A great resource for studying butterflies is the Stokes Butterfly Book (pictured below).

Last week we were supposed to be doing our Fox week for MFW K. We have stopped the Adventures, again for a while. The kids like it, but I find it difficult to do it all and cuddle my babies. Adventures is supposed to be and "Optional" year, anyway. At least, we have done some of it. It has given me a chance to see how the MFW curriculum is. I do like it, but we have had a lot of adjustments in a short period of time. I am satisfied with doing what we can. We might do some of the Adventures this week and try to get back on track for a while. Like I said, we were SUPPOSED to be doing our Fox week for MFW K and we did get started on it, but I will repeat it next week and through in some extra stuff. Maybe we will do some more phonics and reading. We had lots of company... lots of the sleepies... and BUTTERFLIES! Our butterflies were "by the book". I looked at the calendar on Wednesday and told the girls that the butterflies MIGHT hatch as early as the next day. Guess we awoke to? Two butterflies had just emerged from the chrysalids! I called the kids to see and one more emerged as we watched the whole thing. Well, technically I watched and saw it all... they had drifting attention spans and missed the first few moments. We went outside to experience the beautiful day and came back in to the fourth one being hatched out. It was so amazing to watch their wings get larger and harden up and see the fur on their backs. If you look really close they have golden hairs on their back and their "tongues" (sure there is a real word for it) curl down like a little party blower. So strange! Sierra was the first to want to hold the butterflies, so after a while... and lots of begging... I let her put her hand inside and the butterflies would crawl on her fingers. The next day Sierra actually let one go in the house and I had to recapture the poor little guy. Savannah did hold them, also. The following day the last one emerged and we waited until Daddy was home that evening to release them. And as a bonus for the kids their Daddy and uncle were there to watch them release the butterflies.

It was a great week... very laid back... probably too much so in many ways, but we had a busy weekend before that with a church Musical on Sunday night. Cody and Savannah were both in that, so they had practices and such. We also had some friends over throughout the week and let me just say to those that struggle with this.... Stop school for playmates. Our kids are home with us all the time. They need to play with friends when they can. I have learned that it is wise to put playtime with friends high up on the priority list. We had some visitors on Wednesday for about an hour and on Thursday we had some more visitors (my neighbor teaches piano lessons and gets a lot of homeschoolers that we meet). Wednesday night was Wet-N-Wild at our church for and end of year celebration for all the kids. They had waterguns and water jumprope, relay races and some other stuff. Also, on Thursday my dear friend Michelle brought six of her seven children to the house for a backyard picnic. To finish off the week Cody ended it with walking in Relay for Life with his twin brother as a tag-a-long. They got back in around 11:30 PM and stayed up all night playing some crazy video game. Weird... I do not get it, but it is there thing. His brother moved back to the area recently and they have done the video game thing twice now. I totally don't get it, but whatever floats their boat! I did stay up with them until after 1:00 AM (reading a book and munching on popcorn). Saturday was company all day. The brother stayed the night, so he was there and then, my daddy came up for a visit for the day. Shortly after my daddy left, my sis-in-law and family showed up. What a week!

This weekend I spent some time planting some container gardens... I don't know how it will work out, but it is just nice to watch things grow and play in the dirt! To mark my plants I wanted something that would last. I had stuck the seed packets in the side of the pots, but we all know that will not last long. I tried to find some wooden popsicle sticks, but I could not find those. Instead, I got the idea to use old margarine bowl lids. I cute the lids in half and cut out a flaglike shape and wrote the name of the plant with a marker, then stuck it in the dirt. I was also thinking that using old empty margarine bowls would work great, too. You could just cut strips down the bowl the width you want and probably get 15+ that way.

Off to bed with me...