Using this book we made Bug Pits today!

You need a couple cups or cans, fruit & cereal, tape, and something for a lid ( tiles, boards, or even a plastic lids )

Place fruit in one cup, cereal in another.  Take the tape and fold it/wad it up and place it on the sides of the cup, like in the above picture. Then place the lid on top. The small area in between the cup and the lid, created by the tape, is for the bugs to be able to get in.

Then get to diggin'! Place them at ground level and check them every few hours to see who visits.

What kinds of bugs go to the fruit? the cereal? We'll find that out. We made 4 pits, two fruit and two cereal, and placed a pair in two different areas ( one fruit & one cereal  )

We'll be checking them through the evening to see what we find....and tomorrow as well.

This afternoon we painted with our FEET!

Loads of fun for all of us. It's very windy here so I had to use buckets with rocks in them to hold the paper down.

Thanks to my friend, Kelly @ A Day in My Life, for this idea!

So these are some pictures from our flower garden. It's a favorite place of mine. I love to sit outside and see all that God made....to watch the flowers open up and bloom from start to finish. I'm sure the neighbors wonder why I'm always out there with my camera or with my scissors. ( I cut fresh daisies for my table every two days ) Oh to watch the butterflies that zoom in and out, spot the toads that burrow next to the base of the daisies, spy the grasshopper that's camouflaged himself on a petal........and to smell the delightful aroma of it all.

It's been a nice break from the computer for the past few weeks. I have thought about many of my blogging friends, wondering what's new with you all. Now I get to go back and catch up. I have enjoyed this time of refreshment and all the extra time with my kids.

We've been busy enjoying the summer. Swimming, planting, playing in our homemade bike wash, enjoying friends, participating in Madagascar Cockroach races, making slime, finding toads in our yard ( the kids have found so many! ) and a host of other fun things. This week the kids are at VBS, maybe next week as well. It's been an enjoyable summer.

But it's time to get back to a little more structured routine and begin reading more regularly and doing a little more hands on learning. The kids and I are eager to begin.........I've been planning some things and hope to begin soon.

In the meantime, here are some pictures from our trip to a local Butterfly place -- the Butterfly Pavilions. We love it there. It's one of my favorite places b/c of the open area that is swarming with one of Gods Beautiful creatures....the Butterfly. They actually release new butterflies daily, twice, in fact.

Here's a short video of several butterflies, including the Owl Butterfly, on a rotten banana

Can you spot them all?

Three in the front part of the nest, you can see their yellow beaks, one who has his mouth open above the three and the other is to the top left of the bunch.

Seems as though the babies are still in their hatchling stage. You can see their down feathers are coming in nicely.

Hatchling - (from hatching to several days old)

• Sparse down on head and back
• Eyes closed
• Unable to sit up/ balance
• Rapid development- feeding by parents’ dawn to dusk
• Unable to thermo-regulate on own

 Parrot Flower ( Impatiens Psittacina ) Facts: