Time Marches on......

My first session of Body Back ended last week. My results were fantastic. I am in love. I am addicted. I have a few things to share.....


Gigi turned FOUR..... {a month ago}


Lula is potty trained...... {for months now}
 
Our garden is yielding us some fantastic fruit.....
 
The girls rescued from Handsome Hal and played with a lizard for hours last week.....
 
Gigi can *full on swim*... No help.... no adult required.... swim.... dive... dive for rings..... SWIM!....
 
Life goes on.... and on.... and on......
 
A ton is happening.....and me...... I'm too busy living it to stop and blog about it.... But I will. I want to remember all of this one day. Guess I better get crackin'!









Gigi finished her first year of preschool..... {a month ago}

Success.......{ and the kiss of death }

{updates}

Our caterpillars have morphed! 4 of our 5 caterpillars spun themselves into their chrystalds last week and we transferred them to their habitat!  We waited and watched and hoped for days while our "runt" caterpillar scrounged around desperately looking for scraps of food the four much larger caterpillars may have left behind. Truth-be-told Hubby and I were not hopeful and both agreed that this would be a life lesson no matter the outcome - and really wasn't this whole project about learning something about the life cycle??

After a few days our little runt climbed up to the paper towel we covered the top of his cup with, hung himself upside-down and we held our breath. within a few hours the poor little guy was a newly formed chrysalis! Way to go little guy! You may have taken a bit longer, but you did it!!

On Sunday the family went out for a morning of shopping and lunch. When we returned I noticed that there were red stains running down the side of the Butterfly habitat. I was thinking "No! No! No! No! How did we miss this???? We can't miss this!!!" Red liquid is expected to be secreted from the newly emerged butterflies immediately following their metamorphosis. These red stains meant our butterflies had emerged.  Thankfully for the girls only two of the four butterflies had made their grand entrance. While watching the two new butterflies stretch and dry their wings, Gigi starting shouting and clapping "Look! Look! One is coming out of it's cocoon now!!" and she was right! The entire family watched in awe as a third butterfly emerged. It was so cool to see!

We now have four butterflies flying around our little habitat and are patiently waiting to see if our last little caterpillar is strong enough to make the change! This has been an amazing and fun project and we are strongly considering ordering more caterpillars and watching a handful more change into butterflies.  We also want to raise tadpoles into Bull-frogs but if we do we need to order them in the next few days as our desert temperatures are rapidly rising and it is bordering on too hot for the little tadpoles to sit on the FedEx truck.

I still highly recommend a project like this one with your kiddos!!  Our neighbor's ladybugs are also staring to change and while I think my girls would love that project too - the changes are not as blatant every day as the caterpillar's.  If you want to see what project options we are considering next go to www.naturegifts.com.

{our caterpillars getting ready to turn into chrysalids}

{the four chrysalids}

{the red meconium from the newly emerged butterflies}

{welcome to the world butterfly}

  

{gtting color into it's wings}

  

{now onto the ''kiss of death"}

um.....okay.....so the Strawberries might not be making it. They might be...well...dead. It is starting to feel very Summer Science Project all over again. On a brighter note though... Our beefsteak Tomatoes are looking very good. The cherry tomatoes are looking a bit spindly but have blooms all over them. The carrots I am still not very hopeful about but there are tons of sprouts {that I know I need to weed out but...} and the tops are starting to look more and more like carrot tops everyday!   

Here's a snapshot of the current state of our "garden"

{um yeah.... this is the state of our strawberries

- I'm going to blame it on the desert heat!}

{we do have a few strawberry plants still growing with the carrots  though...}

{our first beefsteak tomato starting to grow!}

{the beefsteak tomato plant}

 {our spindly cherry tomato plants}

{they might be spindly but they are flowering}

  

{a cluster of carrots}

Stay Tuned...

{Project Simplify}

So Much Science!!

I have a plethora of projects going on at the moment.... Aside from the "Science Projects" I am about to update you all on there is "Project Simplify" {that is past due for a blog update about what this week's
Hot Spot is and... well... it's Tuesday and I haven't even begun! Hot Spot #2 is overwhelming me at the moment, and where to begin is my issue, well one of my issues!} The there is Project Stroller Strides which as just hit the 1 year mark with no updates in 6 months and some news to share. Stroller Strides is about to become a hot topic on my blog again!! Ay-Ay-Ay.... So much, so little time!!

Let's start with our Spring Science Project...

