George Washington Carver Monument Park

Saturday, Christian and I headed north to Diamond, MO. His cub scout den was doing an outing to the George Washington Carver National Monument Park. It was right at an hour away and the weather was perfect for enjoying the outdoors!

The group from our wolf den!

Whenever we go to national parks, our pack always does a service project. The boys put on gloves and picked up litter in the park area when we first arrived.

But the was not a lot of litter around. The park was beautiful!

Saturday was also Art in the Park day. The park does this only two times a year.

They have tents and tables set up for kids to learn and do different art projects. From clay to paint, they had lots of great projects for the boys to do!

First, they drew along the sidewalk with sidewalk chalk! 

They had the idea of tracing themselves!

I traced Christian and he drew himself as a military soldier/Star Wars imperial fighter pilot. HA!

Having fun!

Exploring the museum

Christian and his best friend Andrew.

At 11am, we went to listen to the artist, Mike Wimmer talk about his life as an artist and how to be successful in fulfilling your dreams. He was a great public speaker and an amazing artist. The boys sat still and quiet and listened to the whole lecture for an hour. His work was amazing and I really enjoyed hearing about his life and all the art projects he has done.

Here are some of his most famous artwork...

He painted this for Disney and it was used as the movie poster and several other items advertising Lion King!

He painted this of Arnold Schwarzenegger for the movie Terminator.

His portrait of Sam Walton

After the Mike Wimmer lecture, we headed back outside to the park and did all the art projects!

Christian learned to paint with dye on a silkscreen!

He made a nature fossil project with clay!

He also did a color blocking and mixing painting!

The Joplin new channel was there and interviewed Julie, one of our den leaders, about our Cub Scout pack and activities for the day!

One of Christian's favorite projects was making cards using real flowers as color stamping. He made a card for GoGo's birthday!

One of my favorite quotes from George Washington Carver.

What a wonderful and memorable trip to the National Monument Park!

2nd grade musical and school carnival!

We have had a busy week with activities with Christian!

Monday, we had a cub scout hike at Blowing Springs Park. Tuesday, we had his school musical.

Thursday was his 2nd grade field trip to War Eagle Caverns. Friday was his school carnival!

Whew! Busy week!

The 2nd grade musical was really neat. They sang about the Water Cycle and weather.

(Christian is pictured above on the top row in the middle in a blue shirt)

The songs were clever and they even had a drum circle during one of them!

Andrew was so good during the musical. He sat still and watched all the kids sing and dance!

Friday night, we went to the spring PTO Carnival at Cooper. 

Christian's favorite game was fishing for treats! Andrew enjoyed the games too this year.

The football throw was his favorite! 

With 2nd grade coming to an end, we really enjoyed getting to do lots of activities with Christian and his classmates! I can't believe he will be in 3rd grade this fall! Time flies!

2nd Grade Field Trip to War Eagle Caverns!

This past week, I went on Christian's 2nd grade field trip!

It was my first field trip with him and his classmates at school. 

We went to War Eagle Caverns. We explore the caves, mined for gemstones and hiked the trail.

It was a really cool place to visit and we had so much fun!

We walked down the path that leads to the entrance of the caves.

We stopped off to have a view from the lookout bridge.

Beautiful view of the stream below us!

Our tour guide, Dennis, was wonderful. He was so knowledgeable and had great enthusiuasm as he told us all about the trails and the caves.

 

 

We stopped at the Fossil Rock to hear about how War Eagle used to be under water!

Christian wore his head lamp into the caves. It came handy when we were exploring since it was so dark down there. Only our tour guide had a flashlight. So all the other kids thought Christian was "so cool" with his head lamp. ;)

Sitting in one of the cave rooms and learning about how Indians and other explorers that used to come to the caves years ago. 

A bat! There were lots of bats that were sleeping on the cave ceilings while we walked around. 

We had to be careful not to bump into them and wake them up. 

After cave exploring, we went to mine for gemstones. The guide showed us how to take bags of dirt and pour them into the sifting container and wash them in the water. Then we would take out the gemstones and keep them!

Christian picked out a civil war military hat from the gift shop! He really loves his hat and has worn it all weekend too!

Next, we hiked the trail and stopped along the way to do some fossil digging.

I had a great time on the field trip with Christian and his friends!

Hiking trip!

Last night, Christian and his cub scout den went on a hiking outing at Blowing Springs park. It was a beautiful evening to go on this adventure with Christian and his buddies! He loved hiking and we stopped half way to do a little bird watching. The boys learned about hiking safety and about different birds in Arkansas.

Looks like we will be enjoying more hikes this summer!

Andrew turns 3!!!

Last weekend, Andrew turned 3 years old! I can hardly believe it! He is growing up so fast!
We had his 3rd birthday party at The Little Gym in Rogers. It was his first "friend" party where we invited all HIS friends from church and Mother's Day Out too!

We did a Toy Story theme party! But he likes so many things like Mickey Mouse, Curious George, Cars, etc. it was hard to decide. I asked Andrew and he said "Buzz Lightyear!"
Andrew had a blast playing with his friends!
Andrew and his buddy Brooks stayed together a lot!


The staff had great games to play!

Bubbles!

Basketball!

Singing songs!

Grandmother, Pops and GoGo watched all the fun!

All the MDO moms!

Andrew enjoyed being the center of attention!

Andrew was having a blast!

Time to jump!

Having fun with dad!

Almost time for cake!

So excited!


Andrew loves his birthday cake!

Time for presents! Andrew seems to be directing everyone where to sit to watch him! haha!


Andrew received so many great gifts and we were so happy that so many people were able to come celebrate with us! Andrew had a great birthday!