I try to create a culture of celebration in our home. For life, for the little things, for wonder and for whimsy. I try to find the beauty around us and teach my son Wyatt to find it, and appreciate it and love it as well.
We are a homeschool family, and we love it. We love the freedom it gives us to explore a topic or idea more deeply, and I like that I can adjust our schedule around Wyatt’s other needs. Wyatt has cerebral palsy and epilepsy, and his week often has therapy, doctor’s appointments, naps peppered throughout which would make a traditional school schedule difficult. He is also an asynchronous learner, and I love that I can tailor learning to where Wyatt is at that moment.
We have a house full of animals and will probably add more because we like a zoo. We have one cat, Miso, who is a rescue. She is 14 years old and my little floofy girl. We also have one leopard gecko, Luna, a pictus gecko named Harlow, a pacman frog named Freddy, and two crested geckos, Applejack and Oliver. We love all of our little friends!
My husband Billy, Wyatt, and I are all curious, creative, stubborn humans which makes for some fun times around here. We love the outdoors, except we are not made for high temps so we retreat inside when the temps start to soar. We are nature lovers through and through. We are trying to downsize our lives too, to live more simply, to buy things that last and eat real food from small local farmers. (and of course Goldfish crackers) We live seasonally and are always up for adventure. We love books and reading, and can be found at the library at least once a week!
So at last count, last update here I had three huge mongo Black Swallowtail (BST) caterpillars, and three tiny bebe caterpillars. I also had one Luna Moth cocoon. Things have changed.
Last Wednesday, we had mom’s night at my friend Kelly’s house. Besides having a blast with my crew, l left with four monarch caterpillars and one tiny BST caterpillar. Kelly has been rearing butterflies and caterpillars for years, but she is getting her kitchen entirely remodeled and couldn’t take these littles in right now. So I took them home!
This is what they looked like last Wednesday when I brought them home.
This is how they look today, a week later.
They are getting so big! I will be running around getting milkweed to feed them multiple times a day soon, as they will start munching through the leaves faster and faster. Then they will go into chrysalis! Monarchs have a beautiful chrysalis so I am excited to see them.
As for the black swallowtails, we have all but one in chrysalis! Their process is a bit different. They find a spot, and it happens slowly, where a monarch is sort of quicker and more explosive. I took pictures at four intervals of one of the BST’s going into chrysalis, and it is pretty neat. They pick a spot, glom on, make a silk string sling, and then sort of turn into the chrysalis slowly. I am not sure of the science behind it but it is crazy to watch.
As for our Luna Moth cocoon – it hatched! They only live a few days, and have no mouths. They only live long enough to reproduce and that is it.
We kept it in the enclosure for a day or two then released it on the night of the full Strawberry moon – it just felt appropriate for a Luna Moth. It was also International Fairy Day, and I was thinking – if it were hundreds of years ago, before scientific understanding of creatures, and I saw one of these moths, I could see myself thinking I was maybe seeing a fairy. A little fanciful, but can you see it too?
So as of today, we have four hungry monarch caterpillars, five BST in chrysalis, and one BST baby that is growing! I am hoping that by next Wednesday’s update I will have a few more chrysalis hanging around!
If you missed the first post, you can find it here!
Hoo boy has it been hot and sticky around here. My least favorite weather. Wyatt and I have been hiding inside as much as possible, in our sluggish air conditioning (but hey at least it is still working, although having a bit of a struggle..) for the most part. Neither of us do well in the heat – we just wilt and whine. I start guzzling the iced tea about noon, and he is getting more screen time than normal, and frankly, I am ok with it for right now. It seems like this is what is happening in every household around us though, the street is eerily quiet. No one is out and about. Pretty sure Dash is the only one in this house enjoying this weather.
We did do some stuff over the weekend though!
On Sunday afternoon we hopped in our car and headed off to Jurassic Quest, a drive-thru dinosaur event. I bought the tickets a few months ago, not knowing what kind of summer we were going to have. I figured we would start out easy, with a car based experience. Thank goodness, since it was a billion degrees outside. Since we were going like five miles an hour and my brother was the driver of the car behind us, I allowed Wyatt to sit on my lap rather in his seat, and held onto him like he was going to fly out the window at any second.
