The Little Mermaid

Molly had a great time being the evil jellyfish Evsam in TOL's performance of the Little Mermaid.

Bad Mommy Moment

I am a horrible mother. Molly broke her arm last night. 4th of July, we are all getting ready to go see fireworks at the Farm Museum. I knew Molly was riding her scooter, I also knew how she was riding it. She has been doing this trick for about a week now where she rides 2 razor scooters at once. She has one foot on each scooter and straddles them. I know, its really a dumb trick, dangerous too. Why did I allow her? Was it because I didn't foresee the danger? Didn't really think about it? Negligence? Or was it because I knew she would have a fit and scream at me that I was overprotective and don't allow her to have any fun? Probably a combination of reasons. Well, she was coming down our hill and she crashed of course. She broke her arm right below her wrist. We spent the evening in the emergency room, where they wrapped her arm and referred us to an orthopedic dr. to set it.
I feel about this big right now.
So today I'm buying everyone armour and having them drink copious amount of milk :)

Benny's 4th Birthday Bash

Some pics from Benny's dino party. He had a dinosaur fossil cake, a dinosaur egg pinata, and a hunt for fossilized dinosaur eggs. The cake was just chocolate covered in chocolate graham cracker crumbs to resemble dirt, with dino bones on top made out of sugar cookies. The pinata was a balloon covered in paper mache and painted to look like a dino egg. The fossils the kids hunted for were made out of a mixture of coffee grounds, flour ,salt and water. Once I made the clay, I pushed a toy dino inside, then reshaped the egg. They then bake in the oven till they are hard as rocks. It was a rainy day, but I think the kids all had fun.

Our Newest Pets

Last night, while cleaning out his tractor trailer, Mark found a mother mouse and her nest of babies. They all escaped except 2 unfortunate creatures who are now pets to the Prunty children. Well, they probably won't survive that long, they are very young, but we're giving it a go. Our current read-aloud book happens to be the Adventures of Nutmeg and TumTum, who are, of course mice.

Art Camp

Pictures from this weeks art camp. Projects included paper mache, painting jungle scenes, making birds, making box sculptures, and of course, berry picking thanks to the mulbery bush in Suzanne's yard. Its been a beautiful week, so we have been able to work outside each day. We have one day left.
The top picture is Benny holding his golden bird he made.

Alice in Wonderland

Molly had a great time performing as Tweedle Dee in Pumpkin Theatre's performance of Alice In Wonderland. She was fantastic!

Raise and Release

Every spring we order tiny caterpillars from Insect Lore and raise them into butterflies. They start out in a little clear jar where they feast on some strange Caterpillar concoction. They are usually 1/4 to 1/2 inch long when we get them, and within a week or so are about 2 inches long. When they are ready they attach themselves to the lid of the jar, hang upside down, and form a chrysalis. At this point we transfer them to our large butterfly habitat, which is like a big mesh cylinder. In another week or so they emerge from their chrysalis, hang upside down for a few hours strengthening their wings,and Ta Da! beautiful butterflies. The ones we "raise" are painted ladies. This has become a yearly tradition, since Molly was maybe 3 or 4 years old. This year Sophia and Benny kept a butterfly journal, each day we would measure the caterpillars and they would draw any changes they observed. You can feed them sugar water and supply them with flowers for a few days, but they should be released sooner than later. One year, we had the butterflies on the front porch inside the mesh cage for a couple of hours before we were ready to release them. All the local birds must have been watching from the trees, because when we did let them go, we were dive bombed! One butterfly got eaten , but the others escaped, at least until they were out of sight of us, which is what's important here, after all, you didn't raise these butterflies to be a tasty meal for the birds did you? My kids think every painted lady butterfly they see in the yard is one of theirs that they raised.

Now I know we could probably get some caterpillars from the yard and try to raise them ourselves, but I would have to research what kind of food they would need. How would I know what kind of Caterpillar it was, and therefore what food it needed? Sounds like a good homeschool project, huh? Maybe next year :)