Little Visitors

We have more visitors around here!

Last weekend, Riley was out "helping" his dad in the yard, when he heard a strange sound. Of course, he went to investigate and found a bird's nest in the seed spreader that we keep under our deck. One bird had hatched and was cheeping for his momma.

By the next day, three more had hatched. They were so cute! (and they reminded me of my own children, what with all the "I'm hungry," all the time...)

We kept an eye on the nest all week, and in what seemed like a very short time, the birds had gone and the nest was empty. Riley was quite disappointed when he realized that the birdies had gone, but it gave us a great opportunity to talk about how God has a plan for each of us... Even those little birdies.

Mrs. Magnificent

Mrs. Magnificent has emerged!

About 15 days after she went into her cocoon, we noticed that it had slightly changed color. The off white stripes were more of a yellow, and the light brown looked a bit more orange.

About three hours later, I heard a ruckus in the kitchen and (initially thinking I was going to have to break up a WWE Smackdown-style fight between the boys) was pleasantly surprised to find them excitedly looking into the cage. Mrs. Magnificent had emerged and was patiently drying her wings.

We waited a bit and then put her outside in the flower bed. She stayed for a bit, and then flew off.

The boys loved this experience so much that I promised them that we will look for caterpillars and do this again next year. It gave us a great opportunity to talk about the amazing things that God does in our world. And, I have to admit that I thought it was fun too!

Survivor Corn and Other Oddities

Have you ever noticed the odd stuff you find in the kitchen?

Like when you open the refrigerator and find two Matchbox cars floating in an uncovered dish of yogurt and maple syrup?

No? That's just me? Oh, well that's embarrassing.

Well I've discovered a couple of interesting things (not perpetrated by my children) this week.

First up is the survivor corn. You know how you always here on TV and read in books about the will of living things to survive? Usually it's a story about a dog that lived for three weeks with it's head caught in a jar, or a bear rescuing her cubs from a flood or something.

Did you know that corn apparently also has a great survival instinct? Matt brought home some corn from a local farm, and as I was shucking it, I found this.

That's a piece of buckshot. Based on the way the kernels grew nicely around the lead, I'm guessing it ended up there early on in it's development. Probably the result of dove hunters.

But did this corn just wither up and die of a gun shot wound? No it did not. It showed remarkable will to survive, and incorporated the lead shot into its beauty.

I'm glad I discovered it before someone bit into it... Otherwise the buckshot might have ruined the beauty of somebody's smile!

In the same batch of corn, I found a "vanishing twin." Inside the husk of one ear of corn, I found this little anomaly.

It is the start of another ear of corn. I showed the boys and when we peeled back the soft husk, we found out what corn looks like before its kernels grow into their crunchy, juicy yumminess.


And finally this week, I discovered that when you microwave a big bowl of milk (in preparation for making yogurt) it sometimes forms a crispy-looking film on top. This film gets all wrinkly and ripples from the slightest movement of the air around it.

You might already have known that, but I didn't. And the boys had fun fanning and blowing on the bowl of milk to make the ripples. Before I scraped it off (wherein we found that it's really not crispy, but is more goopy...) and finished the yogurt.

See, kids? Housework can be fun and exciting!

Laundry Bags

I guess that technically every blog post could be titled, "Show and Tell," since the whole purpose is to show you pictures and tell about what's going on. But I am thinking about doing a semi-regular feature wherein I can show off some of my recent crafty goodness. Or "amazing feats" of cleaning and organization. Or (if I can figure out how to post videos) some of my recent educational music videos or podcasts. Or whatever I've recently done that bears mentioning.

I have to give a special thank you to my G-ma Alice for this one. She taught me how to sew. Thanks to G-ma, I understand the basics of sewing and construction and can usually find my way around my sewing machine. I am by no means good at sewing, but I can make basic items, Halloween costumes for my kids, and mend some things.

I don't have a permanent home for my sewing machine; all the stuff that seems to follow it around, so I usually wait until I have a list of things to sew. Then I haul it out and it lives on the end of my dining room table until:

• I am completely stuck on a project and can go no further...
• I am completely frustrated with a project and would rather eat it than try to finish it...
• I can no longer stand the mess on the end of the table...
• I have company or host dinner for one or more persons.

This go around, I've made sachets, worked on a quilt for Riley, and made laundry bags for our pop-up trailer. 

Whenever we go camping, we always end up with no place to put the dirty clothes. Matt's clothes end up in a plastic shopping bag, mine end up going back into my bag (where I make a futile attempt to keep the clean ones separated from the dirty ones) and the boys' clothes end up in the strangest of places (like in the refrigerator, under the mattress, and mixed up with the pop tarts and cracker boxes).

My solution was to give everyone a dirty laundry bag. I went looking, but didn't find any that were priced an amount I was willing to pay. So I made some.

I have a big box of fabric scraps downstairs and actually found four pieces big enough for bags. Then, just for fun, I personalized each one. They are by no means fantastic, but aren't bad for my limited lessons and experience.

We ended up with fun laundry bags that cost me nothing, and taught me a bit about making up my own patterns and embellishments.