Our New Baby

Remember the post about some caterpillars eating my parsley?

Those of you that commented on the other post were right. It's a swallowtail. Black Swallowtail to be exact and even more precise it's a girl. We have a girl. She will finish drying out her wings tonight and tomorrow she will be on her way.

We have three more to go. By the way, my parsley is growing back.

Continued...

We saw some amazing flowers at the next place we went to. I have never ever seen these before. This was a great surprise. Don't you just think they are great?

So where did we go? We went to the Children's Museum. They had an outdoor flower area and these flowers were there. I am still amazed at the beauty.

Of course the inside was great too. The A/C was wonderful. My baby loved the different things to do. He had never been there. The older two had but my baby hadn't.

They had this area to climb that was so cool. At least my baby thought so.


The mirror was fun. Can you tell? He thought it was so funny. It had a crank on the side to move the mirror and change the shape of his body. He was all smiles with all those mirrors.

Then there was the climbing wall. He had to try that. We all had a great time. Indoors and out.

Hope we get to do more fun things this week.

Saturday Nature Morning

Texas has been extremely hot and there has been record breaking hot temperatures this past week. Breaking the hundred degree mark was not hard at all this past week.

Needless to say we stay indoors most of the day with the A/C on to get a little relief.

This Saturday was different though. Not because of the heat but because we had to drive to Houston and leave hubby at the airport. Hubby will be at a week long school. We had to be at the airport by 6:30am which meant we had to leave home at 4:30am. Oh my, I am so tired but we had fun.

I took the boys first thing in the morning before the heat come on full force somewhere fun. Where did we go? We went to the Houston Arboretum and Nature Center. We saw flowers, mushrooms, squirrels, birds and butterflies. Oh and did I forget to say we had fun.

The mushrooms were on the nature trail and was the first thing we saw there. There were some beautiful butterflies. There were dark ones and orange ones. Beautiful creations!

Since we were there early, early in the morning there was still dew drops everywhere. No this was not from a rain storm. Houston has gotten more rain than we have where I live but I think they are still far behind in getting their rain for the year.

We had a nice time and plan on doing that again but it will have to be early in the morning or later on in the year.

Take a look at some of the fun the boys had out there. Not only was there trials and tons of flowers but some fun things. We didn't make it to the Discovery Center because it opened up too late but we had a nice time anyway.




Of course, my oldest has to have fun while I'm taking pictures. What a ham!

These were some of the things we did at the nature center. I never thought that there could be such a beautiful place like that in Houston. Houston is a city in all sense of that word. It's a major city but having this place to go to has to be very refreshing. It was for us.

That's me, ready to leave because the heat is starting to get to me. It was 9:30am and it was already hot by then. Now this was not all we did in Houston. After this we had to have A/C so we went to another place. We hadn't been there since the older boys were small.

To be continued......

Summer Time Is Here

With temperatures soring over the 100 degree mark we stay mostly indoors with the A/C on but later afternoons is pool time. Do you like his smile? His new tooth is coming in.

Ok time to get back to the pool.

Parsley Invasion - Nature Picture Quiz

No, the parsley is not taking over but click on the picture and see what is taking over my parsley plant. I went out last night and my plant is almost all gone. I've got to get a few of these little caterpillars and put them in our bug home and watch them transform. I think there must have been around 10 or so of them eating up my parsley. If they were not going to turn out to be such a beautiful butterfly I would salvage my plant.

Can you guess at what they will become? Any guesses? Come on, take a guess.

Nature Time...Pigeon, Purple Martins and a Cow Killer

We had a nice day today. After spending some volunteer time this morning we went to visit a friend. The kids had a great time and of course us moms talked books and homeschool stuff. After a while she told us she had a pigeon nesting on her plant outside. So of course we had to go see. There is momma but after a little light watering she moved and we saw some of what we thought were the ugliest babies. LOL

Two babies starting to get their feathers but still a bit fuzzy. They lay there quietly while all the kids climbed a ladder to take a peek. All the while mom was checking us out in a tree close by. I guess she didn't trust us.

