Flowers For Days

After many weeks of waiting for the non-stop rain to stop (and a fun trip to soggy Seattle later), we woke up with the sun blazing through our windows. It was glorious! It made me want to spring out of bed and get outside, and take 900 million pictures. When we finally got outside (after several diaper changes, breakfast, nap time, three kid outfit changes, a snack, and cleaning up some mysterious green goo off our floor), it was like everything had been injected with an Instagram filter. Honestly I might or might not have done this dance when no one was looking - I'll leave you guessing. 

It's also been so nice to have a natural end to days full of rain and play dough. Not that I really mind making play dough and brainstorming shiny stuff to stick in it. But at some point we had to move on to better smelling stuff - like flowers. 

Speaking of flowers, this week I purposely left small, pretty bouquets laying around the house and outside (wool, yarn, and toilet paper tubes also provide hours of inspiration, I've found). I do this when I'm knee deep in a good book, and I'm hoping the children will see it as an invitation to play. Here are some things Sister and Brother Butterfly did with flowers this week, while I finished this delightful classic closeby: 
-arrange them in a vase before dinner, 
-glue petals to paper for a pretty picture
-explore them with hands, scissors, mirrors, and maybe even a lick or two,
-they are the perfect material to make birds nests, fairy wands, and fairy soup,
-grow real and imaginary gardens with them, 
-stick them in leftover rainy day play dough 
-whack a sibling over the head with one (didn't see a thing)

Here's hoping your week is full of sunshine + sweet smell of flowers + hours of child-led imaginative play!