My Little Artist

When HP & I moved into our house 6 years ago, we re-painted all of the walls. (Well, HP & some of our friends did. I was quite preggo, so I tried to look busy doing something else.)

I picked out a higher gloss paint thinking that we would soon have little hands touching & probably drawing on them. And I wanted a slick finish so we could (theoretically) clean off the wall surfaces a little more easily.

Emelye came. Then Josh came. And there were no written markings on the wall. I had a mixture of emotion -- patting myself on the back for having awesome kids that don't mark on the walls and kicking myself a little thinking the high gloss paint wasn't really worth it.

Then Addie came. Addie met markers, crayons, pencils, & pens. She will mark on any surface, including herself, with any type of marking instrument. And don't blink. She's quite sneaky, holding pens under the table & looking so innocent all the while drawing on the chair where she sits.

My friend Shawna remarked that she had never seen Addie w/o some lovely Addie illustrations to decorate her legs & arms. She also told me that she & Scamp hide the markers & crayons before Addie comes over.

Last month I went on a crusade to round up all marking instruments & put them in a combination safe. No joking here. I found a lovely little locking file box at Office Depot. That helped some. The thing to remember about Addie is that she is sneaky. So, I may have the crayons out for the kids to color while I make dinner. She will actually take a few crayons out of her box & hide them for later use.

So, while I don't always take her markings in stride, I am glad that we have high gloss paint & I am thankful for her creativity. And I do smile (usually) to myself when I see her latest drawing on her legs. (Truth be told, those don't really bother me because they get rid of themselves in the bath.

Here's one of her latest (before I hid the crayons):

Our Moths Have Emerged!

So in my last post, I mentioned something about finding some white caterpillars around the b'fly garden & identifying them as Virginia Tiger Moth caterpillars. Well, the first one emerged a few days ago & I wanted to share some pics.

Emelye put him outside to "be with his family" once he emerged.


Smile!

Our Butterfly Garden -- updated

Well, the lovely little bordered patch caterpillars have thoroughly destroyed Mr. Sunflower. His head even lies in repose.



Most of the caterpillars have moved on to greener pastures, but there are a few hanging around still.


We also have found some of these guys around:


They are Virginia Tiger Moth caterpillars. They eat just about anything we've found. I found them on the sunflower, the coreopsis, and some weeds. We "adopted" one. (Emelye named him/ her Fuzzy.) A few days ago, s/he spun his cocoon:


We'll see how long he needs before he emerges (and if I've correctly identified him as a caterpillar!)

Slumber Party Time!

Emelye had her first sleepover last night with her best-friend, Scamp. Scamp absolutely insisted on doing make-up & Emelye insisted on painting fingernails. (And, of course, Addie got in on the action by default.)

Josh was on the verge of tears when finding out that boys just don't wear make-up & nail lacquer. So, during the mini-makeover, he got to play his Lighting McQueen video game. This proved to be a bigger plus in his book.

After the girls got all dolled-up, they watched Tinkerbell & the Lost Treasure, ate popcorn & chocolate milk.

Here are a few highlights from the girls.

Notice all of the marker on Addie's legs. She's quite the artist . . .


Scamp is SUCH a poser1 HeHe!

Our Butterfly Garden

This year we took an active effort in planting an actual garden to attract butterflies. We planted some host plants (for caterpillars) & nectar plants (for the adults). The plan was to have a fun zone for all members of the butterfly family-- something for everyone! Well, the flood drowned much of our seedling plants. And some just didn't grow.

Still, we have a sunflower going strong, a verbena, lots of zinnias, some cosmos, butterfly bushes, and something from my mom's garden (can't remember the name). Oh, and I even got a few milkweed plants from my parents' land. (They always mow them down because the cows shouldn't eat them.)

And then . . . today . . . I spotted the first "batch" of caterpillars under one of our sunflower leaves.



And then, I discovered 3 more "groups" of caterpillars on different sunflower leaves.



Front of leaf:


So the big question then -- what are they?

Answer: Bordered Patch Butterfly Caterpillars

After doing a little reading I discovered that they will probably mark the end to our sunflower. I asked Emelye if she would rather us kill the caterpillars or let them kill the sunflower. (She worked hard to have both after all.) She decided having caterpillars/ butterflies was a bigger pay off to her than having a big sunflower.

Now we wait to see how long Mr. Sunflower will last. Well, maybe. I also read about how Mockingbirds just love to munch on these little caterpillars. Since our yard birds are Robins, Mockingbirds, & Sparrows, the game is on! Who will win -- caterpillars or sunflowers/ birds?!?!!? I watch too much reality tv . . .

Our second family nature walk

This week's feature animal was the cotton-tailed rabbit. This means we go out on our nature walk, investigating interesting items, but we have a larger purpose of digitally capturing rabbits. We drove to David Crockett State Park in Lawrenceburg which is about 2 hours away from us. We did this for one big reason -- naps in the van! We left directly after lunch, forged through the pouring rain, & arrived in L'burg around 3pm.



On our first attempt at a walk, we got pounded by rain! So much fun racing back to the van. HP & Addie won, though, I have to say they won as Addie was on wheels (stroller). Otherwise, I (plus E & Josh) would've won. ;)



We drove around a bit until the rain let up some. Then we walked by the river & found lots of cool stuff. Josh's fave: discarded little boy underwear. Ew! Here are a few of our other finds:


Some kid of mushroom. Do you know what it is? I'm not a big mushroom connoisseur.


Not sure what this guy is either -- maybe some kind of fritillary. If you know, please share!






Not a great pic, but I think this guy is an American Goldfinch. He's missing some wing bars, but I don't see them listed as field markings. (I think this may mean she's really female.)


One of many deer to see.




We had to wait to for these geese to cross the road.




We saw this guy on our way out.

After we left (without seeing any rabbits -- no surprise since they are mainly nocturnal), we came home to take a short nature walk down our street. And there we saw our cotton-tailed rabbit!


And Puddle came too!!

MY very own nature walk

Read about MY nature walk on my photography blog! We took another nature walk on Friday (I'll post sometime), and I clearly understood that these nature walks are for the kids' enjoyment & education. So, that means I take my own walks sometimes. Check it out to see what I found & help me identify a few items.