Party of Six!

Monday, August 22, 2011

High Expectations

Today was the first day back to school. Connor raced down the sidewalk on his scooter, while I tagged behind him. At one point, I asked if he could scoot slower and beside me. At this time, I asked him what he wanted to learn this year in third grade. He answered, "I want to learn about chemical reactions AND I want to dissect an animal like a frog." Well, I reminded him that he is in third grade, not high school and maybe he should settle for states, capitals, cursive writing, multiplication, and division.

Saturday, August 13, 2011

Weeds: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Olivia sees the beauty from weeds; especially the ones that flower into Dandelions or other cute little yellow buds. I, on the other hand, see the bad and the ugly. The only time I see the good is when I actually get rid of weeds.

That would be this morning, forty minutes later and my flower beds were weed free! July was a hot month and I didn't touch the dreaded things! I did chemically weed. . .I know, I know, not the healthiest AND now I've increased my risk of cancer, but I was desperate.

While I was pulling, digging, and grabbing, I was thinking of different adjectives that describe weeds: ornery, stubborn, vicious, itchy, annoying, overbearing, distracting, hideous, and tenacious. I then thought of how very similar weeds are like vices in our lives; bad habits like chocolate, negative thoughts, food, you fill in the blank here [ ]. We all have a vice that weakens us, robs our growth, overcrowds our being, and becomes heavy and thick in our lives.

It was cathartic pulling those weeds. I started labeling them with my vices and burdens, then I grabbed and tore them out root and all. Like a flower bed, we have to care for ourselves and our beings: cultivating, planting our seeds, watering, nourishing, fertilizing, soaking up the sun, dead-heading, and weeding.

Thursday, August 11, 2011

Best Kept Secret

We just visited the best kept secret in our metro area: The Butterfly Garden in Saylorville! We took a little trip out to see trees, birds, flowers, and butterflies. I forget that nature is just a drive away. Hopefully, we'll be frequenting this place more often. . .

I took Paul's camera and took photos of flowers and the butterflies. These are the before pictures in the collages. I then edited them through Picnik.com and the pictures evolved into something pretty cool! (not to pat my back or anything, but I'm patting my back!). It was like extreme photo makeover. Thank goodness for photo-shops, because I cannot set up the lens to ever make pictures come out this way!

We saw Painted Ladies, Monarchs, and a butterfly I'm going to have to look up! That little house is a butterfly house, Connor had to teach me that because they have these houses in their school garden.

Edited photo of a Blue Tail Painted Lady? OR it's a different species. . .

Same butterfly, different landing pad.

My favorite, the Monarch perched on a Zinnia.

This is the species that I'm not sure of. . . it has a blue tail and it's brown! Was God good at coordinating colors when he created these critters? He has a great sense of fashion! We humans just need inspiration from nature.

A Hibiscus? It was growing wild with the poison ivy and other foliage.

And last but not least, some pics of people (1960s style!)

Evan, Connor, Pouty Marin, Pouty Olivia (on cue), & Angie

(that picture of Evan in the right hand corner looks like Connor when he was a babe, I had to look twice!)

By the way, someone in our house is having a Butterfly Birthday Party! I'm getting excited to make a Butterfly Birthday Cake!

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Eastbound

Last summer, Connor confessed that he wanted to visit Chicago. I'm not sure where he got this but I thought what a nice idea! We can visit Aunt Cindy and visit the sites. When I asked Connor what he wanted to visit, he said he would be fine just having some "family time." We had a nice balance of each. Our activities included: