Lathams News: AN AFTERNOON AT THE LIBRARY

After spending a lovely morning at the Museum, we headed to the State Library after lunch..
Willow loves it here and found plenty of things to amuse herself here...
We did crafts and read stories, played dress ups, did puzzles, and there was lots of imaginative play.

The library is really set us well for children...
Willow loved playing in this teacup

Having a tea party

Inviting Moppy to join her....

Have a cup of tea

Every time I have been here they have had something interesting on offer to the children....
It was a bit of a mixture this year...
A little nautical...
Lots of birds..

There were little work stations at each of these that the children could use when playing with the puppets... And let me say they had some amazing puppets including and oyster shell with a pearl in it...

A bird and her nests

The floor rug and play area for babies was just as exciting and Max loved it...

Max having a rest in one of the nests

This play house kept drawing Willow back to it...

Would you like some cake Moppy

Would you like to come in here and join me....

Kathy amusing Max

Then there were the books,
lots and lots of wonderful books....
I love going here because it not only exposes Willow to lots of wonderful books I get to pour over them as well....

Story time

Willow enjoyed the story

Puppet play time now...
Lots of fun to be had and lots of little theatres that can be used...

Willow just loved this oyster puppet and spent ages playing with it...

Playing with her favourite puppet

Kathy found this amazing peacock puppet. It was so bright and colourful and Max really loved it.

Kathy with the peacock puppet..

Max enjoyed the brigth colours of the peacock...

Then it was time to do some craft and make some of our own puppets out of old toilet rolls...
Willow really enjoyed doing this...

Making her own puppets

totally engrossed in drawing on her puppet

Pretty proud of her work.

her work of art

Look Moppy.... it is all finished

She ended up making a few of them...

Next it was some construction building....

Building towers

Even Max enjoyed some tummy time with some baby toys...

fascinated by this

He is such a good baby... He was happy to play on his own as long as there were others in the room.
Next it was time for dress ups..
Willow found all sorts of things to get dressed up in...
We tried on hats

dress up time

Then she found the lad\ybug costumes and then that was it....
We had trouble getting this off her, and both Sarah and I had to wear one too.

Our little ladybug...

Even Moppy had to dress up also

Then we found the rockchair and she wanted to move them up into the window space....
She was happy to sit it in for half and hour or so and listen to some stories...

Give me a home among the gum trees

On an old rocking chair....

There were interesting tunnels too for the children to play in and Willow rang in and out of this one until finally she realized that she could ride through it herself...

the play tunnel

Willow found a ladybird ride on and was happy to ride this around the room...

riding through the tunnel

she loved this bright red phone and would often ring me on it....

Then it was back to the cubby and all the tea parties...

tea parties once again...

she loved riding this little beetle..

She found another little friend there called Heidi, and they had a wonderful time running around together....

checking out the books with her new friend Heidi

spreading her wings

a delightful ladybug

She loved this little cape and didn't want to take it off. In fact she wanted to take it home with her....

Sarah rejoined us here after her pampering.....
Willow was excited to see her and had her dress up as a ladybird also....

Mummy has to dress up as a ladybird also,,,,

both girls spread their wings...

Then Mummy had to join her for a tea party in her little cubby.

cup of tea and cake Mummy?????

It was getting close to going home time and Willow was reluctant to put the toys away. She was to keep playing... Willow found some sheep puppets and wanted to make some sheep puppets as well. I of course had to help her.. Love that we can do fun things like this together.

colouring in her sheep

totally engrossed in what she was doing...

such a beautiful age....

I love bringing Willow here...
Working in a library myself, this is as interesting and as exciting for me....
Love seeing the creative work that children do...

Some of the children's work

We left the library and decided to held to the nearest coffee shop for afternoon tea...
Sarah was pretty hungry as she hadn't had a chance to have lunch....
Willow loves these little outings and loves her baby chino's.
Today she was also keen to have a macaroon.... Loaded with sugar of course....