One of Josie’s birthday presents this year was a butterfly growing kit. We sent away for the caterpillars and they came in about a week in a jar filled with their own food. They are painted lady butterflies. We grew three into chrysalises and then put them into the mesh cage to watch them transform, hatch and grow. The girls loved watched how big they got and it was very noticeable how quickly they grew from day to day. Josie had done this same thing in school, although she missed out on parts because we went on vacation so she was excited to see it all. Last Sunday morning they hatched into butterflies in a very short amount of time. We had two quickly and the next one came two days later right past breakfast. We got to keep them for a week and watch them fly more, and eat, but all in all they didn’t do all too much. The greatest excitement for the girls was checking for them to hatch several times a day. The cats actually weren’t even too excited about it until about halfway through the week when Mio finally noticed that we were growing bugs in the house. He looked so excited and so happy that we were growing bugs for him to chase! I felt bad taking them away, but then the butterflies got to live in the bathroom when we weren’t directly watching them to make sure they didn’t become cat food. George and finally Fred noticed them too a few days later. Never did see Ezzy particularly take an interest.

On Sunday morning it was time to let them go as otherwise the book warns you’ll have way too many caterpillar eggs. Or perhaps just wreck their business of selling them? Either way I was ready to be done protecting them from the cats and feeding them. I think Josie may have been able to do more for them, but Celia definitely does not have the fine motor dexterity to be careful enough so I did the care and feeding work. We gathered a few neighbors who happened to be around, Zach, Ethan and Charlie and opened up the cage and the butterflies went nowhere. Just the same as what happened at school. We eventually got a leaf and lifting them up and encouraged them to fly happily away, nothing bad happened instantly and so everyone was happy. One even landed on Zach’s bright yellow sock to check it out for a while. Overall it was a good experience I’d recommend and I think we’ll do it again sometime, but not right now.

Oh the heat has hit Boston, 94+ degrees today. I hid inside most of the day, we had some friends over, did some crafts, art before finally heading out in the late afternoon for fudgesicles and playing in the kiddie pool! I could not convince Josie to just eat her fudgesicle for the picture, she wanted to smile.

I got some one on one time with Josie today with Celia out of the house. So I decided to start teaching her about using the stove top and cooking a bit. We started with something she’s been itching to make more of as it’s been summer, popsicles! In this case, fudgesicles, which require a small amount of cooking over a double boiler. Josie got to feel the heat, but nothing too bad and she did a great job listening and learning. I even got some science instruction in about conduction when comparing wood and metal. We will hopefully enjoy a few tomorrow!

This is more of a documenting post, just trying to preserve some pictures of Josie’s artwork throughout her year at preschool. They sent home a bunch of stuff on the last day all at once.

Above is a drawing of Josie and Celia, done recently.

Above is Josie’s drawing of the different holiday traditions around our house, including, baking cookies, shoes going on top of presents, decorating the Christmas tree and lighting the menorah.

Above is Josie’s circle time mat, she decorated it in the beginning of the year and sat on it every day for their circle time where they discussed the date, the weather, and celebrated each persons special day with their clue box surprise!

Above is Josie’s diploma! No big ceremony or anything for us, just simply handed this.

Above is a very typical drawing from Josie these days, her flowers and sun, often times it includes a rainbow as well.

Above is a house they were supposed to put our family into and decorate, this is her second version though where she got free reign in how it was designed. I love the person going down the chimney head first.

Josie used some leftover jewels from another project to add to her typical person and flower pictures.

Above is Josie’s work from last fall when they discussed where they might land as a leaf. She did two versions of this one too, the other one said she’d land on her sisters head.

Above is Josie’s self portrait from November. Interesting and kinda troll-like 🙂

And this one is from May, looks a lot happier, more hair!

Above is Josie’s picture of her looking out the window during the snow storm. Interesting how the playing in the snow wasn’t apparently the part that stood out. She’s often quite literal, so literally during the storm she was inside looking out.

Above this is from early in the school year. I think the picture is supposed to be of a rainbow. Not sure what else it could be 🙂 But we certainly did go to Thompson spray park with friends.

And above this is mid-winter, she did love the hot chocolate after coming in from the cold. It’s sitting on a table.

