Days at Home

 We're operating with one vehicle right now so my husband and I have been sharing our van. Some days he works from home,  some days he bikes to work but some days he needs the car.  So, we've had more than the usual amount of days at home. The weather has been nice, we haven't had much to do and, for the most part, its been nice to just hang out around the house.

 Tanner made a tunic for Aravis that was supposed to be a Jedi costume. She liked it as a dress for church.

My son, has spent hours and hours watching youtube videos about Rubik's Cubes, making variations of Rubik's Cubes with his legos, making his own youtube videos about Rubik's Cubes http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbGSP8p8tWU&context=C382a0a3ADOEgsToPDskKQHc8oXjuCgVKvKYA-yIbH and playing with Rubik's Cubes.

 His workstation

 One of his creations

We brought down some old toys that have been in storage for awhile. Aravis, with a little help from her big sister, has spent days setting up houses and playing on the patio.

Rescue Heroes meets Loving Family meets Dora and Princess, the cat.

 We noticed this milkweed has bite marks in it which means baby caterpillars have been here. Every season it seems the first caterpillars fall prey to the ants. After they've devoured a few, they must realize that they're poisonous, because they leave them alone after that. It's very interesting to me to wonder how that all works. How do they "know" and then why do they "forget" again? At any rate, we should be seeing caterpillars in the garden again soon. I want to plant flowers that serve as food for other larvae this year so we can observe  different caterpillars and butterflies.

picnicking

 

 

One of the great, but sometimes frustrating, things about where we live is that plants just spontaneously sprout out of the ground and grow quickly. The weed in our shrubs that turned into a giant tree we had to remove we weren't so thrilled about, but this beautiful smelling Jasmine we'll take. 

And then, as I was nursing the baby in bed last night and just starting to drift off, Aravis, who was not quite sleepy yet, whispered in my ear "How do ants poop?" I roused myself and quickly googled it with my iPod, which was laying beside me and we whispered about bug poop for a few minutes. In our research, we came across plans to make a worm bin for composting and collecting worm poop. My little entomologist was very excited about it so that's something we'll be working on soon.