From an adult perspective, it was a wee bit lackluster. However, I guess for six year olds it was cool. Wyatt was waving and saying hi to all the dinos as we drove by. They did have an audio as well, that hooked up to the car radio that told about the period of dinosaur and a bit about it, so that was pretty neat.
Afterwards we parked in the lot and hung out with my brother and his family a bit. The kids enjoyed playing in the back of the Outback, and we joked that had this been the 1980s we probably could have all driven there in one car and just let the kids roll around in the back, without seats or seatbelts. I distinctly remember a trip to Pennsylvania for a family reunion one year and my cousin and I in the way way back, laying down in the back part of a station wagon. On the turnpike.
The kids compared loot from their souvenir bags that we pre-ordered with the tickets and Wyatt gave Dino Girl a little leather bracelet that he had made for her with Billy. It was super cute. Overall, it was fun to get out and do something, plus the kids had fun, and that is what matters!
The rest of the weekend it actually rained, so I feel like we lucked out in timing for the event. No rain!
I hope you are all enjoying the day wherever you are today!
Hey all! It’s Dino Day here! I had forgotten that we had bought tickets for Jurassic Quest, a drive-thru dinosaur event near us. I was writing appointments in my planner and saw it in there, thank goodness! I always have weird low key anxiety before these things – I am a person who likes detailed instructions about how to go about this stuff, like what to expect when we get there, when we should get there – like right at our scheduled time? Half an hour earlier? Planning is so hard. Lol. It will be fun though, I think Wyatt will dig it. So we have that coming up this afternoon. I wasn’t sure we were going to be able to go though yesterday, as the freeways around us were all closed. All of them. We had some serious rain and our county was flooded. Our governor declared a State of Emergency and everything. I checked the directions online though and there are ways for us to get to the event still so it’s a go. Things are still flooded but getting better. Let’s just hope that we don’t get more rain making it hard for us to get home!
I haven’t been reading much. Or watching much tv. I don’t really know what I have been doing. I did have a girls night the other day which was really great. It is always good to get together with my crew. And I left with five caterpillars! My friend raises caterpillars as well, but her kitchen is under a complete remodel and she is not ready or set up to do it right now – so I got to take them home! I will do another Butterfly Project post this week with updates- time moves fast when you are a caterpillar, as there are changes to report already.
Read Last Week:
I’m on a bit of a Barbara Michaels revisit. I have tried so many books and DNF’d them all – and honestly I think it’s me, not them. I’ve got my mom reading Michaels now too which is neat. I didn’t actually start this one until Friday night so I am not super far into it. I will finish it up this week.
I also started Oceanic by Aimee Nezhukumatathil , which is a gorgeous book of poetry. I am loving it and I want to read more by her.
Reading This Week:
Speaking of Aimee Nezhukumatathil, I am also starting this book by her this week. It has been on my list for a bit and I think it is the right time to read it.
I think we are going to start watching Sweet Tooth on Netflix tonight. As for what we have been watching, not really much. We have been rewatching Death in Paradise. We love that show and it has been years since we watched the first season. When Wyatt was a tiny baby we used to have to hold him for half an hour after he ate due to reflux, and he ate every two hours so we were pretty much always just sitting holding him or he was eating, since it also took half an hour to feed him the smallest amount of food (like seriously a few a ounces. Preemie life. Lol) That is when we started watching Death in Paradise and it was so funny, even as a little baby he would dance to the theme song. It was like this little chest popping type dance while he was eating. Now he still dances to it. It cracks us up. Anyway. We also watched Luca the other night, and loved it. It was so cute! We felt like it was a real buddy movie, an underdog story, and a story about accepting differences.
