Nathaniel Day 21 - Packing Food for Kids

You can read about the idea behind Nathaniel Day and the activities of previous months by clicking on the Nathaniel Day Activities tab at the top of the page.

On November 6th Dave's work group was doing a team building day packing meals at Feed My Starving Children. Abby is now old enough to volunteer and there were spots for us so we left Felicity with Grandma and joined them for the afternoon session. 

Abby had so much fun and was exhausted by the end! She helped scoop ingredients for a while until her arms got tired and then she joined Dave in packing the finished meals into a box for shipping. She was in charge of keeping track of how many boxes we packed. I think our team (Dave's work group plus me and Abby) packed 16 or 17 boxes. 

The whole group that session packed a total of 132 boxes which will make 79,200 meals for severely malnurished children. That is enough to feed 72 kids for an entire year!

Abby's Special Box

Today Abby and I went to a ladies tea at our church. Part of the event was decorating boxes to fill with love or joy or gratitude or encouragement etc. When asked Abby said that she was going to use hers as a special baby brother box for her special things to remember her brother that died. I didn't suggest that. It was all her idea, but I love that was what she wanted to do with it.

Nathaniel Day 20 - Children's Museum

You can read about the idea behind Nathaniel Day and the activities of previous months by clicking on the Nathaniel Day Activities tab at the top of the page.

My sister and her two daughters were here in the beginning of October so they got to join us for a Nathaniel Day. Usually we wouldn't go to the children's museum for a Nathaniel Day because we go there all the time, since we can go for free, but with the cousins around and Felicity starting to be able to do some stuff we decided to go.

We had so much fun. We shopped and worked in a restaurant and took care of babies and pets and danced and played music and surfed. It was a beautiful day so we were also able to enjoy the outside part, where we usually can't get Abby to go. Out there we found things to climb on and a maze to run through and a tunnel to go through.

I think the highlight of the day for both big girls was right before we left I gave them both a penny to put in the donation thing by the entrance to the museum. They were both enthralled watching them go down.

1. Abby working in the deli 2. cousin change race 3. prairie maze 4. getting some money at the ATM
before grocery shopping 5. Abby playing with an infrared camera 6. surfing 7. cousin faces 8. grocery
shopping 9. caring for babies 10. Abby being a checkout person 11. playing music 12. sandwich making

Catching Up

I haven't posted here in months. It's been busy around our house with two girls. I haven't had a lot of time to write during the day with one girl who doesn't nap any more and one who will sometimes only nap for an hour a day.

Felicity seems to have been teething for months. She got her first tooth the week of Christmas and has been sleeping better since. Hopefully the sleeping trend will continue and I will be able to catch up here. I have four Nathaniel Day posts to catch up on now. I plan to write those and post them soon. Maybe by his birthday next month I will be all caught up.

Nathaniel Day 19 - Volo Car Museum

You can now read about the idea behind Nathaniel Day and the activities of previous months by clicking on the Nathaniel Day Activities tab at the top of the page.

Since Nathaniel Day this month fell on a Sunday, Dave was able to come with us. I had him help plan since he was able to come along. We had looked at going to a circus in the park in Chicago, but it was outside in a tent and it was supposed to be in the 90s so we decided that wouldn't be a good idea. Neither one of us had been to the car museum in Volo so we decided to go there. It was also the last day Abby would be free since under 5 are free and it was her 5th birthday the next day.

Church has changed services to 11 am so our activities for the day started a little late with lunch at a local hot dog place a few minutes from church, right down the street from the museum. Of course Abby only wanted macaroni and cheese which they didn't have, but we convinced her to eat a little chicken with her french fries so she could have a milk shake.

After lunch we headed over to the museum. It was huge! We saw so many cars. There were really old cars, not quite so old cars, cars from TV shows and movies, military vehicles, tractors, a train, and a fire truck. We stayed until the museum closed and then Abby played on the playground outside for a while. We were there so long that the gate got shut on us and we had to find an alternate way out. I don't know if we will ever go there again but it was fun to go to once.

Abby had to go on the car slide outside the entrance to the museum before we went in.

Weird, tiny one person car 

Abby found a car just like her favorite matchbox car, but hers was yellow

Felicity had fun looking at the ceiling. 

Movie cars

Seeing what was in the turtle van

Lightning McQueen!!!

Nathaniel Day 18 - 1/2 Birthday Celebrations

You can now read about the idea behind Nathaniel Day and the activities of previous months by clicking on the Nathaniel Day Activities tab at the top of the page.

I've gotten really behind here. It's almost time for Nathaniel Day 20 and I haven't even written about Nathaniel Day 18 yet. I need to find some time to write here a little more often. It's hard to get anything done during the day. One of the girls wants my attention all day long.

We were asked to bring cupcakes to Dave's dad's birthday party a few days later so I made them a little ahead of time so that we could have a couple for celebrating his half birthday. Abby helped make the frosting and decorate them with all the colors of sprinkles that we had.

It was Thursday so Abby had story time at the library. We went to that and then headed over to another library in a neighboring town that I had heard had a really cool kid's area.  It was like a children's museum with a fairly tale theme. It was not nearly as cool as I was expecting and one part that I thought Abby would like was being fixed, but she still had fun.

After library number 2 we headed home and then went for a walk to the neighborhood playground. Dave picked up some dinner after work and met us at the playground for a picnic dinner and the half birthday cupcakes.

It was a pretty low key day, but we still had fun, explored some place new, and did something that we wouldn't have normally done on a regular Thursday. 

Nathaniel Day 17 - Bookworm Gardens

You can now read about the idea behind Nathaniel Day and the activities of previous months by clicking on the Nathaniel Day Activities tab at the top of the page.



I had two ideas of what to do this month. One was in the Chicago area. The other was in Wisconsin. It was supposed to be really hot around us so I decided that we would head north to Sheboygan, Wisconsin, where it was supposed to be much cooler, to check out a place that I had heard about that looked like it could be fun for Abby. I had never been there before so it would be fun for me too.

I intended to leave in the morning and stop for lunch somewhere along the way. It was an hour and a half drive and it closed at 4 so I wanted to give us enough time to enjoy the whole place. We got a bit of a late start so packed a lunch and ate it in the car on our way.
We drove through heat and pouring rain but when we got there the rain stopped and it was fairly pleasant.

We had a fun afternoon exploring the gardens. They were very cute. Abby had a great time darting all around to see everything and sitting in all of the Adirondack chairs. Felicity even woke up for the last half hour that we were there so got to see some of it too.

We stayed until they closed and then played in the magic school bus that was outside the garden for a while and then it was time to get back in the car for the long trip home. Dave was able to drive partway after work so we met him at Cracker Barrel and were able to all eat there for dinner.

It was a lot of driving for one day, but it was worth it. We found a fun new place to go.

The magic school bus

Abby hanging laundry

Sitting in Papa Bear's chair

Abby watching the cute little baby fishies

Checking out Stuart Little's house