Get out there!

We are joining the Great Outdoor Challenge at 5 Orange Potatoes. The challenge is to get outside, rain or shine, every day and do something in nature. I have been trying so hard to get out there with the kids more and this challenge is perfect for me... I love a challenge! April is Children and Nature Awareness Month so there is no better time than the present to help your children with getting closer to the planet and all of it's wonders that God created for us to enjoy!

We started off the challenge with a little home building for the local faeries. This involved plenty of gathering, thinking, and imagining with my girl, Marah. Alex explored the rock bed while we were working on our project. Marah was ready to get very detailed and wanted to make swimsuits for the faeries but I told her that faeries swim naked so that got me out of that! Maybe one day I'll get up the motivation to sew tiny swim suits but I need to be prepared for that, I'm not that spontaneous... but I'm working on it. I suppose I could at least make some little towels for them, that shouldn't be much work.

Very proud of the work she put in to this little faerie house!

I think my favorite part of building the faerie house was when Marah said to me "We should make a cross so the faeries can know that Jesus died." Well, I couldn't think of a better message to share with our faerie friends! And so we did just that, fashioning a cross from two twigs and binding it with some dried plant leaves.

On that cross, as Jesus died, the lamb of God was satisfied.

While we were out there building we discovered this little ant very hard at work carrying a tiny spider, I can only assume, back to his colony for supper. Let me tell you, it was quite fascinating to watch! Marah and I grabbed our magnifying glasses and watched it trudging through the rough terrain, losing it's prey several time and having to backtrack and grab it again (the spider was still alive and would start crawling away each time the ant lost its' grip). I marveled at how hard this little ant was working! God's creation is truly amazing.

He works hard for the money!

Once we had our magnifiers we toured the yard and took a nice, up-close look at the plants and moss and many textures of nature in our tiny yard. I can't wait to go down to the river banks and do the same with so much more to explore!

So, will you join the challenge? Lots of awesome ideas to challenge you over at 5 Orange Potatoes!

Make each day count!