Overall we’ve seen a lot of progress in her art this year, adding in more body parts and details to her pictures. We have one on our wall right now I need to take a picture of because she shows a great perspective.

My parents brought a bubble gun to the get together this past weekend and the girls took a real liking to it. Burned through bubbles in no time. Celia took the time to enjoy them in some nice light too though so I took some photos. Yes that is a rainbow on her head.

After having to be postponed twice, once for a rescheduled trip to Miami and again for rain, we finally got to execute Josie’s 5th birthday party! She picked rainbows as the theme for this year. We painted rainbows on paper and made a rainbow of cupcakes! To keep the party numbers reasonable we kept to school friends and neighborhood friends and Josie had a blast. She was so very pleased that almost all of her school friends could make the date.

For fun we had the regular bounce house, an art project and a quick game. Our art was decorating pillow cases which also became the goody bag to take home. I bought fabric crayons which the kids drew on regular paper with and then my dad helped by spending half the party ironing them onto the pillow cases. The kids thought they were great and Josie enjoyed making two of them.

Josie chose the menu of some basic snacks, hummus, strawberries, carrots, chips and guacamole. Her one fancy request were some chocolate dipped strawberries which I made. Nothing nearly as fancy as last year but I was exhausted none the less. (note one rainbow on the basketball hoop above). After snacking and bouncing the kids were definitely looking for something else to do so thankfully I had one game planned. They played ‘musical towels’ which would be very similar to musical chairs except that no one actually get’s kicked out of the game. We just watch the kids struggle to get themselves onto progressively fewer and fewer towels with less space. They enjoyed the running around in circles to Glee’s take on the Hairspray song “You Can’t Stop The Beat.” They got the hang of it by the end, they had trouble fitting onto all of the towels to start with, but by the end they were all on one all snuggled in together.

Right from there I directed everyone to enjoy some singing and cake. We had way too many cupcakes. A number of people couldn’t come at the last minute unfortunately and I had the choice of making it ‘really close’ to enough cupcakes or just make another batch. So you know I made another batch. They were chocolate, strawberry and vanilla frosted with a rainbow of colors.

After cupcakes, a couple per kid generally, which also had an extra toppings bar for more frosting plus sprinkles, jimmies and other goodies, they played some more and it was quickly time to head on home. We did a little clean up and Josie actually suggested a family picture at the end for all of us who worked hard on her party.

Once we cleaned up we cooked an easy dinner and Josie enjoyed opening her presents from friends. She got a lot of art supplies which is great as they’ve kept us busy with all the rain this month.

Photo credits go to my dad except for the last one.

Pictures out at Fosters Pond, me at 36.5 weeks with baby #3.

We had a busy father’s day here. We started off the morning with Jordi getting to sleep in before heading to Quebrada for a late second breakfast for the girls. We took some time talking to Jordi’s parents upon our return and wishing them an enjoyable day. Then my parents came over and we headed to the newest restaurant in town, Menotomy Grill & Tavern. We enjoyed a tasty lunch and getting to walk there and back as it’s the closest full service restaurant to us now! My dad even had some native to Harrisburg beer that my aunt and uncle are partial to. (yes we do go from meal to meal all day long)

We came back home to have a little rest and digestion with some playtime and reading before the girls and Jordi and Mike headed out for a bike ride. Since I’ve been pregnant I haven’t been out riding as I don’t feel so steady (I can fall over on flat ground lately), Josie no longer fits in the trailer, and so this was Celia’s first ride in the trailer at all this year. Josie rode behind Jordi on the tag-a-long bike and Celia was pulled by my dad for the first time he’s used the trailer. Should have gotten the camera out to get some shots of the crew, but I didn’t move fast enough. They enjoyed a bike ride over to spy pond and spent a long time at the playground together. My mom and I did some laundry and then worked on the new baby quilt, the top is almost done which is fantastic because that’s all I’ll be finishing before we have a baby and a name.

Then the bike riders were back and we made dinner on the grill and some homemade kitkat ice cream before shuffling the kids off to a slightly early bedtime as they’ve been up very late for a few days.

Happy Fathers day to all the fathers out there!