Tuesday, August 31, 2010

All Critters Welcome!

Ever since Graham studied bugs in
Preschool last year, he has been obsessed with them.

Pretty much every morning you can find him collecting Rollie Pollies into his
Ziploc Tupperware where he has made a mini habitat
(which they all end up dying anyway)

Last Saturday Tommy was outside about to mow the lawn and saw a Caterpillar on the sidewalk.
He went to get Graham, knowing he would love it.

Last year in preschool, they also watched the metamorphosis of a catepillar into a butterfly,
so between learning about bugs and this.... Tommy knew Graham would want to see the catepiller.

Graham brought the catepillar in the house and made a atrium for it as well in a
Ice Cream jug... he put twigs and leaves in it.
We did a Google search to see what kind of catepillar it was...

It is an Western Tiger Swallowtail

(here is the Western Tiger Swallowtail Butterfly)
 

We tried to talk Graham into putting it back on the Willow Tree outside so it wouldn't die...

Guess who won that fight?!
Yep... it was


Graham!
I know you are all completely shocked


So below is our "Critter Corner"  You can see his Rollie Pollie blue Ziploc Tupperware,
His ice cream pail, with his catepillar
And yep, last but not least....
His Tadpole Habitat

can you guess where he got the tadpole??  You guessed it!
PRESCHOOL!!
(at least I know he learned a lot at school, and really loved it!)


So Tommy and I figured the catepillar would die...
but surprisingly he started making his chrysalis


I talked to Graham's teacher and she said that if we handled the catepillar too much
it might die in the chrysalis... so we will see if he makes it.

Let me just say:

I am WAY more excited about the butterfly than the frog... but that is a completely different post...

(maybe on a different day)

I'm Jammin!

Peach or Strawberry anyone??


Surprisingly this was the first time I have ever tried peach jam...

It was amazing!! 

Next I want to buy some Mango Nectar from Costco and make
Peach Mango Jam...
now that would be heavenly!!

Don't Your Feet Hurt??

Okay, so yesterday on the way to drop Graham off at school... we saw a guy running...

completely normal right??

He didn't have a shirt on, but lots of guys run shirtless...

but here is the weird part...

He didn't have shoes on!

And it is not like we were in a neighborhood and he might have just been walking down the street barefoot...

It was at a busy intersection!  Strange!

He must really hate shoes!

Thursday, August 26, 2010

Yummy Toast Tomorrow!

*Note to self... don't start making homemade jam at 8:30pm*


So this week at Sunflower Farmers Market they are having some bomb diggity deals on berries.  We just opened our last strawberry jam from last summer, so I thought I am going to seize the deal and buy some berries and make some jam.  I bought $20 worth... 6lbs of Strawberries, 2.25lbs of Blackberries, and 1.5lb of Raspberries.  My first batch (I only made one tonight but have plans for two more: strawberry, and peach) was a mixed berry.
Here are the blackberries before I mashed them.  They were HUGE!  Some were almost as long as my pinkie finger... yeah, no joke!



Here are the berries all mashed and ready to be cooked.
They looked so good I wanted to can (haha get it? "can") the whole jam idea and
just pour this over some ice cream
Here are the sugary berries all hot and ready for their jars.
I couldn't believe how "blood red" it got... Must have been the raspberries
Almost ready for their bath
(do you notice the clock? yeah, that is 10:15pm... what am I thinking????)
Boiling away.... only 9 minutes... can I wait that long??
Doesn't it just look delicious!  I can't wait until morning to have some on my toast...
Sweet! Morning is really only about 10minutes away! 
Ok I really need to go to bed!

Break Your Heart

So everytime the song "Break Your Heart" by Taio Cruz comes on the radio Graham looks at me with a big smile on his face and says:
"It's OUR song!"  
... "I'm gonna break break break break break break your he-art...
 whoa whoa whoa-o"
He is just like me, hums to the songs when we don't know the words!  (Or we just make up words! haha)

(if you don't know the song it is on my playlist at the bottom of the page)