7QT: Bubbles, bugs, & books... oh my!

~1~

I need to paint my front door. First, because we replaced the handle and the new one is a different style...

 ...and second because there was some serious bubbling going on in this particular section.

Because it was only in this one section, I'm pretty sure it's due to sun/heat exposure as opposed to latex over oil paint or something like that. I scraped it down but now I need  to fix it. Oh, did I mention I've never painted a front door before? I'm thinking I need to sand it all over, prime it and then repaint, maybe a lighter color? Will that help keep the bubbles from coming back? Advice? Thanks!

~2~

Did you know that thrips are attracted to white blooms more than colored blooms? Now you do. UGH!!!!!!!

~3~

I love raiding our library's new book shelf whenever we go and seeing what's new out there. Of course, new is relative. It just means new to our library, not necessarily newly published.

Penny and Her Marble by Kevin Henkes
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A 2nd level reader. Penny the mouse has an attack of conscience when she finds a blue marble in her neighbor's yard and takes it home. There is a happy ending, of course, but I liked the idea of an early reader that's not afraid to introduce a moral subject like this. I'm definitely going to be collecting this one and the other Penny books when Cupcake starts reading. {affiliate link}

~4~

Bow-Wow Wiggle-Waggle by Mary Newell DePalma
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Cute illustrations with nice colors. Perfect for a little one who's really into "dogs say woof" and "cats say meow". This books is all onomatopoeias and interjections! Onomatopoeias? Why would you ever say that? (Because it's fun to say!)

~5~

Good News, Bad News by Jeff Mack
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Excellent illustrations. The only words in the whole book are "good news" & "bad news" which sounds strange but really creates a delightful opportunity for some creative storytelling and discussion. The book highlights the difference between an optimistic bunny and a pessimistic mouse. Really cute!

~6~

Frog and Fly Six Slurpy Stories by Jeff Mack
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BigBoy chose this one and then giggled at it all the way home. It contains six short cartoons telling the story of a frog who loves to eat flies. I can't really tell you more than that without giving something away. Let's just say it tickled the funny bone of my 9 year old boy!

~7~

Brachiosaurus: The Largest Dinosaur and Stegosaurus: The Friendliest Dinosaur
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Interesting stories about a boy and his friends (the dinosaurs) with fun facts interspersed followed by a couple of pages of more specific information about each dinosaur. The illustrations reminded me of Ben Hatke's. These would be a hit with any young dinosaur lovers.

Robins!

“Nothing in the world is quite as adorably lovely as a robin when he shows off and they are nearly always doing it.”  ~ The Secret Garden

Our neighborhood had the privilege of hosting a flock of robins the other day. Four of the tallest trees surrounding our house were covered in robins! I recorded a little of their chattering! Ignore the lack of film skills and just listen to them talk.

“To speak robin to a robin is like speaking French to a Frenchman” ~ The Secret Garden

More Signs of Spring

Same warning still in effect!

No colors were tampered with in the displaying of these photos.
These are the colors He paints with.

 

Ow. Ow. Ow.

Saturday, for some reason that only a mother of some bright eyed, nature loving daughters could understand, we decided to become farmers for the day and help our community garden get started by shoveling dirt, filling up wheelbarrows, dumping the dirt into 80 garden beds (20 loads to fill just one!),

raking that dirt smooth,

tamping it down and then starting all over again. Why?

Oh, I don't know...

Why do you think? :)

For the record, it was 39 degrees when we started the day, but the layers we had on came peeling off fast. Yes. It is possible to get a farmer's tan in November. Oh, and the boys were there too! They joined us after their golf lesson and pitched in quite energetically. In fact, BigBoy's energetic shoveling was quite entertaining for the other people helping out and reinvigorated some of the more tired volunteers! It took all day, but all of the beds were filled and capped off, ready to be planted in the spring!

By the end of the day, after washing the dirt from under our nails and the dirt from our sinful souls in the sacrament Confession, our beds at home were quickly filled and ready for sweet dreams!

Monarch Moments

Thank you, sweet friend, for this gift more precious than gold!

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Something Skinky in the Garden

We found this guy wandering around our flower beds. The kids wanted to keep it for a little while in an empty ladybug habitat. We had never seen a skink before so everyone was curious. Especially the puppy...

We call this one... Crouton and the Skink

Special Delivery

We received a very special delivery this morning from a local caterpillar aid organization...

 Meet Stripey, Samantha, Debbie, Demi and John.

I don't foresee anything else but staring at these voracious little wonders being done this morning. Good thing we can just call it nature study and check it off!

Sacred Heart of Jesus...

I place all my trust in Thee!

(Don't you love giant, happy Gerber daisies? These were from some that Husband brought home for our anniversary and they still look beautiful. Their fiery colors caught my eye this morning.)

Happy Solemnity!

Sunshine, lollipops and...

...rainbows.

(And daffodils!)

Fiat Lux

Beautiful, sparkling, clean white light brings peace and calm. Candlelight, twinkling stars, moonlight bouncing off new winter snow. We want reminders of this beauty that was created out of nothing by the Creator who is everything. It is soft to our hardened hearts, it is uncluttered to our littered thoughts, it is clean to our dirty souls.But in this world, nothing is as it seems. This fallen world, this ugly world. The illusions of perfection are only tricks of the eye choosing to see what it wants to.

A candle...clean, clear and bright. A shining warm white light in the darkness. So my eye sees.

An entire rainbow of colors contained it that small little flame...yellow, green, blue, red and violet. Looking closely my eye can see if it chooses, cool blue, warm reddish orange, sunny yellow and finally, the white that burns into my memory.
The stars above, twinkling and winking, so old and wise, looking down and softly chuckling at the babes peeking up. Little white pinpricks in a blanket of dark. White? Red dwarfs, blue giants, yellow suns, the faintest white and even brown.

It is an amazement to most children reconciling art and science, how the water cup quickly turns muddy gray when cleaning shades of blue and red and yellow from the paintbrush, but the prism reveals white to be the bearer of the rainbow. When we think of light, we want white to be clean and simple, but it isn't. A tool can break it down and sort it out so that each individual element is exposed. In my life of busy schedules and frantic days, I wish for that peace, that lumping together, that blending of colors to make one. It feels controlled and ordered. One is so much easier than many. Yet many and varied, is what the Lord has made.

Colorfully created is this world. Pink sunsets, red leaves, blue skies, green fields. What I see as clean and pure is truly the whole family of colors that God has made. It hurts to sort it out. It hurts to examine, like my soul hurts when scrutinizing my sins one by one. It's easier to lump. Lump and dump and move on. I like that very much.

A child sees God's palette and delights in it. They do not yet have the baggage, the extra burdens, the impossible To-do's, the never ending lists. They see each shade as enchanting. It captivates and charms them.These colored things are magical to a child. It is the color that makes them magical in a world so long bored with electric switches and cords and plugs. Electric glow is no new thing to them, it happens everyday, but color still fascinates their innocent eyes. And while I crave the clean, the crisp and the uncluttered, my soul aches to delight in this season with the eyes of a child... and in the only pure and holy Light worth fighting for.

Fall

What did you do this weekend?