October, you're gorgeous

Linked up at The Jenny Evolution, Parent Club, Carrie with Children, Feed Me Dearly, Random Mommy.

Fall in New England

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The Axis of Ineptitude is at it again this month with a great list of blog prompts.

Today, we're talking Fall.

Fiery fall

My mom sent me this gorgeous photo over the weekend. Looks like Ohio has some spectacular fall color this year! Doug and Phee are getting to see the end of the color in New Hampshire this week. Me? I'm in Texas, waiting for a bit of color change, but thoroughly enjoying the cooler temps.

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The Axis of Ineptitude is back at it this month. Today's prompt is change. If you have a post that fits with that today, wordless or not, feel free to link it up.



Linked up at A Star in My Own Universe, Home of OHM, Seasonal Family Fun, The Jenny Evolution, Raising My Boys, Enjoying this Life.

Cloudy morning sunrise

Rain's End

While driving a couple weeks ago, the rain let up and the sun popped out. And this gorgeous rainbow followed us all the way to our destination. As we drove, we could actually see the end of the rainbow, in a field, in front of a house, through a tree... it was the most amazing thing.

Linked up at The Jenny Evolution, Mary Denman, A Star in My Own Universe.

Early morning

Linked up at Gay NYC Dad, Mrs. Tee, A Star in My Own Universe, Carrie with Children, Fresh Mommy Blog, Dagmar's Home.
 

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Come find Life in Random Bits on Facebook and Pinterest for more fun!

Wish I was here...

Growing up, every summer my family went to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan where an aunt and uncle have a summer house. As far as you can go: Copper Harbor. It's gorgeous. Some of my family is there this week and I wish we could have managed the trip this year. Doug's only been once and it will be so much fun to take Phee. Next time for sure!

Linked up at The Jenny Evolution, A Star in My Own Universe, Dagmar's Home, Frugality is Free, Feed Me Dearly.

Beautiful Ohio

Beautiful Lake Erie. I've always loved this spot by a park in Huron.

I passed this field outside of town so many times as a child. Always looking for the sheep.

Rolling fields of hay, corn, and beans dotted with trees and farms. Gorgeous Ohio.

 Winter wheat fields, green before everything else in the spring, swaying in the breeze.

“The fruition of the year had come and the night should have been fine with a moon in the sky and the crisp sharp promise of frost in the air, but it wasn't that way. It rained and little puddles of water shone under the street lamps on Main Street. In the woods in the darkness beyond the Fair Ground water dripped from the black trees.”                                           Sherwood Anderson, Winesburg, Ohio

Linked up at Texifornia.

Fairy Houses

Linked up at The Jenny Evolution, Dominique's Desk, A Star in My Own Universe, Mary Denman, A Mama's Corner of the World.

Wildflower Morning

We spent a gorgeous morning at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center yesterday. There weren't as many plants and trees in bloom as I'd imagined there would be, but the grounds were still lovely and green. My mom's in town for the week and it was snowing again in Ohio when she left, so she was just happy to be able to see the ground and not have to wear a winter coat!

Phee had a lovely time running around exploring, following paths, and smelling tiny flowers. If you're in or around Austin, it's definitely worth the trip and should be absolutely gorgeous in two or three weeks!

Aannddd... Spring!

{apparently Texas just needed a couple warm days for Spring to start}

Linked up at A Star in My Own Universe, Wordless Wednesday, Julie Jewels, Random Mommy, A Colorful Adventure, The Jenny Evolution.

Water lily

{Mayfield Park, Austin}

Partly sunny

Hail

{Nothing says 'First Day of Spring' like hail.}

Vintage

Clouds or water

Cardboard Garden

Sweet Phee is really into her primary colors right now. I'll have another post about that soon. On Sunday, after watching a recent favorite episode of Curious George, she asked if she could plant primary color carrots. She asked right at 5:00 as I was getting ready to make dinner, while simultaneously trying to watch my first full game of the hockey season. Ah, kids...

Phee was not happy when I said we didn't have any seeds to plant. I quickly came up with a very cool idea, though, which she has been enjoying all week. We still have some random leftover boxes from Christmas kicking around the garage. I grabbed a small, square box that didn't have a bunch of printing on it. I used construction paper in primary colors and some cereal boxes from the recycling bin to make carrots. (Please excuse the yellow pictures from a darkish room.)

Voila! Phee has her own 3 carrot garden to play with. She can plant the carrots, pick the carrots and make up endless stories and songs about her tiny garden. It's been a hit all week!

This is a great project for planting season. You could make a separate "plot" for different kinds of veggies. Or, use a couple big boxes (paper boxes would be sturdy enough for toddler play) and add different veggies as you plant them, or as they start to grow, or when you start to harvest them. It's a great way for kids to continue to learn about the food that you're growing while they're playing with their friends and stuffed animals.

Materials

• construction paper
• thin cardboard, like cereal boxes
• adhesive
• cardboard box
• scissors

Directions

1. Set up your cardboard box. I taped one end of ours closed, but left the other open so that we could easily retrieve any veggie that got stuffed all the way into the box.
2. Decide how many veggies will fit on one side of your box and then cut slits in the box for the veggies to fit into.
3. Cut out your veggies of choice. You can print out clip art and cut it, or just draw them freehand.
4. Feel free to embellish the veggies with crayons or markers to add some detail.
5. Back the cut out veggies on thin cardboard. I used cereal and cracker boxes that were in the recycling bin.
6. Plant those veggies in the box and have fun pretend gardening! 

{our garden plot box ready with slits}

{our primary color carrots}

{we left one side open so we could retrieve lost veggies}

Do your kids like to help out in the real garden when it's time to plant or harvest? Do they have a favorite garden book?

linked up at

Just Us Four

momnivore's dilemma
Flashback Friday

Tracks

Tasting snow

We went to Ohio for a long weekend at my mom's house. We got just a dusting of snow, but enough that Phee could go run around and play for a few minutes. I accidentally switched my phone camera to video and got this super short clip.

Her expression is priceless.

Cloudy