We finished our planting; at least for the moment. There is still some debate as the weather or not we add a 5th item to our "garden"... But the garden is coming along nicely and the girls are excited to see what, if any progression has been made from day to day.  I must admit that I, um....cheated a little.  Let me justify my cheating if I may and tell you that...if I had simply waited one more day I would have seen that my "cheat" was unnecessary and maybe I should have had a little more faith... and frankly if it's a lesson I want to teach my girls, then a 'failure' as in a failure to produce crops would have been a truer lesson in agriculture and photosynthesis, than lying to them!

My "cheat" was with the carrots, and NO I did not stick baby or store bought carrots in the ground and say "Look what you grew!!"  Lula very much wanted to grow carrots, but in our region of the country, carrots are a fall crop.  Afraid that we may never even get the seeds to sprout through the soil I put a handful of carrot seeds on a wet paper towel, in a ziploc bag and taped it to a window in the hopes that they would sprout. Then when the did I would plant the sprouts in the soil and show the girls the tiny carrot sprouts popping up from where the planted seeds in the soil.  

Yesterday I took a peek at the carrot box and nothing, but the seeds on the window were sprouted and ready to be stuck in the spoil. So I snuck out to the yard, planted a row of carrot sprouts, watered them well, said a Hail Mary and showed the girls their "success". They were so excited to see the carrots they planted !!  Well today, all of the seeds that the girls actually planted have come sprouting up out of the ground. I have no idea if they will, in the end mature into carrots, but I didn't need to trick the girls or pad their results, they did just fine on their own!   Lesson learned mom.... Let the experiment unfold organically.

So where are we to date.... We have one small green strawberry and a handful of strawberry flowers that with fingers crossed and breath held, will turn into the berries they are supposed to!

The clusters of Carrot sprouts that will, if they mature as hoped need to be thinned out so that select carrots will have room to grow...

Our cherry tomatoes are beginning to show a few blossoms. More than anything I think I am excited for tomatoes!!

And the "Mommy and Daddy" tomato or Beefsteak tomato plant is starting to get big. I've already secured it to the temporary steak but will have to get something more substantial for it soon. There are teeny-tiny buds forming on the plant, but I am not sure if they are the beginning of new growth or of they will be tomatoes. Time will tell and that has been the exciting and fun part of this project. Seeing what happens and what the different stages are.  I enjoy these little projects as much {sometimes more} than the kids do!!

Stay Tuned........

Our other "Science Project", we started this weekend. On Friday our caterpillars and butterfly habitat arrived.  We gave our best little neighborhood buddy Ladybug Larvae and a Ladybug Playground for his birthday and I was so excited about all the fun he was going to have watching little lobster like larvae turn into Ladybugs that I decided to pull the trigger a bit early on our butterfly experiment!

In just 4 days our caterpillars have grown quite a bit! Honestly if I had realized how much and how quickly they were going to grow I would have been photographing them daily!! 

Friday March 12, 2011

Tuesday March 15, 2011

The end result - Hopefully!

I'm telling you....  It's a lot of fun to have these little projects with the girl, more fun that I had even anticipated. They may only be 2 and 3 {almost 4} years old but I know that my days are numbered. It will not be long before my roll goes from partner in crime to chauffeur; That my time with them will be reduced to "Can you drive me to soccer; swimming; dance;  the mall?" ... So for now I am embracing spring {even though it's already in the 90's} and youth and digging in the dirt, chasing bugs, examining the bees in our garden with magnifying glass, tasting honey and watching caterpillars grow with my girls... and I am loving, truly loving every second of it!



If you want to join us in some fun critter adventures.... and believe you me, we will be "growing" ladybugs and raising tadpoles up into frogs and likely getting a worm farm....If you want to join in the fun and have a little "Science Project" of your own check out Nature Gifts

{Project Simplify}

It's That Time Again!! "Phase One"!

Last summer the girls and I took on a science project. I won't say "failed" because we did manage to sprout and grow bean plants, we just didn't get them to survive long enough to produce beans. This spring we will be growing....


Drum roll please.....


S T R A W B E R R I E S !

The girls were so excited to see and water and pick strawberries from my Step-mother's garden when we were back east last month, so..... Here we go! I would like to add green beans and tomatoes to our "garden" in a month or so, but for now..... I'm excited to start this project.

Phase One was picking out our "Garden". Would it be a planter? Or pot? Or strawberry planter?? I gave the girls some options and I was pleased with their choice of this 44" window box/patio planter. I think it will make a sweet and appropriate sized "garden" for their strawberries!

Phase Two is paying attention to our yard and the sun today and tomorrow to decide where our "garden" should be.... but I think I already know.  Then we will get the soil and plants and the girls and I will get to my favorite part...... Getting our hands dirty!!

Stay tuned to see how we fair with this next "science project".... I'm excited.... Are you?