These two wild and crazy kindergartners graduated last week! Next year, first grade! We had a small little family gathering, pizza, cake, and gifts for these hard workers. They have learned and grown so much this past year! In addition to their normal curriculum, we have studied over 28 animals, five different plants, three countries, one state, had a Nordic Christmas, and learned about some fascinating people, like Edgar Allen Poe, Jane Goodall, and Martin Luther King Jr. I also made these little memory books and t-shirts for the kids.
But this doesn’t mean our learning is over! Homeschooling, the summer edition, has commenced. We finished up our oceans study with a fun day devoted to mermaids!
We started with some blue hair. The kids were excited, even though Wyatt looks sort of not happy in this photo. Lol. My mom and I added some to our hair too, but you couldn’t see it in mine unfortunately. My niece decided we were all different types of mermaids – I was a moon mermaid, Wyatt a river mermaid, Dino Girl was an arctic mermaid, and my mom a lake mermaid. I think these were perfect choices for us.
Once we were ready for the sea with our blue hair, we switched on Luca, and started with our art project. It was extremely messy but very fun, and I love the way they turned out!
One little mermaid got so covered in paint that he had to borrow his mermaid cousin’s clothing until the paint dried on his own. (She had spare clothes at my mom’s house where we were – apparently I did not think of this) It was worth all the mess though, I think they look so cool! It was actually pretty easy too. I cut out a free template that I printed out of a mermaid and taped it to watercolor paper. Then the kids used finger paint to swirl the paint like water over the entire thing. We used five different shades of blue and green! Once the paintings dried almost to completion I peeled the mermaid template off. I didn’t want the paint completely dry since I had to cover up the area where the tape was, and I used the still sort of wet paint to fill in those blank spots. Next time I will roll the tape and put it underneath. You can see where the kids were overzealous and got paint under the mermaid template, but I think that is ok. It keeps them unique! I also had picked up some ocean art kits from Michael’s Craft store and let the kids play with those while they just created and watched the movie.
We finished up our mermaid celebration with mermaid floats and story time! Just lemonade, sparkling flavored water, and a little rainbow sherbet to make these magical drinks! (the recipe is from The Fairy Food Cookbook – I just changed the name from Rainbow Float to Mermaid) The kids absolutely loved them. They loved the whole day really! It was a great time, and a fun way to end our unit on the ocean!
What a great way to start summer! Next month is all about Italy and I can’t wait.
If you read here regularly, you have probably heard about our butterfly project. This year, I wanted to raise and release butterflies. Monarchs in particular, but I am also raising Black Swallowtails as well. I have read that statistically, 98% of Monarch eggs never make it to butterflies, due to predation and parasitism (did you know wasps can and will lay eggs inside butterfly eggs caterpillars, and chrysalis? You can wait all that time and have a wasp emerge.) As for Black Swallowtails, 1 out of 100 eggs make it to butterflies. And many people have decided to try to give these pollinators a helping hand – and this year I am trying as well.
I started by visiting a local nursery that is all about butterflies. They have tables of plants, labeled by butterfly. The plants are organic, raised without pesticides by the garden center owners themselves. If you get plants with pesticides, you will unfortunately kill your cats (caterpillars). So it is important to make sure your plants are clean and safe. They all have preferred food – monarchs only eat milkweed, but black swallowtails are not as picky. They have a wider selection to choose from, and easy to grow plants too, like parsley, dill, fennel, carrots, rue, and lovage. They will eat and eat and eat and it feels like you have to keep feeding them constantly – probably because you are. They also make a big giant mess too – caterpillars also poo a lot. (although their poo is called frass)
That photo at the top is how our project began. Three tiny tiny little cats. In their first stage they are wee little things, and black and white, as a natural defense against predators (who think they are just bird poop. so much poop here in this post) As they grow they are yellow and black, and seriously it will be overnight that they change.
Tiny wee baby. Although, they start off much smaller. Almost like a speck of dirt if you aren’t looking. Don’t put these babies in with big caterpillars either, they will be munched and eaten. I learned that the hard way, poor number four was lost to the belly of a caterpillar.
