Alphabeticians: New Album

This week on music Friday I am letting you all know about the new album by the Alphabeticians, Junior. We attended their CD release party last weekend and the kids really enjoyed it. Not only did play play fun rock style kids music but they had a women who was making balloon animals who was amazing, and a great bubble machine.

                                                                  


If you like rock music I would suggest that you check this album out. Also if you live in the Portland area the Alphabeticians are going to be performing a lot over the summer including a free event at the New Seasons up in Vancouver, WA June 23 from 2-3. You should check out their full schedule here.

Iris Field Outing

Back in April we visited the Wooden Shoe Tulip Farm to get our flower fix. Now that tulip season has faded and summer has begun we thought a visit to the Schreiner Iris field near Salem, Oregon was in order. There are big beautiful Iris but also a couple of great display gardens that show the iris mixed with other varieties of plants to give you an idea of what you can do with your garden.

The garden is equipped with picnic tables and plenty of colorful benches through out the display gardens, perfect for sitting for a snack or a short rest. 

The kids had fun looking for bird houses, bees, lady bugs, and seeing the colors. They also enjoyed being spun around and around by my mom. I had fun pointing out that the little fuzzy thing on the inside of the Iris looks like a fuzzy caterpillar. I also enjoyed giving my kids a quick lesson with my camera, more on that to come eventually.

This was a fun place to take photos of the kids when they would cooperate which for some reason on the trip was not too often.

The next field we plan to visit is the strawberry field! I can hardly wait!

Getting Outside, Good For Everyone

One of my person favorite things to do during the spring with my kids is to get outside and go on a walk. Using the sunny days to renew my energy and fill me with warmth as well as getting my kids some much needed time to burn off steam after strings of rainy days.

There are many benefits to getting outside other than just a chance to see the beauty of the day and get my kids tucker out. A few benefits may include getting vitamin D needed for keeping us healthy and happy, it helps with absorption of calcium, keeps our brain working, helps keep our mood up, may help prevent cancer, and more. Although you can get Vitamin D from food sources why not get it from outside where it naturally and directly comes into our bodies? Also recent research has shown that getting out in nature for 20 minutes may help decrease attention and behavior problems as much as medical treatments. (Do not take my word for this. Please research it on your own if you are suffering from any problems that require medications.)

There are also numerous learning opportunities for little curious minds when you are outside. You can stop and listen for changing sounds, look for movement caused by animals or wind, talk about the ecosystem and how each part works with every other part. Talk about similarities between the things you see and differences as well. How are plants and animals the same, what is different about the insect you just saw and the worm?

One place I have really enjoyed taking the kids (so you can go if you live near by) is a national wildlife refuge called Steigerwald Lake. This is a great easy walk with lots to see and provides a very different ecological system from the forest lake near where we live.

I highly recommend checking it out they have made if very kid friendly with little statues around the walk for added interest. Or if you do not live near by try to find a Wildlife Refuge near you.

You can sort of see Mt. Hood in the distance there.

Don't forget snack time.

Looking and the salamander statue

You may not get very far during your walk, but that is not really the point right? In a previous post I talked about doing a scavenger hunt and that is a great activity to take on a walk like this. Have fun, sunny days are coming more and more as summer draws near (yeah).

There are a few more photographs from this day at my photography blog, http://emiliabrasierphotography.wordpress.com/tag/steigerwald-lake/

What is your favorite walk around your area?

Tulip Fest Outing

Every year since my son was born I have attended the Tulip Festival at Wooden Shoe Tulip Farm. In fact I have been attending since I was a kid! It has changed a lot from what I remember as a kid but it remains a great tradition. 

If you attend on the weekdays you will find that there are much fewer people to contend with (which I love). Attending on the weekend means a sort of carnival feel, with some small rides you can purchase tickets for, pony rides, food and art booths as well. 

The farm has fun slides, tire swings shaped like horses, duck races, and other activities for kids. Just be prepared to play instead of look at the fields! 

I love getting outside with the kids and it is a great perk for me that I get to take photographs of them playing around the tulips. For the younger kids talking about the colors helps them to learn their colors. The older kids can talk about how the flowers grow and their parts. Really though this outing is all about fun.

 
You can check out additional photographs from the tulip fields at my photography website emiliabrasierphotography.wordpress.com under the post Tulip Fields.

A Science Museum Outing: OMSI

In Portland, Oregon finding a good indoor activity for the winter is essential. Our family has found that over almost all other places OMSI (the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry) is the best place to go if we are spending our day inside. OMSI has something for every age group, and I do mean every age group, from infants to adults. 


OMSI has been around for as long as I can remember, in fact I can remember going there as a child with my Father. It used to be located by the zoo but moved years ago to increase the space inside. There are two stories of great educational but fun interactive science exhibits showcasing biology, engineering, chemistry, physics and more. We have two main places that we love to go and visit every time we are at OMSI. These are the Science Playground which is designed especially for kids ages 0 to 6 and Turbine Hall. 

Turbine Hall has water rockets, orbit tables, both a physics lab and chemistry lab, a room where you build ball launchers, a few water tables where to create and test out different types of boats (sail or paddle), and more. The Science Playground was recently given a makeover of sorts and now contains a brand new water play area and quite reading tent. It also has a forest discovery area where kids can pretend to be a chip monk dressing up and hiding acorns in a tree, play with puppets, and check out the inside of a cave. There is a sand play area, block building, a shopping and cooking area, and a craft area that also always features either play-doh or gak. There is so much more in this area, I really could go on for pages. 


There is one more permanent exhibit area full of things ranging from live animals like rats, turtles, and snakes, to information about nanotechnology. There is a lot of stuff in this room about the importance of staying healthy and it does a good job of giving hands on ways to help this message sink in while still being fun.


OMSI also has a Submarine tour (you have to be at least 3 to go on), a planetarium featuring a wide variety of shows, the OMNIMAX Theater, a special exhibit that changes every couple of months and a cafeteria that actually has pretty good food.


Our family highly recommends OMSI especially for these dreary winter months.