Park Cleanup

Rachel and I stumbled across an old playground just off one of the nature trails only a 5 minute toddler walk away from our house.  Unfortunately a tree had fallen on it and it was filthy from misuse.  Fortunately it was not structurally damaged and with a little TLC could be made useable again.

Playground - Day 1

I decided this would be a good project for Rachel and me.  The next day we came back with a bucket of soapy water, rags and towels.  Rachel had a blast cleaning the slide.

Rachel - Cleaning the Slide

I broke a few small branches off the tree making the slide accessible.  The branches actually made a nice canopy, but I could see kids hurting themselves on some of the broken branches.  I decided to recruit Brandon to help me saw some of those off.  I didn't think we'd be able to move the tree by ourselves.The slide was so filthy that rags were not going to do the trick.  Rachel was already filthy so I let her go down anyway.

Tree Canopy

 We came back the next weekend armed with a tough scrub brush to find the tree gone!  No need to bring Brandon or a saw. 

No more tree!

But there was still a lot of work to be done.

Mold on the Playground

Rachel helped clean for a while...

Rachel Scrubbing

...but decided it was more fun to push the scrub brush down the slide.

Scrub Brush Sliding

After several days work, the slide was shiny clean and the plastic structure considerably less moldy.  And now to celebrate with play!

Whee!

Rachel Sings the ABCs

I've had a request for this video for non-Facebook people.  Sometimes she says the letter, sometimes the sound, all times cute!

Bath Fun

The long stretch of rainy weather has been forcing me to expand our normal indoor activities.  A huge source of fun is the bath tub.  We can play until baby toes are wrinkled and the water is getting cold: a good hour, which is very long in the toddler attention span. 

Our first game involved chasing colored ice cubes around the tub.
Source: http://www.mommysavers.com/2010/09/frugal-bathtime-fun-for-baby/

I saw the idea on Pinterest and didn't read the full instructions first.  How difficult can it be to make colored ice cubes?  Turns out I was a bit zealous with the food coloring, which was evident when my fingers turned yellow just removing the ice from the tray.  But they made a really pretty design when dropped in...both in the water and on the tub! 

I guess we'll find out if food coloring stains a tub, eh?  (The answer, thank goodness, was no.) 

I expected Rachel to have a difficult time catching the ice cubes, but she was a pro.  She loved holding them under the faucet and watching them melt.  By the end, the tub was a nice shade of olive green.  Filling the empty ice cube tray was a fun game as well. 

As much fun as we get out of these preplanned activities, sometimes impromptu games are the best.  When Rachel was younger I set up some shampoo bottles of various sizes and told her which one was "tall," "medium," and "short."  She loved to point at them over and over and over and just listen to their descriptions.  Now that she is older I decided to ask her which one is tall and have her point.  For some added fun, I stacked plastic frogs on top of the bottles.  Whenever she got one right, I would flick the frog off the bottle and into the tub.  She thought this was hilarious.  I love kids' enthusiasm for learning!