And like I said they eat like crazy. So you have to make sure you have enough to sustain the population you bring in. Right now I am doing ok – I have six caterpillars but three are tiny and three are about to go into chrysalis, so I only have to worry about feeding those three bebes.
I like to see what pattern they are. Some are more black, some more yellow. I didn’t expect that. I expected uniformity. I love nature.
You sort of get an idea of when they are going to go into chrysalis. They start wandering around, going walkabout I call it, and then for a final treat they expel a bunch of waste from their bodies. It’s gross but I guess they don’t want to drag that on to the next stage.
Today, I had to upgrade their tank. I now have three little tanks going – one tiny little one that I call the nursery for the very smallest, a smallish tank (pictured up top) for when they get a bit bigger, then a huge mongo one for the huge mongo caterpillars. I lucked out, my in-laws found that tank on the curbside for the garbage and grabbed it for me. Free giant tank!
Black Swallowtails can stay in chrysalis a really long time. Like years. So that is something to consider if you are thinking about raising butterflies. And to be a more butterfly friendly, it is recommended as well to have your tanks (rather than small jars) somewhere that experiences a day/night cycle and natural temps. And then know, that you will be their slave, feeding them constantly, which means cutting the leaves from your garden and bringing them in, putting them in water, probably twice a day. And cleaning up after them. They are the messiest. My friend recommended the paper towel method and so far that is working. It makes it so much easier. I use little Oui yogurt jars for my water and put foil over the top to stick the plants in.
So far, no monarchs. But I have my fingers crossed!
If this is something you are interested in, there are groups all over – I am in a local butterfly group on Facebook, and also a forum on Reddit which is good to see setups and read what other people have to say. I would suggest doing some reading on it or trying a pre-made kit situation (Insect Lore has a good one on Amazon), and you can get the feel for it. It is worth to see them eclose or find them flying about. I will do another update later, after my first cats eclose – hopefully they do at least! Another good resource is Save Our Monarchs as well.
So far, we are enjoying our journey. Wyatt loves them and will kiss the tank. It is a fun way to feel like we are doing something for the planet and the natural world.
Buongiorno! This has been a long week! I have been immersed in different projects, mainly wrapping up our homeschool year and preparing for a little kindergarten graduation party for the kids. I am making the kids t-shirts with our “school” logo on it and I also put together little end of the year memory books too. I had them fill out some fun questions and draw pictures too – these two kiddos want to be a painter (Wyatt) and paleontologist (Dino Girl). I was not really surprised by either answer, unlike my friend whose daughter, at her public school graduation, said she wanted to be a compost worker. Lol. Wyatt and Dino Girl are also having a end of school beginning of summer pool party at my mother-in-law’s house. It will be fun!
My husband also printed all million (not really but it was like 1500) page curriculum for next year. I have been happily organizing it into binders and hope to start reading through it next week. It looks so cool! Billy works at a commercial printing company, they print things for companies, like fliers and hospital bills, as well as things for the government. Last March they printed all the fliers and mailers about COVID, including one from the White House administration about social distancing, etc. Billy is the network admin – and I am rambling. Anyway. The print room was out of hole punched paper so they printed it on regular paper, no big deal, I was grateful they were able to print it for me so quickly. They have a lunch on me coming soon! However, I sat down to hole punch it the other day and my hole punch is total crap obviously. I could do literally three pages at a time and it would still jam. I was growing increasingly frustrated – so I ordered an electric hole punch from Amazon. I have to admit, I was more excited than I should be to get it and hole punch everything. Like, this is what is fun for me now? It may be super nerdy of me but I flew through my pile in like 30 minutes. Totally worth it.
Speaking of fun, or lack of, I was telling my SIL about my hole punch and she said she had just listened to a podcast from Glennon Doyle about how women have lost the inability to play or have fun. Like, if it is work, it doesn’t count as fun. So since I was working, I couldn’t count it as fun. I was thinking about it, and it does seem really true. If I get an extra hour, I fill it with stuff like this. I only read or relax if I feel I have my work done. If Billy gets an extra hour, he plays video games. My mom is pretty similar. She is 74 years old and I have to tell her all the time that she is not being lazy if she wants to read or watch television during the day. She thinks she needs to work all day. I am curious if this is something in our genetic makeup, or a family culture trait, or true for a lot of women. I need to listen to that podcast! If you are interested here is the link.
