Tree and a Treehouse

Isabel had her first field trip this Thursday at the Ogden Treehouse museum. Ben and I were able to go with her. Tamina was able to take Adam and Sarah with Ari too! We have been to the Treehouse before, but never on a field trip. To start off the trip, we met in the theater and they read us a book and the kids acted out their parts with puppets. Isabel got to be the crow. Can you see her excitement?
She got a little more into it when she was able to use her puppet. (See the crows on the page)

She really didn't want to be by the other puppets. Adam loved the story. He and Ari seemed to enjoy this part. Adam was the bee and Ari was the fox in the story.

Once again, see how interested Isabel looks....

Once the story was over, the kids got to have free time. See the change in countenance? Here Isabel is on the train.

The kids loved the life size cow that you could milk. It was pretty cool if I do say so myself :)

Here is Ben trying to see where the stuff (milk) is coming from.

Then we went to the farm area where Ben could play with a small barn and tractor. It was cool becuase the tractor could fit into the barn. Then we were off to the map where they ran in circles and jumped around the states. Then it was off to the music room.

Isabel played the drums, while Ben climbed on them.

I thought this was a cute picture of Isable and Ari playing the drums. The kids hardly stood still long enough to take a picture of them. I think this place give kids temporary A.D.D. They have no attention span, cause they want to do it all, right now....

When we lost Adam, we finally found him up at the computer playing games. The tracing center was right there. The kids liked this. We only lost Ari once :) They ended free time and we had to go back to the theater for one last story. They had someone play the guitar and do different voices for animals and sing Old MacDonald before the story. I thought he did a really good job.

Before we left, we had snacks for all of the kids. Peanut butter crackers and juice boxes. We had the kids eat before they could get into the car. As we were getting into the car, Isabel looked at me and said, "that wasn't very much fun today, was it?" I was puzzled and said, "you love the treehouse, which part wasn't fun?" She replied, "the part where they made us do the stories and sit down." So the part that I thought was great, wasn't entertaining for Isabel. Funny, huh?! I think her favorite part was the cow. She kept wanting to go back and milk it. All in all a memorable first field trip!

Now for the other tree I have been working on. I found a cute idea for an advent calendar for Halloween on a blog (don't remember which one) and mentioned to Jen that we should make one. She found another cute idea for one on pottery barn for kids, so we decided to make one of our own. Here is what came out of our collaberative minds. Jen made a pattern for the tree, and we went from there.
Here is a close-up of the pieces that go in the pocket on the bottom of the tree. We had no patterns, just ideas. Jen, Kandi and Tamina made one too. All of us have different pieces to put on it. I decided to make mine stuffed, just like the ornaments for the Christmas tree advent calendar that mom had when we were growing up. My kids absolutely love it. They love carrying the pieces around and chasing each other with them! And yes, they are more cute than scary. I don't do scary very good.

These are 2 of my favorite pieces. I drew them on paper and then tried to make them. Brady told me that if I had a mummy it needed to have it's arms streched out reaching for someone. This was my second attempt at a mummy, and I liked it!

For not having a pattern for any of it, and for not having sewn anything for a long time (always had mom do it for me) I think it turned out pretty cute. Not a professional job by any means, but sure looks good on the wall!