Ice Cream!

On May 2nd, from 5pm - 10pm, Baskin Robbins is having a special night...31 cent scoop night! Check out the link for more info! This special night will benefit the National Fallen Firefighters Association.

Baskin Robbins

Maybe we'll see you there!

Saying goodbye....

Today we said goodbye to our butterfly friends. It was fun to see them flutter away. One of them stayed on the side of our house for a while, before it too flew off to be free.

Butterflies are here!!

We woke up this morning to find four of our five chrysalids hatched into butterflies! While I was on my walk, the fifth one hatched, but thankfully the kids got to see it.

We've been enjoying watching them this morning and will probably set them free tomorrow. It's been fun watching them change and makes us marvel at God's handiwork. Just another example of creation and the genius involved in creating one creature that so miraculously transforms into something so different and beautiful! Sort of like how God changes us into new creatures in Christ.

Have a glorious Friday! :)

Copying Trisha...

I loved the pictures that Trish put on her blog recently, so I'm copying her idea! (Thanks Trish! - see Thomas Family link on our blog). The one of my brother Rob and I is from 1970, when I was about 3 1/2 years old. The other picture is from 1973 when I was 6 years old.

Do you think Lizzy looks like me? She's going to be 6 in one week! I think she looks more like Kenny's family and Dan looks more like me...but who knows!? One of these days I'll post some pictures of Kenny when he was a little boy!

And still no butterflies here...we'll keep you posted. :)

Hurray for Dan!!

Dan tested today for his GREEN BELT in TaeKwon-Do....and he passed! On Monday he'll have a green belt to wear to class!

Way to go Daniel! :o)

Butterflies? Not yet!

We have been enjoying a fun science "observation" experiment with butterfly larvae. We got them in the mail about a week ago and watched them eat themselves into big, fat worms!

They spun lots of silk in their little food cup, and it was amazing to see how much they visibly grew from one day to the next! The kids all really enjoyed watching them, although it said in the instructions NOT to remove them from their food cup b/c it was sterile environment. It would have been fun to hold one too, but maybe another time. :)




The next thing they do is the most bizarre...on Monday morning we woke up to find one of the five worms hanging upside down, and throughout the day the rest followed suit. This is the beginning of the pupal stage. They just hang there, very still...but every once in a while they quiver. That's their defense mechanism to ward off predators!





Finally, they all turned into chrysalids. It's a quick process, to go from caterpillar to chrysalid once they are hanging upside down. We kept watching, but the next time one of us would walk through the room, another one would have changed! Finally we set up a "vigil" of sorts, where someone was always watching. And finally we were rewarded by getting to actually watch the amazing change from a fuzzy caterpillar hanging upside down, to that iridescent chrysalid. The caterpillar's skin actually starts to split, and it sheds that skin UPward by quivering until it reaches the top. Very amazing...God has created many incredible creatures, but this has to be one of the most fun to actually watch!



Stay tuned...in about a week we should have some Painted Lady butterflies! :) You can order your own butterfly larvae from Insect Lore.

Happy Easter ~ Happy Spring!

Hope everyone had a blessed and Happy Easter "Resurrection" Sunday! We had a great day! We had a visiting Pastor at our church this Sunday, and he preached on Job; excellent! We also got to see his missions report, and he showed many pictures of different missionaries and their countries. It was really good. :) We also had fun at church Sunday, with a big, bubble machine for the kids after Sunday School...it was a beautiful day to be outside!

We spent the afternoon with our good friends the Escotts and had a delicious lunch.

We colored eggs on Friday night with the kids, and had an egg hunt on Saturday. Fun for the kids and Kenny likes coloring eggs as much as the kids do...BUT...he does not use convential means. haha At least he left the power tools in the garage this year (don't ask). He and Nathan made some cool looking, tie-dyed eggs.

We have also been having some car issues, and repairs...new tires needed...money spent. But, I am very thankful at how the Lord provides what we need, right when we need it most. And I am thankful that Kenny is able to dig in and fix pretty much any car problem we have. He's pretty handy to have around.

Have a wonderful day everyone!

April!

Well, it's been a long time since I've posted an update. Sorry!! :)

Nothing much is new around here. We did have a nice visit from Kenny's brother Brian and his wife Carla last week. The kids enjoyed having them here and we got to take a vacation day to have fun! Kenny took the day off too, and we went to the park and just had a great day.

We had our Keepers of the Home and Contenders of the Faith meeting last Friday. Lizzy and the girls learned how to cross stitch! Lizzy is making a cute butterfly design on plastic canvas. The boys group made kites; and they really fly! It was a fun evening!

This week is our church's annual Pastor's Conference, so it will be a busy week here. We are looking forward to the evening meetings.

Have a good week!

~jac