Last night we watched the new Pixar movie Luca, and Billy and I loved it. Little man fell asleep, clutching his two little Luca Happy Meal toys. I could seriously watch it again – and we probably will since Wyatt didn’t get to finish it. It was like a buddy movie with little boys in it, which I don’t feel we see very much. They really explored the relationship between Luca and his friend Alberto, and I loved it. There were other themes as well, such as accepting people who are different, etc but I did love the friendship between Luca and Alberto. And Italy is beautiful even in cartoon form! I was excited about the timing of this movie, as our homeschool is finishing up oceans this month with mermaids, and we are beginning a month of Italy in July. We are planning on not only learning about Italy in our summer schooling, but Billy and I are going to make our month very Italian themed as well – movies, books, and of course, food. All that pasta! August will have to be a salad only month… We usually do lots of French themed things in July due to the Tour, but this year we are all about Italy. My mom and I are also learning Italian through the online program Mango, which is free through our library. I have always loved learning languages and have taken Latin ( 4 years in high school ), French in high school, and Russian in college. I seemed to be able to pick them up quickly when I was younger so we will see how I do as an older adult. I can’t say I remember much but the Latin background is helpful with Italian.
My little Luna is getting so big! Do you all remember how tiny she was when we got her? I still can’t get over her coloring, she is so pretty. All those baths we had to give her when she was a baby have made her so tame. She will just curl up in my hand and let me carry her around. Harry, the big lunker, will still race up my arm and hide in my hair on my shoulder. Geckos are so fun.
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It’s that time of year again. The time of year where I post lots of photos of bugs and talk about bugs. I am not sure how our family became so buggy about bugs but we did. I will still scream and run in fear from a centipede though. They just are so big and have so many legs and move so fast – ugh just thinking about them gives me the chills. But other bugs for the most part (I guess not ticks or mosquitoes either!) are fascinating. I dream of seeing the synchronous fireflies every year – maybe next year! This year though I will content myself with seeing the insects that visit the garden and also the ones that live with us – our Ghost Mantis Poe, and our five (so far) Black Swallowtail caterpillars. And I guess our luna moth cocoon too.
So far no monarchs. But my milkweed is just beginning to bloom so hopefully soon! And man caterpillars eat so much, it literally really is like the Very Hungry Caterpillar up in here. And also, they make a mess of frass – that is caterpillar speak for their poo.
Poe got out the other day and we didn’t know it until our cat Maggie spotted her – and tried to kill her! We knew we were having a hard time finding her in the terrarium, but she blends in so well that it is easy to overlook her. Well, Maggie found her crawling around the office and I had to dive into action, having a bit of a freak out as I did so. I had two cats in there with me and I was a little nervous to grab Poe, but I did it! They are super low maintenance if you are thinking about adding a small critter to your home, FYI. Lol.
This love of insects has started to worm its way into our lives in other ways too, as our likes tend to do. I find myself looking at different home decor items that are insect themed, or at educational items and toys and books for Wyatt. (which is always good no matter the topic!) I am sharing a few favorites here – and believe me when I say I could have added so much more!
I have always loved grasshoppers and that hat is so adorable! I can totally see myself or even Billy wearing it around. And I just added a pollinator box to my pollinator garden. Mine only has spaces for Mason bees though so I need to get another one that allows for different insects. And as I use my office more and more, I am personalizing it bit by bit – and this ladybug stapler and wooden snail would be perfect in there. I can’t resist a snail! It would fit right in with the rest of the crew that actually live in there – a snail, caterpillars, two lizards, a mantis, and a cocoon, at current count. And I seriously love Janet Hill. Her style of artwork is amazing. I love the vintage feel, the beauty, the colors. She has series of paintings too, that all go together, like the Kidnapping of Edward Pink, or the Miss Mink or Miss Moon collections. She has cards, books, so much. Sigh. There is an element of playfulness that I adore in all of her work. I can’t speak highly enough of her art! She does occasionally sell the original art prints but they sell for quite a bit and also sell in minutes. I can content myself with the prints and cards and books for now.
