where does the time go?

Okay, so maybe me posting every day was a bit unrealistic. Oh, well. Here's what I remember from the blur that was the last week:

We discovered two caterpillars had turned into chrysalises and got to watch one go through the transformation.

Lots of arts and crafts, as always.

Spent time with my nieces. Yesterday I took all three kids to play at the park until they got too hot, then to the nature center, then on a walk through the woods. They had fun looking at flowers and squirrels and cool fungi and stuff like that.

Worked our way through more of our pile from the library. Samuel really likes Tomie dePaola's "Pancakes for Breakfast". I think he likes that there are no words, so he can narrate it however he likes. We've noticed more little details in the pictures than I normally would. We also got every book the library had on both guinea pigs and caterpillars/butterflies.

I am probably forgetting something momentous, but that's the way things go around here.

and the caterpillar count is...

... four.

I think I posted on my main blog but not here that one of the five we had before wandered off or something, because we couldn't find it and then another died. So then we were down to three. Well then dh went out in the dark last night to get more leaves and discovered this morning that another tiny hatchling hitchhiked in, so now we have four.

Samuel has been making spaceships out of K'Nex all morning. Yesterday we did some copywork also. He likes to make his letters all fancy - he draws them, rather than writes them, if that makes any sense? Many of them, he does the strokes in the wrong order/direction, so his handwriting doesn't really flow, although it looks nice. We'll have to work on that. I wonder if I should just teach him cursive - he'd like it, and he'd get used to doing the strokes in order.

Stinkin' squirrels won't leave my garden alone. I have lots of big green tomatoes with squirrel bites in them. I just opened the window to yell at one. It is wonderfully cool today, and just started to rain. A nice gentle sweet-smelling rain.

We went to the store, and I had Samuel mark off the items on the list, so he had to at least sort-of read them (although for many he was able to cheat and just look at the first letter). Had an awesome dinner of parmesan chicken with bruchetta that I made from tomatoes that a friend gave us, because did I mention mine are ALL GREEN? (Not that I am bitter.) Went out to Baskin Robbins for ice cream because a good dinner deserves a good dessert. :) I should make fancy dinners more often.

Samuel is determined to create a board game - he has tried this numerous times - but he can't quite get it to work. It's always too easy or impossible, or just makes no sense at all (except to him). He is very passionate about this, though, and I think one of these days he'll finally work it out and make a good one!

and this is why i need to post every day...

... because when I miss a few days, I can't remember a darned thing! Let's see, Samuel spent pretty much all day Monday cleaning up the living room. Yes, all day. No, it's not really clean yet. He still has stuff all over the end table, but I let it go since he cleaned up everything else. We've been watching more Olympics, and Samuel really liked the men's gymnastics and the pole vault. Oh, and the hurdles - he made his own hurdle course through the living room today using pillows. Other than that, he's been drawing, making stuff with K'Nex, playing outside, riding his bike. We had a tea party a couple of days ago, and he was very excited that I let him use real tea and real cream (with cinnamon and vanilla!) and sugar. Now he and Shawn are reading A Million Dots - awesome book.

I blame the Olympics for my lack of memory - been staying up WAY too late and my head is all fuzzy the next day.

pray for Jacob!

Jacob is a man at our parish who will be leaving for the seminary next week! Hooray for young men who follow God's call!

After Mass today, we went to the library and found a big book on turtles, lots of books on caterpillars and butterflies, and even more on guinea pigs! (Because you can never have too many books on guinea pigs, right?) Also picked up some Tomie de Paola books, because you can never have too many of those either.

After the library, we went to a reception for Jacob to wish him well. Then came home, and tried to clean the place up a bit. Samuel has spread his projects and play areas all over the house lately, and while we try to be tolerant and encourage his creativity, it has gotten to the point where we have to reign him in a bit. Specifically, it is to the point where we are having trouble walking!

Samuel made some more arts and crafts in the evening... more for him to clean up tomorrow! then we watched some more Olympics: women's 100m dash, women's gymnastics (vault and floor), and men's gymnastics (floor and pommel horse). Now Samuel wants to be a gymnast. He'll probably be short enough!

more caterpillars

Yep, we now have five. :) Spent much of the morning examining them and getting them food.

In the afternoon, we went to a homeschool fair at the local library while dh worked. Samuel spent the fair coloring pictures under the TORCH table with his friends. Then we went to Grandma and Grandpa's for dinner. Finally watched some of the Olympics, including Michael Phelps winning his record-breaking eighth gold medal - yay! Samuel was very interested in the countries, their flags, and the competition. We'll have to catch some more before it's over.

Feast of the Assumption

Samuel has spent a lot of time outside today. I found a grasshopper when I was hanging up clothes on the line, and showed it to him. He proceeded to "play" with it (i.e. harass it) for quite some time. I had no pity for it, I hate grasshoppers!

