time for some rest.  We had a fantastic day and can't wait to go back next year WITH daddy.

I think next year we'll plan to take the whole weekend at the park, we might even find some place to camp nearby to have the FULL outdoor experience.

Free Educational Activity: The library

I have to start this post with a little bit of bragging.  Allen County Public Libraries are incredible.  Mr. Crum works in the basement of the main library, so we have ample opportunity to visit when it's time to pick him up from work.  The boys love spending time at the library, not just in the "early learning center" but all through the children's services area.  They even enjoy displays outside of the children's section of the library. I've bragged to my mom (Nana) about our library many times and hope she gets a chance to visit some time, for now I'll share pictures and brag a bit about our free education!  If you are in the Allen County area and you have children, please - take them to the library, you'll thank yourself.

This is the view from the entrance of the ELC (early learning center).  The large tree in the middle has the alphabet hanging from its branches.  Around the trunk there is a table covered with a variety of puzzles.  To the right of where I am standing is the exploration area for non-walkers.  Ahead and to the left is an area for coloring and writing, and spread throughout the room are several activity stations.

Crackers is inside a fire truck while he plays with cars on this maze.  It is fun to try and figure out how to move the cars in just the right direction to end up where you want to go.  This has toys on the inside and outside - Crackers spent about 10 minutes with it this visit.

The house has a fence, there are apples that can hang on the tree.  Behind the house are boxes of building blocks and puppets.  Monkey was attached to a stacking birthday cake this day, he carried it the entire time we were visiting.  While he was playing behind the house, he let me know that I couldn't come in because there was a fence and he couldn't leave his house because the fence was in the way.

We love this barn.  There are doors on either side that are big enough for the boys to crawl through, the roof hinges open.  There are a variety of animals to play with in the barn as well. As I said earlier, Monkey carried the cake around - he was building it in the barn until his brother joined him.  

This is a small part of the foods area.  To the left is a shelf full of costumes, to the right is a kitchen set, and next to me is a store counter.  A family of 4 kids had just finished arranging the food by groups - I loved listening to them, "is an artichoke a fruit or a vegetable?"  (It's actually a flower if I remember right).  I was pretty impressed at how well they categorized things though.

The reading corner is a favorite for my boys.  I thought we would never get them out of the library once daddy was done with work.  Crackers kept bringing him more books.

Monkey is starting to get interested in writing.  He drew some lines and circles on this day, then deposited his paper in the play mailbox.

The fish tanks are in the back of the Children's Services area.  There are 3 large salt water tanks and a wall of bubbles.  Crackers love the bubbles.  Monkey loves looking for the starfish.  I recently learned that you can get a paper from the librarian to help identify the fish (I kept wondering if I could find something to help us out).  To the right of the fish tanks is a computer lab just for kids - my boys don't really even know it's there.  To the left is a touch screen display with earphones that reads parts of books to the children.  Monkey loves this "game".

This is the "playground" according to Monkey.  It has steps leading up to a platform with a couple of toys on the walls and a carpeted "slide" going down.  Underneath there are a couple of wall toys.  The boys think this is one of the most amazing play areas.  They also love sitting on the benches in this part of the library to snuggle mama and read books.

And there's more.  There is a reading tower - like a giant space ship tree house sort of thing - for the "big" kids.  There are games to be used near the fish tanks.  The library offers amazing programs for kids in the afternoons, and for homeschool during the day!  What an amazing resource for free educational fun!

Free Fun Education Adventure

We love adventure, especially when it is educational... and free.  Mama Crum likes to look for fun educational adventures.  Here is one from a couple weeks ago.

We went downtown for a walk and discovered a manhole.  Discoveries this amazing always lead to a lot of questions and up close exploration.  The boys are very interested in learning what things are and how they work.

 Mr. Crum had fun showing the boys antique fire trucks through the window of the Fire Station Museum.  Now every time we drive by, Monkey yells to me about seeing fire trucks.  We look forward to taking them IN the museum one of these days.

Mr. Crum wanted to explore the Maker Station.  We got a private tour and learned about all the neat machines that the "makers" use to create things.  I wish I had some great shots inside the trailer to share.

The final stop on our adventure was The Grand Wayne Convention Center.  We NEEDED to go there, because.. why not?  Mr. Crum and I had never been inside and wanted to know what it looked like.  The boys loved these giant penguins in the entryway.

Exploring a small portion of downtown is fantastic fun, free family education and adventure!  The best part is that it takes very little planning.