Afternoon on the Amazon

Today started out as one of those days. You know, the kind you wish you could rewind. Or start all over. Because if you just fast forward, the bad stuff still happened anyway. Needless to say, if another chair breaks someone is sitting on the floor, because we don't have extras anymore. And thankfully that carpet really does get stains out very easy!

So, it seemed maybe out of the house was a better place for us today. I took the kids to the paint store, so the boys' room could get a second coat. And they actually were very good helpers. Several of the workers even commented on how well they helped. Since Liam (yeah, the 4 year old!) was begging for us to learn about Brazil this week, I decided today would be a good day to do that. We picked up some supplies from Hobby Lobby, came back home, and actually finished out the day nicely.

Here is a picture of what we made with our supplies from Hobby Lobby:

Brazilian Rain Forest Diorama

We didn't glue down the animals and the person because the kids wanted to play with it. I bought a glue gun for this project and figured I had used enough glue that it should be okay to play with. They were so excited that they ran and told their neighbor friend. He came and played with it for a bit too. It took me us about 2 hours to do. Fortunately, Sarena slept the whole time. Otherwise it would have been a lot longer.

Kieran and Liam surprised me by knowing every animal we put on there. Kieran learned about the canopy, understory, and  forest floor while we did this. The very top is the emergent layer. Anyway, it was neat and the boys were very disappointed to learn that Rio de Janeiro is not the capital of Brazil (not since 1960).

One more picture and story from today. I was busy in the kitchen and I heard Liam sounding out m-o-m, mom. I look into the living room and he is at the front window with a piece of paper and pen. So, here is what he did:

So, I wonder if I should start teaching him how to write.....