{ 3rd Grade Eco Fair }

My daughter had an eco-fair at school tonight. Students paired up or individually came up with a booth on a conservation topic. Her topic was water conservation. She gave all kinds of pointers on how to conserve water and why it's important. I'm so proud of her!

After the fair, the third grade students put on a great eco-show! They worked really hard on it and did a great job!

My daughter had a long speaking part in the show, but she remembered all of her lines!

{ First Grade Seawold Feild Trip }

The first grade went on a field trip to Seaworld. As always, the bus ride was part of the excitement for the kids.

This was actually at the end of the day, almost the entire class met up at the tide pools and then went over to the dolphin pool. No one got to touch one.

The sting ray pettting pool was a hit!

The Wild Arctic was a favorite, especially the helicoptor ride.

The kids loved watching the penguins.

The shark encounter was the first place the boys wanted to go.

We started by watching an educational show where the trainers showed the audience how they train the animals.

Here's where the trainer demonstrated the trust needed to put ointment on the walrus's infected flipper.

As we were running accross the campus to the sea lion show area, we saw some flamingoes out taking a stroll.

Here was my group. Each adult got three kids to supervise. Our group ended up joining another group and we all saw Seaworld together. In all it was a very fun but very tiring day. The kids were so excited that we almost ran everywhere. We got to see a lot in two hours!

{ Teacher Appreciation }

We decorated doors this week! Here's one of them. This idea came from Skip to My Lou who always has the best ideas for teachers.

{ Earth Day at the Mission }

We went to the Earth Day celebration at Mission San Luis Rey. It was a nice day with crafts and planting for the kids. A nursery was selling plants for really good prices, so we came home with some herbs, asparagus, poppies and daisies as well. It was a great day.

We stopped by the Fallbrook preserve on the way home. There were lots of blooming flowers. And lots of lizards.

{ First Squares Stitched }

We finished the first squares on our samplers today. We chose "home" as our first blessing. We are so blessed to have such a wonderful home and great neighbors and friends. We enjoyed putting together these first squares, and are already working on the next one. School and softball are bound to get in the way of finishing them tonight, but they should be done in the next couple of days.

Hers:
Mine:

{ Lizards }

We have recently noticed a huge increase in the number of lizards around and on our house. I was wondering if it has anything to do with the next door neighbors moving out a few months ago. They used to spray their entire lawn with pesticide to kill all of the black spiders that lived in it. Yuck. I'm so glad that's not happening anymore. And the lizards are, too.

{ Stitching Along and Counting our Blessings }

While looking at Amy's (of Inspire Co.) beautiful embroidery in her 39 squares stitch-along project, my daughter said I want to learn how to do that! So, we signed up for her current stitch-along Counting My Blessings and bought some basic embroidery supplies. I went ahead and used Amy's suggestions of osnaburg fabric and floss colors. Then I set up our grids, my daughter requested 30 squares.

Today we watched the DMC video tutorial on several different stitches. We practiced the stitches and are feeling confident to begin our first blessing square. My daughter chose "home" as our first blessing, so, tonight, we will begin with home!

{ Caterpillars }

They are growing and eating up the shasta daisy plant!

Happy Earth Day !

For your viewing pleasure, "Food, Inc." Free on PBS.
http://video.pbs.org/video/1472879887/

{ Homesteader Syndrome }

I want to do this. Blast that HOA!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCPEBM5ol0Q

{ Butterfly Release}

We took our more than two week old butterflies outside today. They had laid hundreds of eggs, and were looking a little ragged around the edges. They are supposed to have a butterfly life expectancy of two weeks. The weather is warming up, so we decided today would be a great day to release them.

Fly and be free! We had so much fun watching them grow and change. We'll try our best to take care of their babies.

{ Award }

My son earned the award for alertness on the pyramid of success at his school today. He was so excited to hear his name called at the Friday flag ceremony. Afterwards, he was jumping up and down and smiling to himself about it. So sweet.

Here's what his teacher wrote about him: "(He) earned a place on (the school)'s pyramid of success for his attention to knowledge and learning. He has a love for learning and sharing his knowledge. He is always thinking and figuring things out. He always knows what is going on ... and he is always ready to learn more!"

{ Butterfly Update }

Exciting news, we have tiny caterpillars! The butterflies have been laying little blue eggs all over the place. When we first noticed that's what they were doing, we looked up the plants that painted ladies lay their eggs on. The only one the nursery had was shasta daisy, so we added one to the enclosure. The butterflies went right to work laying eggs. We all watched one laying her eggs today. She perched on a leaf and curled her tail end around to the bottom of the leaf where she deposited one tiny egg. Then she moved and did it again. And again. Fascinating!

We looked at a painted lady butterfly egg under the microscope at the lowest magnification.

My daughter spotted a couple of tiny little caterpillars on the butterfly enclosure today. We're going to have a ton of them before we know it. Here's one of the caterpillars on my son's finger. Tiny!

And under the microscope.

{ Weekend Ball }

My sweet girl loves softball!

Her brother likes to hang out at the ballpark with his sister.

Getting in a couple of practice swings before going up to bat.

She plays catcher almost every game. Good eye hand coordination or something like that. She hustles after that ball, too. She needs a little help getting geared up.

Good game, they won 7-2!

My son played right afterwords.

Then we went to the Storm game where my daughter's team (all two of them) got to walk around the field before the game started.

Here was another chance for the kids to go across the field.

After the game was over, one of the Mavs handed my son a game ball. He was so excited! The kids got to run the bases. Yes, he lost his shoe!

This guy is telling them to hurry because they're the last ones. But not really, other kids went on the field after them! The kids loved it! I think this was the first time we actually stayed till the end of a baseball game - other than one the kids were playing.