Butterflies

A few pictures of butterflies today...

While my flowers have consistently failed to entice any butterflies to venture near our house, the kids play-doh did wonders.    In and out of the patio they swooped, investigating all the bright colors on the patio table.  Who would've guessed?

My husband found this specimen for us while on his way to work one day.  It's missing half it's wings, but it's still a lovely specimen.  I need to get a riker mount for it.

I love seeing their wings up close--so much more beautiful than anything I would think to create...

Rain Rain

Lots and lots of rain this week.  Three days worth.  No need to water the lawn.  No need to water the flowers.  No need to do anything until...

...it was over.  Then there were puddles to jump in and fall in.  Muddy clothes to be washed.  Muddy feet to be cleaned.  And mushrooms everywhere.  We hadn't seen any mushrooms since spring...

Today the hydrangeas look parched and dry.  All of the mushrooms have shriveled, shrunk, and toppled over.  The nasturtium leaves are brown and dry around the edges.  I need to go get the hose and water the garden.
Did it really just rain?

Dinosaurs all in a row

Friday.  Clean up day here.  Trying to get the house in order so it looks nice for the start of the weekend.  Dusting, vacuuming, and...

...putting these dinosaurs in order on the windowsill.

That probably wasn't necessary.

Making sure that the all of the triceratops and stegosaurus were evenly spaced apart.

Umm...really wasn't necessary?

Wasting ten minutes trying to find out what the plural form of stegosaurus is.
Uhhh...very unnecessary.  I guess.
But, just in case you were wondering, according to my research, the plural form of stegosaurus is...stegosaurus.  Although, there are a few websites that say you can use stegosauruses or stegosaurs.
I will probably never have a reason to use the plural form of stegosaurus again.
I think I may just be procastinating now.
Back to cleaning...

Birthday Girl

Well, I had big plans for Little Miss P.'s birthday.  And I started on said "big plans" real nice and early.  Nothing was going to stop me from getting the job done--I was prepared, I was being timely, it was going to be a success!  And then, as you already know, everyone got sick.  There are some things you just can't prepare for...

So, I had to scale back on Little P.'s party plans.  Waaayy, waaaayy back.  In the end, though I was disappointed that things hadn't gone as planned, I was glad that, miserable as I was, I managed to get something done for her birthday.  Something is better than nothing, right?

Anyway, part of the plan was to have about fifty or so paper mache hot air balloons.  By birthday day, I had just fourteen.  Thankfully, fourteen is just enough to spell out "Happy Birthday" with and still have one balloon leftover for the cake.

The girls painted almost all of the balloons.  I painted a few leftovers and added the decorations.  The Playmobil kids were nice enough to hang out in the baskets and hold little letter signs.  (Thanks guys!)

And then there was the cake.  I used my favorite Martha Stewart One Bowl Chocolate Cupcake recipe, and sadly,  for the first time ever, the cake was a disaster.  One layer was horribly lopsided (think 2 inches on one side sloping down to about 1 inch on the other side!) and the other layer was constantly losing large chunks of cake off the sides.  Thankfully, after some trimming and patching and a whole lot of icing, the cake looked okay.

Loads and loads of white icing were piled on top to look like clouds and then one last balloon, with it's little passenger, was set floating atop it all.

The birthday girl enjoyed it all--balloons, cake, presents, being the center of attention--it was all great.  And now she is officially two!

Sick Days

Where have I been?  Well, I wish I could say I've been off doing fun and exciting things, enjoying myself so much that I just didn't have any time for blogging, but sadly, that wasn't the case.  I've been sick.  And I've been tending to sick kids.

The kids and I managed to come down with a horrible illness of some sort that involved high fevers, headaches, coughs, sore throats, achy joints, etc., etc.  Thankfully, we're all almost better.  Or rather, the kids are already better and I'm slowly getting there...

Thankfully, I was well enough to enjoy some 4th of July festivities.  We managed to make it down to the lake for some free ice cream, games, and balloons.

And then, much later, we sat by the lake and watched the firework display.  The kids were excited and amazed.  So was I.  Fireworks never become boring or dull, at least not in my opinion.

We also celebrated a birthday over the weekend, pictures of which will be coming shortly...