Saturday, August 28, 2010

LittleBear starts "reading"

LittleBear is starting to get the hang of these things we call "books." We read to him before every nap and bedtime, as well as at other random times. In the last couple of weeks he's started pulling out books himself and "reading" them himself -- flipping through the pages and talking to himself (in words we don't yet understand). See here, for example:



As you can see, he doesn't always get the book oriented correctly, but really, what does that matter? It's just a different point of view!

The book he's reading in the video is Growl Goes the Bear, part of a four-volume set (along with Meow Goes the Cat, Moo Goes the Cow and Ribbit Goes the Frog). These fine literary masterpieces were found in the dollar section at Target (they're not even on Amazon!) and come complete with googly eyes!

All four books (but particularly Growl Goes the Bear) -- seem to be his favorites. He laughs and laughs at the animal sounds ("GROWL" goes the bear, "HOO HOO" goes the owl, etc.). So cute!

Thursday, August 19, 2010

Fun Things From Our Backyard: Butterflies!

Last Saturday (yes, I'm a bit behind in my posting...sorry), I was reminded yet again why I love looking into our backyard in the summertime. The butterflies were back!! Earlier this summer, the Monarchs came through as they usually do, and we saw some Western Tiger Swallowtails as well, but this day I actually saw a few Black Swallowtails with the Western Tiger Swallowtails, which I hadn't seen in our yard before. Of course, I had to go out and see them "in person."

Here's another!
Follow that butterfly!
Then I spotted this guy, who was hands down the largest butterfly I have seen in the wild, but who also had been caught by something (possibly before his wings hardened). He could still fly really well though considering his wings were shredded.
Here he is again:
Here's one of our Western Tiger friends:
And here they are flying together:
Of course after all this we had to bring LittleBear in on the action, so Jeff read to him from My, Oh My A Butterfly, which we all thoroughly enjoyed!