spring

sun. beautiful warm sun

a glimpse of bright green grass

allergies

new life, pushing up through dark rich soil

flip flops

the ringing sound of the ice cream truck

the appearance of little creatures, apparently including snakes

the crying of little boys who don't want to come inside

open windows

short sleeve shirts

the smell of good clean dirt

a tall glass of raspberry lemonade

the end of winter

so why, then, did i wake up this morning to this?!

 

over six inches of snow?! i hate to think of what summer has in store for us!

what does this first day of spring look like at your house?

backyard science

we have been blessed with some beautiful weather lately, so we took advantage of it a few days ago and had our science lesson outside. all my flowers in the back yard are blooming right now, attracting many different butterflies, bugs, and miscellaneous insects! i was just going to post the pictures, but then i though i'd actually educate myself and figure out what they all were!

samantha enjoyed exploring the tinier part of God's creation.

this critter is a type of beetle called a margined leatherwing. he enjoyed sucking something out of the marigolds. a couple of times we could only see the end of him because his "face" was buried down in the flower.

samantha was intrigued by the bees. she had recently watched a documentary on bees, so she was telling me all about them. "some are workers, there's a queen, and there's drones..." stuff i vaugly remember!

honey bee

bumble bee

we got a good view of this plains leopard frog when he jumped about 2 feet in the air!

i couldn't quite put my finger on what this is, but i believe it is a narcissus bulb fly. it appears to be a fly covered with gold hairs.


and now the butterflies! they were so pretty and interesting to watch fly around from one flower to the next. with, of course, a little break inbetween to bask in the sun!

pearl crescent

orange sulfer

buckeye

painted lady

did you know that butterflies and moths have a long tongue called a proboscis? i didn't! it is used like a drinking straw and when not in use it is coiled up as seen on this peck's skipper. you may need to click on the picture to see it close up!

isn't it amazing what you can learn from your backyard in a matter of minutes?!

learn all about bugs here!

we are finally having some nice weather. it's almost unusual for august, but we're having about 2 weeks that the temps will be in the 80s. then toward the end of the month they're going back up to the 90s.


since it was so nice last night we got to spend some time outside. the kids got to swing, samantha got to play with one of her friends, and i got to escape the mess that is my house!

after a couple hours of playing the kids enjoyed a popsicle, then we came inside and practiced walking with ryan. a couple weeks ago he had his 12 month check up and the doctor told me to work on his walking. he doesn't even pull up on anything yet, so she wants to make sure his motor skills are developing okay. but he has no reason to walk since he has a sister that waits on him hand and foot!

it's quite comical to watch him try to walk. his left foot is like another hand to him --- he uses it more than his right hand! so when we walk with him and he wants to touch something or play with something he uses his foot. so last night he wanted to get into ben's cup and kept crossing his left leg over to try and knock it over. kinda hard to walk like that, ryan!

today is a little rainy, so we've had a relaxing day inside. it would've been nice to take the kids out again today, but maybe this afternoon i'll have to clean a little bit... :-)