This is a white-winged dove. If you click on the picture you can see a blue color around the eye. Pretty neat! We hadn't noticed the blue till I made the picture bigger on the computer.

We also saw Purple Martins. These birds are in the swallow family but

the blue on it is beautiful. You can only see a little blue on the head of some of the birds but believe me that I tried and tried to get a better picture. I want one of these purple martin homes.

Last but not least....have you seen a Cow Killer (aka Red Velvet Ant, Red Wasp). Although this looks like an ant it is from the wasp family. So why is it called a Cow Killer? Well those that are unfortunate enough to get stung say that the pain could kill a cow. I know I would never want to get stung by something like that. OUCH!!! The female lays her eggs next to the larva of a bumble bee in the nest and the future cow killer had food to grow up on.

Isn't the color amazing? The boys enjoyed our nature finds today. We looked up information on the internet and in my large assortment of ID books. Oh and I did check out iBird on my iPod and found the Purple Martin. We all took turns hearing it also. Did I mention that I liked my iBird program? Oh, yes, I did.

Learning through IPod

So are you wondering how this can be done? What can you learn from an ipod? I'm behind the times on some things like texting. Nope, don't do it. Maybe one day I will jump into that world but for now I am happy without it.

Hubby got me one for our anniversary. Boy, have I used it and continue to us it and it is for school. What a great excuse, right? So what do I have on it for school? Well, I have some games but not just mindless games but math games, sign language games, one called Art Gallery, audio books like Treasure Island, matching games where you have to remember where an object is and match it to another one. There is one called iZoo which shows you animals and their sounds. Now my two favorite ones are iBird Pro and Love Art. iBird has lots of birds their description and the sound they make. It is a wonderful program. Then Love Art has art by daVinci, van Gogh, Botticelli, van Rijn, van Eyck, Renoir and others. It also has wonderful descriptions and a little insight into art. Of course, the boys also like the calculator and guessing at their answer and seeing that they are right. I also have the whole Bible loaded on there along with other books and magazines that we listen to a little everyday after dinner.

Technology is wonderful and can be fun for learning especially when we are sitting waiting for a doctor or dentist appointment. It's not all sitting at the table with our books. It's not all boring because sometimes these advances make it fun. Now what else can I get that is cool but educational? Has to be educational. LOL

A Baby Milestone

My baby with his first missing tooth. Ok, so the adult tooth had already come in behind the baby one but this morning he got up and pulled that baby tooth out. He was so excited like this one missing tooth made him into a big boy now. How fun to be able to share in his excitement.

Fresh Veggies

I went out today after being away the weekend and look at all I picked. Click on the picture to see it all better. If you notice I have some green beans. Now there were only two left of the purple kind. Yes, purple green beans. We had to try that. When you cook them they go from purple to green. They tasted the same as the others and it was neat to see them. We are having salad and zucchini's tonight. We will also have some tiny carrots with sour cream dip. Yum!! The boys are excited about eating our own veggies. So how are your gardens?

Living Math and Loving It

We gave it a try. I always go to Jimmie and her blog here and here when I want an idea of something I want to accomplish. She has a ton of info out there for homeschool. She has a ton of pages on squidoo also. Just in those pages and blogs I can find lots of what I need. There are a few other homeschool moms out there that inspire me. Sometimes, I just need inspiration.

The idea for this math lesson came about as I was IMing with a friend last night. She is doing fractions with a chocolate bar and I've been wanting to find a fun way to teach that. We have stopped at fractions in math for now. We have been doing Rod and Staff math for a few years now and I love it. My middle son finds it too tedious. The baby loves it and loves to see the progress.

Now that I gave all the credit where credit was due for today's math lesson I have to tell you that our lesson although a bit short today was soooo yummy and fun. No we didn't do the chocolate bar. I got up early today which is a nice change since like I said in my last post the medication I am on starts wearing off by Monday night. So, I got up early and went to the donut shop. Yep, we used donuts for our math lesson today. Oh and it was soooooo yummy. My baby picked up fractions very quickly but still needs some more instruction. I guess I will have to get something else to eat. hehehe As you can tell in the picture they sure did enjoy our math lesson today.

