Happy 6th!

Kators over for some food and cake!

Mom went all out and made a special appetizer: avocado, mango, and shrimp tower with sprouts, drizzled with chive oil. The big people liked this a lot!!!

Josiah's Snickers cake from King Soopers. He's not fond of mom's homemade cakes. This is much easier!! Can this become a tradition?

Birthday Boy

Compulsory picture

What boy doesn't like Legos? This is one of those 3 in 1 sets.

A game for the rest of the fam and friends!

A wonderful surprise from the Kators. So awesome!

Our Ladybugs have grown UP!!!

We're so excited that all of our ladybugs came out of their pupa stages and emerged as beautiful adults. We kept telling Hope that the ladybugs will soon get deeper colors, but Hope was just wanting some pink ladybugs (yes those really do exist). Sure enough, these are actually PINK ladybugs, and they are so so cool. Love them.

Mom added an arrow to let you know what emerging adults looked like. As soon as they came out of their shells, they were actually yellow and without dots. As they dried out, they turned into their deeper colors and got their dots.

Here's an closeup shot of our bug. We've been going into the garden to put aphids into their container. It's so fun to watch the ladybugs eat the aphids. When not on their steady diet of aphids, ladybugs can tolerate wet raisins. Hope is loving going into the garden to find aphids for her "pets."  They will soon be leaving home....

Science is So FUN

Any idea what this finger is pointing to? Well, I didn't until a few weeks ago - our Science homeschool time.

It's actually a LADYBUG!!!!  This is what a baby ladybug looks like in your garden. I don't know how many millions of baby ladybugs I've killed because I had NO idea that ladybugs are insects that go through a complete metamorphosis. Hope calls mom a ladybug killer. I told her that I've repented.

This particular ladybug that you see is one of 16 that are living in our home right now.  They have been with us for 2 weeks. And today, they have decided to enter into their next stage: pupa.  They are in their own little teenage worlds, wrapped into little "cocoon" shapes that are tranforming their yellow and black stripped scary little bodies into beautiful red and black spotted ladybugs.  They have not entered into their pretty adult states yet.

Here are three crawling up on the dome and sticking their bottoms to the plastic. They are  about to enter their pupa stage. 

 More pics to come as they emerge into something a bit more cute.

The kids have learned about insect anatomy and ladybug anatomy.  Quite the fun unit study. Mom is just sad that she's killed so many of these bugs.... if only Lisa's school taught her that ladybugs had 4 stages of life....

Cinco de Mayo Funny

We were praying for a friend who will be going to Guatemala. Hope prayed for this friend and "Guacamole". Then, Paxton made a side comment, "So is Tortilla the capital of Guacamole?" Josiah's reply was, "No silly, it's the capital of Japan!"