Ressurection Eggs

We decided to dye the eggs from our chickens instead of the white ones from the store. Four of our chickens lay brown eggs and one bird lays a cool green egg. I wasn't sure how they would turn out when dyed but as you can see, they came out quite brilliantly. 

Fresh from her nap, Penny was not enthusiastic about letting her eggs sit.

Daddy and pretty eggs made it all better :)

A Medieval Feast

To celebrate the completion of studying Medieval Times, we just had to have a feast. We spent the entire day prepping for dinner and what a long (but enjoyable) day it was in the kitchen. By the way, this feast took place the first week of February. Yeah, I'm a little behind on updating the blog.

The girls and I came up with the menu and we decided which girl would help with each dish. The pretzels were probably the most fun because everyone got to help with those. This was our first experience with making pretzels and they actually turned out quite good (ahhh white flour!).



Reese and her pocket pies. I made the first one and she did the other three.

Hailey helped with the apple pie. I failed to snap a picture of it before dessert time but it was quite lovely.

They did not have plates in medieval times--they used a chunk of thick bread as a plate and piled their food on that. This was as close to the real deal as I could manage. We did use the bread/plate for the chicken, asparagus, and beef stew but after that the bread/plate was nice and soggy and we couldn't bear to top it off with dessert. The bread was great though--Paige helped with that.

We had milk or water to drink

I told the girls they could wear a dress of their choice if they desired. Paige took that decision quite seriously and wore about three dresses during the day.

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All in all, it was a nice meal. The girls showed off some magic tricks they had learned and the projects they had done.

And the king ended up being quite pleased with the meal and the entertainment :)

Little Miracle

Today I was walking around the house, talking on the phone to the husband.  We were preparing to attack and conquer the grocery store and everyone was running around. I peeked into the caterpillar nursery and I saw this: 

Which made me scream into the phone "There's a monarch hatching! There's a monarch hatching! Girls, get in here!" Jason, understanding these things and exhibiting one of the 1001 reasons we are perfect together, just said "Ok. Bye." and hung up.

And indeed, there was a monarch hatching. I grabbed my camera and got some very bad pictures of the brand new butterfly emerging because everyone's heads kept getting in the way. But I did manage to snap a few of this amazing process.

 Just 20 seconds after emerging (it took me that long to position everyone to a satisfactory view).

 This is about one minute after hatching. See how swollen the buttefly's belly is? It has to pump all those fluids into it's wings quickly. Note the chrysalis that it is still hanging from.

 Thirteen minutes after emerging.

 We released the butterfly later that afternoon.

He (yes, the girls can tell the difference) easily flew across the yard and into a tree. We watched the little guy for a moment and then I ushered the girls back into the house before we witnessed the newly freed butterfly fly into traffic or take a horrific detour into the chicken run. Farewell little creature, may your journey be gentle!

Silly Old Bear

I have to give a shout out to "The Complete Tales of Winnie-the-Pooh". It contains both "Winnie-the-Pooh" and "The House at Pooh Corner" (it really is complete). We have been reading this book as a family and I can declare it as our Number One Favorite Read-a-Loud (so far). It is incredibly funny. In nearly every chapter I have laughed hard enough to put the book the book down for a second. The older two girls usually get it but sometimes it's just the parents who catch onto the humor.

We have just two more chapters left before we start "The Five Little Peppers and How They Grew". I haven't read this book before but I know the story line so I've got a feeling that it's going to be quite a switch from gang that hangs in The Hundred Acre Wood.

Parable of the caterpillars

The monarch nursery has taken a turn for the disturbing. It seems that a mean old fly (it even has evil looking red eyes) called a "tachinid fly" likes to hunt down innocent caterpillars and inject its nasty little eggs into the caterpillar's body. The eggs hatch and feed on the caterpillar's insides. No one, apparently not even the caterpillar knows this has happened until the about the time the caterpillar gets to the chrysalis stage. Then, and this is the especially heartbreaking twist that is like that fly giving your hopeful kids the middle finger, right after everyone gets excited about the caterpillar being on its way to becoming a butterfly, Something Bad happens.

Someone walks by the insect cage and notices The Something: A white string appears from the hanging caterpillar (in the chrysalis or just hanging upside down). Weird, huh? Oh well, all is probably well.

Then you notice that a little something has used the string to exit the beautiful green chrysalis (or in some cases it can be the dangling, sleeping caterpillar).

It's a maggot. Yep. A MAGGOT.

A maggot that has just dashed the family's hopes of seeing a monarch butterfly emerge from the chrysalis in a few weeks.

Now here comes the sound of wailing children.

But wait! Teachable moment here!