I could literally go on and on about different books that would fit here. I decided to narrow my list down to three, three of my favorites. Except now that I say that I can think of like ten more favorites. Anyway, these are also three that Wyatt loves to read and flip through over and over, so we will go with his choices. I love Extraordinary Ordinary Moth for focusing on some creatures that maybe are overlooked – plus we saw a hummingbird moth in our garden the other day, and have our own luna moth cocoon. And the Butterfly Pavilion kit makes getting started raising caterpillars and butterflies a little easier, if you are interested in trying it out first. I still have our mesh habitat, plus another one I ordered, that I use now with our wild caught caterpillars from the garden. I am still learning how to raise them and it has been a fun journey, finding their host plants and checking on them daily. So the butterfly kit is a great introduction to the whole thing. The stampers and puzzle are just fun!
When I started this post it was storming here – now the weather has changed and I can hear our cardinal friend outside singing. I am planning on finishing up some things in the house and then heading out back to check for new caterpillars. Who knows what Wyatt and I will find out there, we just need to look closely!
Last weekend we didn’t do anything in particular at all. We had a list of things to do, and for the most part, we did them all. (including picking up an Iced Green Tea from Starbucks for me, I am addicted maybe) I always think of even our smallest outings as adventures though, because you never know when something will happen to make you smile.
Like a chance meeting at the garden center. I mentioned the other day that we ran into my SIL, her mom, and my niece at our favorite garden center randomly on Saturday, and it turned into a fun time for the kids. I had the kids piled in my cart, and I let them pick stuff out, whatever they thought was pretty, I added. I usually don’t have much of a plan for the garden anyway, I just choose what I think is pretty and find a place. This time I just let them do the picking.
Everything is still so little! I can’t wait for it all to grow and fill in and get wild. We have black-eyed susans, brown-eyed susans, forget-me-nots, bronze fennel, nettle, verbena, a butterfly bush, some strawberries and lambs ear, milkweed, rue, lovage, bee balm, and dill. Also some lantana, butterfly weed, sage, oregano, lemon balm, and dianthus. And some weeds. Phew. And that is just the wild and free pollinator garden. In front we have lavender (which looks so so pretty!) brunnera, raspberry bushes, butterfly weed, and yarrow. I love watching it all grow and take shape, and all the little creatures that come to visit.
Later that day, we had a friend offer up as many bricks as we wanted to take. He had removed a brick patio and had them free for the taking. So Billy took a ride out and loaded up the back up his Subaru, which was riding pretty low on the way home, he said. He is using them to build a firepit – I want him to make it so we can use it to grill too if we want. Half of the bricks were used here – the rest are going to be made into paths through some of our little gardens. (you can see our eggplant, kale, and tomatoes in the back)
The next morning my SIL called- an antique store near us is sadly going out of business so they were having a sale, and she asked if I wanted to meet her up there. Well, of course I did! And I found some small treasures too. A set of 4 nesting containers with snails on them I am going to use for art supplies, a wind up musical gnome thing, and these gazelle glasses. I love all of them, but the gnomes are my favorite. I actually went back later to grab the rest of the glasses too, I had left three behind but I didn’t have enough cash for all of it earlier.
Then we just kind of played about. Billy made some shelves and hung them in the office ( LOVE them!), I took some notecards I had bought from Alex Boon Art (I posted about them before, in my For the Love of Rabbits post) and framed them in an old frame I had, and then we had kitchen pantry nicoise salad for dinner. Hanging the art is the very last thing we need to do to finish the office – besides filling those shelves! I will do an office update when it is all finished.
So the weekend wasn’t full of big adventures, but we had a lot of very simple joys.