Our caterpillars are growing and growing - they look so much bigger every day!

Samuel decided that he was STARVING right when we had to start fasting for Mass. Poor kid. I talked to him about how we could offer up our sufferings for others, and how he could offer his for other children in the world who were even hungrier than he was, and who would not be getting a nice dinner that night. He did his best and was a real trooper. We went out for pizza afterward, and he ate a ton!

I keep forgetting to post these until the next day, and then I have to go in and edit the date because I want the dates to all be correct, and then I have to add tags, so I guess that whole emailing thing wasn't so fabulous after all.

Happy Anniversary to us!

Today is our 9th wedding anniversary! Yay! It is also the feast of St. Maximillian Kolbe, a truly amazing man. We didn't know that when we were married, but we are so very glad to celebrate his life along with our marriage.

Samuel is still drawing today. And pretending that he is on a space ship.

We went out to a local Greek restaurant, Papa George's, for an early dinner. It was wonderful, as always. They make the best hummus! We also had gigantes, dolmades, and spanikopitakia, among other things. And of course we had baklava! Yum!

Afterward, we went to a local nursery to browse, and of course had to buy a few things. Just can't resist flowers. :) Samuel had fun observing a young rabbit that was hopping through the plants and was able to get pretty close to it. I spied a killdeer - the first we've seen around here.

Then Shawn and Samuel read about some of the Saints before bed: St. Maximillian Kolbe, St. Louis, and a few others.

lazy day

I have a feeling that I will have a lot of posts with that title. ;) We ARE unschoolers, after all! The weather is so nice today that I just want to lie down and feel the breeze. Samuel has been drawing all day. He finished his big sea turtle and cut it out, but hasn't finished coloring the underside yet. It took him a long time just to color the top!

The caterpillars just keep on growing. We can see the little antenna-like feelers on the bigger one now. They are so tiny! I am so glad that we were able to start from an egg this year.

Shawn and Samuel have been reading a book on the human body. I can hear them in the next room talking about the kidneys. Next up is geography. They have been looking at globes and atlases and making our puzzle of the states. Samuel knows all the oceans and continents, as well as several countries and smaller bodies of water. Tonight they are going to read The Scrambled States of America along with their map study.

gotta start somewhere

So, I totally quit keeping up with this blog - obviously. THAT didn't last long. I have a hard time keeping consistent when daily life gets in the way - especially because we have dial-up, and I just often do NOT have the patience to wait for everything to load. But I really really want to start making notes of what we do everyday. People often want to know what we do all day, and half the time, I can't remember! (But we do lots, I promise!) So, I finally figured out how to email my posts in - that'll make life a lot easier. I can add to the post throughout the day, and then just hit send before I go to bed. Why didn't I do this before???

This morning was the Perseid meteor shower. So, I got up at 4:30am and went to stand in the backyard to see what I could see. I saw one meteor in about 10 minutes. It was getting a bit cloudy, and there was a lot of glare from city lights. I knew that dh did not want to drive out to the fields, and the backyard was not a good enough view to wake Samuel. Maybe next year.

Got up and had breakfast with dh for once: smoked salmon, avocado, and neufchatel cheese on a toasted English muffin. Mmmmm. Dh skipped the avocado and the toasting part. Doesn't know what he's missing. Samuel got up just before dh left for work, but wanted to snuggle in bed, so we went back there and talked and were silly until he got hungry around 9. He has been wanting to play Uno today, and he keeps trying to stack the deck!

On Friday, we found a monarch egg on a leaf of milkweed vine in our yard, so we brought it in. Last year, we found a monarch caterpillar, but he was nearly full grown when we started taking care of him. Our egg hatched on Sunday morning!

Then on Monday, Samuel found first another egg and then a new hatchling. The egg didn't hatch, and it accidentally got smushed so I think it's a lost cause. But we have two baby caterpillars now. You can see how much they grow in one day - the smaller one is only a day behind the bigger one!

Samuel has been getting them fresh leaves every day, but I had to caution him to check first to make sure that he doesn't bring in anymore eggs or caterpillars - two is enough!

He just ran in, VERY excited that he saw a female cardinal. I guess it has been a while since he saw one! We see sparrows and goldfinches at the thistle feeder mostly. I can hear a woodpecker out the window, too.


This afternoon: more Uno games (and deck-stacking attempts - does he really think I'll let him have all the Wild Draw 4's in one hand???), cleaning up around the house, and Samuel worked on his giant sea turtle. He's making it out of poster board, and I think it's probably close to life-size. He has a bunch of babies, so I guess this will be the mama.

Went to dinner at dh's work - they ordered pizza for the staff and some returning students. Came home, had ice cream with Grandma's homemade fudge sauce (heavenly!) and crashed!

Now we'll see how this whole emailing thing works!