The Lord impressed upon me that is the bug version of the parable of the sower (found in Matthew 13). Because only about five out of five hundred caterpillar eggs that are laid live to become a butterfly. There are just so many ways that a fragile little caterpillar can be killed: snatched away by a spider, poisoned, infected with a parasitic maggot, infected with fungus, squashed by a person traipsing thru a field, etc.

People are like the caterpillars. Many are snatched away by unbelief, false teaching, love of self/money/various idols,etc. They think they are fine, just like those infected caterpillars. And for many of them, by the time they realize they are not fine, it is too late (death). Jesus wasn't kidding when he said that "But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it." (Matthew 7:14).

We have 10 chrysalises hanging right now; we started out with 25 caterpillars.  It remains to be seen how many will emerge as beautifully transformed butterflies. My constant prayer is that 100% of my own little caterpillars (kiddos) will become butterflies.

Caterpillar Obsession

If you see a white van pulled over on the side of the road next to a field and there's a woman bent over peering into a mound of flowers, don't worry: It's just me, one of the local crazies.

This week, we discovered milkweed.

And you know what eats milkweed?

Monarch Caterpillars.

And you know who loves to raise caterpillars?

My kids.

Me too. I love them just as much.

There is something incredible about watching a caterpillar transform into a butterfly. It's one of the mysteries of God's creation and it is incredibly interesting.

We found a few new types of caterpillars. "The Fuzzies"

I was afraid they were the stinging type so I wouldn't let the girls touch them until we had a chance to look them up. Turns out they are harmless. So the girls spent the afternoon playing with their new friends. There were countless caterpillar races with "The Fuzzies" who are quite fast!

This guy, The Royal Ugly Dude, was unidentifiable. So he had to sit out.

May 1988, Part Five

After learning of my dad's death I went on nine year old autopilot. I remember very little of that time and not much about the following year in general. I do recall being in a shoe store trying on shiny black dress shoes. Shoes I would be wearing to my father's funeral. I just could not believe that was all real. Normally I would have been excited to own such shiny new dress shoes but I all I could do was sit and stare at the pretty shoes while my mom helped Heather try on her pair.

I only remember a few things about my dad's wake. We (Heather, Jessica, and I ) played tag in the funeral home after most everyone had left. I recall running past my dad's grey casket. I was laughing but I was sad on the inside. Isn't that amazing? I still can't make any sense of it but I was just a kid and didn't know what I was supposed to do anyway. I had probably been sitting for hours by that point. My most poignant memory from the wake is seeing my dad's best friend, Pee-Wee on his knees in front of the casket, sobbing his eyes out.

The following day was the funeral. We got to ride in a limo. I thought that was pretty cool. What I did not think was cool was that I was not allowed to ride with my mother. Everywhere I went people told me to "Stop bothering your mother." Literally. I probably heard that phrase fifty times over that week. I couldn't get within ten feet of her without someone deflecting me. I know that our family was trying to help my mom but what an awful thing to do to two grieving little girls: tell them they can't be near their mother. Who else is going to be able to help them make sense of all of this? My memories of my father's funeral are full of instances of me trying to be close to my mom and my extended family pushing me away.

My sister and I rode with our grandparents, my mother's parents. Mom and other family members rode in another limo. We pulled up to the cemetery and stepped out of the limousines. I could not believe how many people were there. We were ushered through the nearly silent crowd and seated under a little green tent in front of my dad's casket which was heaped with flowers. I have no memory of what the minister, Frank Mullins (a dear friend of my parents--the missionary who lead my parents to The Lord), said during the ceremony. I just kept staring at that grey box and trying to picture my dad lying in there in a blue suit. I just sat there, with no desire to move or talk or think. At least I was sitting by my mom though.

I think this is where I"ll stop. I don't remember a lot after this point anyway.

I love and miss both my parents. Still having a hard time believing that they are both gone. They had their issues for sure but I loved them both very much. It pains me that my dad has missed so much. He never got the chance to know my brother Matthew. Dad had become a grandfather just two months before his death and he never even got to see his grandchild. Now, there are sixteen grandchildren.

That one event completely changed the course of everyone in my immediate family's lives. That is a positive thing for me but it might not be for the other members of my family; I can only speak for myself and offer a pitiful but whole hearted thank you to God (He has been so good to me and I do not deserve a bit of it). We all had a hard time adjusting after Dad's death but some of us had a more difficult time. Looking back I can see the twisty path that led me here. If the accident hadn't happened we would not have eventually moved back to our old house; I wouldn't have gone to a Christian school where I first realized my need for Jesus; our family would not have been split up and scattered just five years after the accident; I wouldn't have ended up in Texas at 16 years old really wondering "WHAT NOW?"; I wouldn't have met Jason four months after landing in the Lonestar State; and so on. There were some major redemptive life themes waiting for me.

But I did not know any of this in May, 1988.