Pixiemom

The weather here is crazy. It got up in the 80s two days ago and so we opened up all the windows (didn’t want to turn on the air conditioner for one day) and that night it dropped down into the 40s, so I got up and closed all the windows in the middle of the night. We were comfortable throughout that day, but the next night, I had to turn on the heat as it got down to 60 inside the house and Noelle still isn’t able to stay under her blanket, so she was cold when I checked on her. I put the blankets back on her and that’s when I decided to turn the heat on since the temp would probably drop farther during the night anyway. Turning it off for the daytime and we’ll see how it goes tonight. We were wearing capris and short sleeves one day and long pants and sweatshirts the next. I haven’t put our winter clothes away yet and have only gotten out a few of the summer stuff. I’m thinking that closer to the end of May will be the best time to actually switch out the clothes.

One good thing… both the gas and electricity bills should be lower for next month.

Jeremy’s 15 seconds of fame was pulled by the user on YouTube.

I posted pics of the flowers and other nature stuff from our treasure hunt last week on my flickr. There’s also some pictures from a drive we took up Lake Shore Drive two weeks ago when it was really foggy. When we get our flower identification book, I will update the pictures with the names.

He’s enjoying working for Google… see how they spend their days…

He’s the guy who shoots the Spam!

Today, the cats have been at the open kitchen window watching the birds and squirrels. We’ve stopped by there to pet them and all. Amie saw a bird that she didn’t know what it was, so we got out a really old bird book (from when I was little, I got it from my parents a few years ago) and we found that it was a Rose-breasted Grosbeak. It’s a pretty bird. This was the first time we’ve really used this book, but I want to use it more often. We’ll take it along the next time we visit the Nature Center. Maybe we can go in the morning and sit in their bird watching room. We’ll see.

My brother-in-law wrote about grace and how it is seen in a great operetta. I enjoyed his comparison.

It was a small class called Cottontails. It was about rabbits. James only had an hour of scouts instead of his usual 2 hours, so he was able to attend it as well. I took Noelle along too, even though she was a little young. She sat on my lap and just listened.

The teacher was a woman who used to work at another nature preserve, specifically with the rabbits. She told some interesting stories about rescuing nests of bunnies from school yards and playgrounds. Did you know that a bunny is able to be on his/her own by 3 weeks? I thought it was around 2 months, but I was wrong. That is fast. After telling the kids some facts about bunnies, she read a story and then the kids made pictures. I helped Noelle and one of the ranger ladies helped AnnaBeth a little though she was impressed by how much AnnaBeth could do by herself. All the kids really enjoyed it. I need to check and see when the next class is.

Amie and Christine are interested in doing the summer day camps they are having. They will be one week for 2 hours in the morning. I think I will enroll them in those. James will be doing the day camp that our church is sponsoring, mostly because a lot of it will be focusing on things he needs for scouting. I would like to get Noelle and AnnaBeth into something as well, but we’ll see. Maybe the artsy day camp that the park system is offering. We’ll see.

The kids and I have been enjoying the warm spring days… now that they are finally here. This last week was in the 70’s. We went out to the Nature Center one day last week a little later than we were expecting (4:00) and found that they close the trails and building at 4:30 and the park at 5:00, so we just went into the building for a little while, then walked out into the butterfly garden and inspected the little green spikes that will be flowers later. Then we headed over to the nature preserve park a mile or so away that stays open until sunset. Unfortunately, not 5 minutes after we got there, Jeremy texted me to tell me that he was waiting at the train station. He usually lets me know which train he’ll be taking so I can be there when it arrives, but he forgot that day. Anyway, I made him wait 20 minutes so the kids could run around a bit.

This week, we did most of our chores and schoolwork before lunch on Tuesday and then headed out to the Nature Center again. This time, I brought the camera and we took the wildflower path. We did a photo treasure hunt to find as many different flowers as we could. The kids also had me take pictures of a few different leaves they found that they want to look up. We need to get the books for those. I like teaching them how to use the internet for these things, but I think books are great too, especially since we can take them with us on hikes. For these ones, we are waiting until we are able to get to a bookstore and get identification books before we find out what they are. They found out what some were because the wildflower path had signs here and there telling the different types they had in that area, but others are unknown. After the hike, we went into the building and the turtles in the tank were amusing them. Christine saw the one turtle was up on the rock near the sunlight, warming himself and she went over to the glass near it’s head and started moving her hands up and down. The turtle followed her hands. The other two turtles swam on over and started following her hands too. It was interesting. They were so alert. Next, we headed out to the butterfly garden and saw daffodils and some pretty little white moths flying around. There are other flowers coming up as well, but no buds yet. As we were walking around, we found a mandible bone of some small animal and took it in to the rangers inside. They think it is opossum because of size and the teeth were carnivorous. While in the building before we left, we took a look over at where all the bird houses and feeders are to see if we saw any birds, but alas… there were none there. We went over to the Forest Preserve again after we were done there. We went to another part of it this time. James took his rollerblades and practiced in the parking lot while the girls went out to run among the trees. They found a recycle bin there for plastic and aluminum, so they went around finding trash in the park, some of which went into one of those slots and some of which went into the nearby trash receptacle. The small area we were in got cleaned up fairly well.

Oh, while we were there, we noticed that the Nature Center has a summer camp. Amie really wants to go to that. We’ll see. AND that they are having a thing for kids from K-4th grade this Saturday which I think I will bring Amie, Christine, and AnnaBeth to. It is during James’ Cub Scout meeting and he’ll be busy on a food drive at our church during that time. I think the Saturday after that is when the Prince Caspian movie thing will be at the Family Bookstore, so we have something for the next two weekends.

It’s my mother-in-law’s! I love her paintings. They are so beautiful. I think she’ll be adding on some quilling sometime too.

I think I have the post vacation blahs. I’ve had a hard time since coming back up here.

It may change soon. I have something that may potentially be a comforting thing for me to do sometimes, plus it will help me with figuring out songs for the church’s Children’s Choir. I’ll let you all know when I’ve got more details (and maybe pictures too, if all goes well.)