I cut that donut into 4 pieces. As they ate each piece I asked how much they ate and how much was left. This lesson didn't last too long though. It was gone and done with too quickly. At first they were not too happy that this was a lesson but when they learned this would take place of their math book today they were delighted.

Now that we started on fractions I saw this book suggestion on Jimmies blog called Family Math and we will do the Making a Fraction Kit on page 120. I got this book at the library but will be ordering it soon to add to our library here at home.

We'll be having more fun soon.

Learning to Live With Life

I haven't posted much lately and I don't post much about myself much either. Having said that life has finally got to me. Some of you already know but for those that don't I was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis. I've had this for a long time but I had not been able to get anyone to diagnose me. Now that I have been diagnosed I am on some interesting medication that is supposed to help. Well, good thing we are at the end of our school year. Seems like it will take a while to figure out what medication will work for me. At the moment I take 6 pills on Wed. and by Thurs. I am sleeping most of the day. I don't come out of my medication induced sleep till the following week which is almost time for my next date with those little pills again.

Hubby does most of the driving and I do most of the sleeping. I love looking out the windows and seeing the sights but now with these new meds I seem to be very tired most of the time.

We will be adjusting our schedule as I adjust mine. I will be going for regular blood work because of these meds. I also have some more tests to do on my knee which I fell on while vacationing in Colorado and it is still giving me trouble. No broken bones but the doctor thinks I might have torn something. LOVELY!!!

So if I don't post much for a while you will know why. It's not that I don't want to do school but rather that I can't because I'm probably sleeping. hehehe Not a good thing but it's what I have to do for now.

Another Garden Update

Just wanted to show you an update on our garden. Can't wait to try that cantaloupe. Those little tomatoes are yellow and they are just about ready. Little salad yellow tomatoes that are tasty. I'm planting some more seeds of corn because these are almost ready. That zucchini is almost ready to eat.



Hope it rains today so I don't have to water but probably have to go out there with the hose. I can still hope for rain, right? Don't forget to click on the pictures to see them better.

Frogs, Frogs and more Frogs

If you all don't know let me tell you that here in my part of Texas we are in a drought. Big time drought. We need rain to have frogs. There is this project that I wanted to do with the boys but didn't have the frogs to see so we went to the zoo. Of course, there is nothing better than a field trip to brighten up our day. This went along great with a new book that is at our library. It's called...what else but Face to Face with Frogs.

That was an awesome book. The pictures were great and the info was wonderful. We saw pictures of different colored frogs from different parts of the world.

One interesting fact we learned was that some of these frogs get their poison from eating ants. Interesting!! We got in my bed to read the book. Of course we didn't read it all at once. I had to make it last at least two times. We all love reading while laying in my bed together. More bonding time. I just love it.

Our lessons are not always just reading great books and field trips but adding a fun project to go with it. I ordered the Hearts and Trees Spring Kit and it went perfect with what we had done already.

The boys got to draw a picture of a frogs life cycle and we attached it to the lapbook. There was coloring going on and putting it all together. There is still more to do with the spring kit but that is for another time.

The boys enjoyed all the time we spent doing this and as soon as our drought ends we will be looking for frogs in our backyard.

We are slowly inching our way towards more of a CM family and enjoying it.

Nature Explorers

A new site has opened up and has some freebies to kick off their site. Are you interested in nature and want to have it all put together for you to use? This is the site to go to then. Can't wait to have one of these little creations in my hands. Make sure to visit their new site to join in on the fun. It's called Shining Dawn Books.

A Work in Progress

I thought I would share some pictures of our garden. It is just growing and growing. Soon we will eat us some corn and cucumbers. Today I'm making some green beans. I planted pole and bush but I also found some purple green beans. The purple green beans are supposed to turn green when you cook them. It should be interesting to see how they taste.

We will soon have bell peppers too. The tomato plants have a ton of tomatoes but still have to mature. YUM!! Just thinking about it all is making me hungry.

Enjoy the pictures of the progress of our garden.