Oops!

Connor likes to eat the fresh veggies that we cut up for salads and dinner. Cucumbers and bell peppers are his favorite. I didn't think much of it until I was halving jalepenos this afternoon. I walked out of the kitchen for a minute, and the next thing I knew Connor was looking at me in desperation and said. "I need water!" 

Then I knew...

Two glasses of milk and some bread later, the barfing started. 

At least his mouth quit burning.

The Best Laid Plans...

Anita being very businesslike with the kids this morning: "Here's what our plan is for today..."

Kelsey interrupting with an earnest plea: " Please say there's ice cream involved."

Trains, Planes, and Automobiles

We've got the trains and automobiles... still working on the planes.

These toys you can build with are so much cooler than the stuff the girls went through - ponies, Barfies Barbies, etc. I just don't get the point behind having gender-specific toys. If they like 'em, let them play with 'em! I just wish I had figured it out sooner. And while my boys and girls most definitely play with the same toys differently (i.e. my sons have enjoyed cradling the baby doll before sitting on its head), it's all good!

The One that Survived...

Several weeks ago, Kelsey found that our flowers in front had five caterpillars munching away on it. I gave her permission to capture and raise two of them. She named them Sara and Pokey. We didn't take any pictures of the ones we caught, but they looked something like this:

Picture from here.

After some intense research on Google, we were able to identify the critters as Buckeye caterpillars. Kelsey fed them, and changed their food (plants), cleaned out the jar a few times, and watched them every day. Before long, Pokey had formed into a chrysalis overnight. A couple days later, Sara followed suit.

In the process, we learned something really cool about these caterpillars: they shed those spiky things when they make their chrysalis. Again, we didn't get a picture, so we are borrowing someone else's here. You can kind of see the ball of spikes behind the chrysalis in this picture:

Picture from here.

After about another week, Kelsey found the second chrysalis empty. Sara had emerged!

We looked closely in the jar, and sure enough - we had a butterfly.

(Which eventually found its way out of the jar.)

It was so much fun watching it, so we took a video, too!

Kelsey also found this little 8-legged critter while she was on the steps watching Sara. She named him Jasper. And then she killed him. Black widows are not allowed to live in our yard.

And Pokey? Pokey never came out of the chrysalis. We assume one of the freakishly intense 100 degree days roasted him alive. Kelsey was really sad and cried about it.  She's such a tenderhearted gal.