Hey all! It’s been a pretty good weekend, although I feel like all we did was shop. Which for us, is weird. Saturday we were out and about, stopping in at stores and picking stuff up that we needed, and some stuff that we didn’t need too. We went to my favorite garden center, I decided we needed more lupine (which they didn’t have), and ran into my SIL, her mom, and my niece there! I texted Billy and told him to come in with Wyatt to say hi. I stuck both kids in my cart and told them I would buy whatever plants they chose.. so I ended up with a few more than I anticipated. They had pretty good taste honestly. I did end up with a “ghost plant” better known as Dusty Miller that I had no idea where to plant it so I stuck it in with the lavender. They were having fun so it was all good.
Read Last Week:
Barbara Michaels is such a comfort read for me, and The Dancing Floor is my favorite. I was so happy reading it. I had a DNF too, The Wisteria Society of Lady Scoundrels. It was just too out there for me. I really wanted to like it but couldn’t get past 10%.
We just finished up Jonathan Creek – and it ended so abruptly. And kind of sad. And then we didn’t know what to watch! We started rewatching Death in Paradise for now. As for podcasts, I have been listening to a lot of Morbid (true crime) and The Wild with Chris Morgan (nature).
Every morning this week while Wyatt has been eating breakfast, I’ve been ducking out to the garden to gather strawberries and check for caterpillars. (so far just Uno, Dos, Tres) Every morning I have returned with a handful of red, ripe strawberries, just the perfect amount to have with my own breakfast. When I planted my garden this year, my heart was heavy as I thought of my uncle, who always shared this joy with me. I texted my cousin about it, and he said that this year my garden would have a special protector in my uncle. And I think he was right. While we may not have a lot of berries everyday, we have more than we have had, and it is just the amount I need.
He would be tickled about the flowers that I have planted, the tomatoes that are growing, the little creatures I have spotted the past few days, which included a hummingbird moth last night, and then this morning, a hummingbird. I stumbled out of bed, my guys still lazing about sleeping, and plopped on the couch. I glanced out the window just at the the right time to catch a beautiful iridescent hummingbird buzzing around the lavender. I was so excited I ran back to the bedroom to tell Billy – I felt sort of like Snow White. Lol. I did manage to capture a blurryish photo of the hummingbird moth. I couldn’t believe I was seeing it! It is the second I have ever seen and they look like such weird little creatures, that at first you think what is that?
It’s been a pretty good week, despite the disgusting humidity and heat we have had. I am not a fan so we tried to make the most of our days in other ways – including an ice cream date with my cousin and his girls, whom we haven’t seen in person for months and months. I have missed them so!
I went with lavender ice cream. It got so melty so fast but it didn’t matter, it still tasted fabulous. I haven’t had it in two summers so I was so happy to be reunited with it.. and my family too of course. (Billy got black cherry and Wyatt mint chocolate chip with peanut butter cups. It’s called Grasshopper)
I also got my haircut. My hair was so long guys, down past the middle of my back that I can’t tell you enough how good this feels to have it shorter. Sure, it will be like a nimbus around my head during the heat of summer, but it feels so much lighter. So a cut for summertime. Wyatt is next. And he has asked for blue hair which threw me for a second, but, I agreed. Not all over blue, just a few streaks, and the stuff I bought washes out in one shampoo. I am waiting until the movie Luca is released next week, which is about a mermaid? merman? boy. We are going to do Wyatt’s hair and my niece’s hair as well.
This week was sea turtle and shark week for our homeschool science lessons. I talked a little about this on Tuesday in my World Ocean Day post so, I didn’t do a whole homeschool post this week. I think I will wrap it all up in two weeks instead, but I just love these turtles the kids made. I also surprised them with shark teeth I had bought downtown, which they were excited about. And then my kid almost swallowed his being funny and putting it in his mouth like it was his tooth. That kid. I tell you. If he had, it wouldn’t be the first tooth he swallowed this year, just the first that wasn’t his.
We have some running around to do today, some projects to wrap up, and I hope to pick up an iced green tea from Starbucks along the way. I also am hoping to make my dandelion lotion bars that I started way back in May!
Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs.. 