Mother's Day at the Japanese Garden

This morning I was greeted with a cheerful "Good Morning, Mommy,  Happy Mother's Day!" as the girls came in my room with a bowl of Cheerios.  They had made me breakfast in bed and were so excited to do it.  Shortly after breakfast they were eager for me to open their presents that they worked so diligently on.  I loved my homemade cards, bookmark, picture frame, handprints, and mini books from the girls.  Hubby picked roses from our backyard and gave me chocolates.  What awesome gifts! 

After church, we continued with our Mother's Day tradition with a Panda Express picnic at the park.  We then went to the Japanese Garden in Van Nuys for their Mother's Day celebration.  The event consisted of...

ORIGAMI

IKEBANA EXHIBITS

DOLL MAKING - DEMONSTRATION & DISPLAY

KAMISHIBI - JAPANESE STORY TELLING

 

TEA & COOKIES IN THE SHOIN BUILDING

GENERAL ADMISSION : $3.00
CHILDREN UNDER 10 AND SENIORS : $2.00

 

 

 We had wedding photographs taken here and it brought back good memories coming here for the first time since our wedding.  It was a very hot day, so we bought the girls 2 paper fans to cool down as they walked through the garden. It was very cute watching the girls fan themselves during our walk. 

Making origami flowers was our first stop in the garden.  They were simple to make and the girls had fun. They even gave us tiny vases to put the flowers in.

 We came to the shoin building where they were serving tea, lemonade and cookies for $2/person.  We sat down at the table overlooking the water sipping lemonade and eating those yummy Japanese cookies with the almond in the middle.  One of the volunteers in the shoin came over to the table to do some magic tricks for the girls which was a fun added bonus. 

We finished our stroll through the garden and headed home.  Our day continued as we went to my parent's house for our yearly tradition of eating KFC dinner while enjoying the nice evening weather in the backyard.

It was a happy Mother's Day full of love, fun and lot of food!

May the 4th be with You!

To celebrate May the 4th be with you, I found this cool 

Yoda cube craft to make (actually hubby made it).
Make your own Starwars cube craft.

The 4th was with these lucky kids when they won an 

R2D2 water cooler at the Kids Day Fishing event at Castaic Lake.

Kid's Fishing Castaic Lake

Kid's Fishing Day 2013!

Free at Castaic Lake

 

Click for Flyer info

Raffles and Prizes

Tackle Giveaway (while supplies last)

Free Hotdog Lunch

Rods, Reels and Bait Provided

Saving A Life at the Zimmer Museum

I bought a Living Social deal in December to come to the Zimmer Museum  and finally got around to using it today before it expired.  As we were putting my purse and lunch through their metal detector security area, out wobbles a 12-15 month old girl.  Assuming her mom was nearby, I didn't pay too much attention.  Then I looked back and the girl pushed the door open and walked outside.  I'm looking around for a parent, realized there wasn't one and walked out to get her.  She was just a few steps away from walking right into the street; but hubby was fast enough to grab her.  The employee took the girl and called inside the museum to report a lost girl.  The mom was completely oblivious and calmly walked to get her child.  The museum is not very big, so we saw this mom several times and noticed she always left one child to tend to the other.  Several minutes would go by with one of the kids just wondering by themselves.  It was soooo frustrating watch.  I just had a hard time believing these kids made it this far with the lack of supervision they had. 

Later on, the girl hubby saved ran a shopping cart into his leg.  I guess that was her way of saying thanks.  Hubby must have been a magnet for shopping carts cuz another kid also ran into him.  It was a day of mostly people watching as our girls managed to stay in one area for really long periods of time.  They really enjoyed the ball pit ship, the grocery store and the cafe.  For the most part the kids at the museum were behaved which made people watching a little less interesting.  We did have a stinky diaper go past us,  and some screaming babies go by (mostly from the one we saved from running into the street).  There was only a certain amount I can just sit around watching the girls play and people watch.  2 1/2 hours became my limit and we headed home.  The girls had a fun time though.

Painting with Fruit and Astronomy Day

College of the Canyons held it's annual Kid's Day event today.  While I think my 5 and 8 year old girls are getting a little too old to participate, they always find something to keep them entertained.  As we were walking along the booths, we started to smell something next to us.  It was like there was a Starbucks or bakery a few feet away.  I think the booth was advertising a preschool.  The activity was to mash up different kinds of fruit such as blueberries, strawberries, pomegranates and some others to use as paint.   The fruit were in mortars and the kids used a pestle to mash it up.  Once the fruit was all mashed up, they were given a scrap fabric and a paintbrush to paint their masterpiece. 

In the same booth was what looked like a vintage coffee grinder and coffee spread all over the blanket.   Our girls didn't participate in that activity; but  other kids seemed to enjoy grinding up their own coffee beans.  The smell of the coffee, all the fruit and some shade of that booth, kept it inviting.

After about an hour of kid's play, we went to the local library for their Astronomy day .  We got there at the time they were making telescopes from a kit.  The girls each made a telescope brought to us by Santa Clarita's local Astronomy Club.  The girls were were eager to try it out later in the evening when we went back for stargazing.  After they made telescopes, we watched a presentation on TMT, Thirty Meter Telescope.  It was very interesting to see how many people and how much time goes into building this thirty meter telescope.  Construction began in Mauna Kea, Hawaii just this month after about 20 years of planning.  I believe it will take about 10 years to complete.

After the TMT presentation, we did an astronomy scavenger hunt within the library which helped teach us some interesting facts about our solar system.  We got to also view the sun through a solar telescope.

This is the telescope we viewed the moon from.
Later in the evening we grabbed our homemade telescopes and came back for some stargazing.  We got to see the moon and it's many craters!  We also got to see Jupiter and three of it's 67 moons!  We also got to see Saturn! It was fascinating to actually see the rings around Saturn. 

 

Cheerios Bird Feeder

At the Earth Arbor Day Festival,

the girls made a cheerios bird feeder in a shape of a heart.

Supplies for this craft are:
Cheerios
Thin wire or floral wire
Ribbon for hanging

Instructions:
Bend wire into any shape such as a heart, star, circle, diamond, etc.  while leaving the ends open for threading.
Thread Cheerios onto wire.
Twist wire ends together.
Tie ribbon on top and hang.

A Mouse, Earth Arbor Day, Trashcan Art

My youngest enjoys the Laura Numeroff books such as 'If you Give a Mouse a Cookie'; so we took the girls to see a real life sized "Cookie Mouse" who paid a visit to our local library.  The librarian read a few of the story collections in English and Spanish since it was bilingual storytime day and then got to take a picture with the cookie mouse.  Hopefully, the girls picked up on some espanol today!





After meeting the mouse, we went to the Earth Arbor Day festival to be encouraged in reusing, reducing, and recycling. They had several activities for the kids to do such as making a paper bag hat, a seed bomb, a cheerio bird feeder, plant seeds, catch ladybugs, climb the rock wall, play on the swing and bounce apparatus and a bouncer.  They also had an animal show.  We caught the tail end of it and saw the porcupine.

They displayed some cool trashcan art.

 Releasing the ladybugs into our rose garden
to prey on any aphids or small pests we may have.