Yesterday we took a trip up to the Butterfly Pavilion.  We’ve been there before but not for awhile.  It is basically an indoor museum (of sorts) that has live bugs, some ocean life and an indoor tropical area full of butterflies that you can walk through.  The butterflies are loose and fly all around you.  It is fantastic!

In the bug department they have a tarantula that people can hold.  Ava said she definitely wanted to hold it this trip.  And she did!  You wouldn’t catch me doing it in a million years! ;D

There were tons of creepy bugs.  All behind glass where they belonged!  The best ones, we thought, were the leaf bugs and the stick bugs…“I’m the only stick with EYEBALLS!” to quote a famous bug movie. ;D

In the ocean area we have Dory…”Just keep swimming…”

And Laney doing a lot of investigating with a magnifying glass.

Last but not least the butterflies.

Corey was commenting to me how happy I looked.  I was having fun with my camera.  It reminded us of the last time we went.  All I had was a point and shoot and I wanted to get better shots of the butterflies but I couldn’t and I was frustrated.  Not so this day!  The girls were older and could go ahead.  They found all kinds of discoveries and couldn’t wait for me to “catch up” to where they were.  “Hurry up MOM!”  Just before we left there was a butterfly release of some newly hatched butterflies.  That was a lot of fun.  The butterflies weren’t very good at flying and so they were not flying very far from the guy releasing them.  They were landing on all of us.  It was cool.  A great way to “catch” butterflies since you aren’t allowed to touch them while in there…not technically anyway! ;D  Several landed on Corey.  They liked him.  Ava caught one and I had to keep getting them off Corey. ;D

Corey and I went on a bike ride this morning.  It was chilly.   After the sun had time to be up for a bit and warm things up you could smell how sweet the grass was.  Have you ever smelled that smell?  The birds were all chirpy and doing their thing.  It was lovely.  It was like we were the only two people on earth.

…and they are gorgeous!

Thank you Jill!  ;D

Back in May Laney went and visited her “new school”…the one she attends now…for what is called Kindergarten Buddy Day.  It was a short introduction to the school and to the classroom and to the teachers.  They made a craft and they also planted some sunflower seeds.  They told the kids to water them and take care of them and when they bloomed they would know it would be time to come back to school for Kindergarten.  We did in fact take care of it…and planted it out in the garden with the pumpkins after it had sprouted.

I went out yesterday afternoon and sure enough it had bloomed!  Maybe two and a half weeks after Laney has started school…but almost right!  On the way home last night I told Laney about it and she was so excited.  I suggested she cut it and take it to school to show her teacher that she did in fact grow it from Kindergarten Buddy Day.  She loved the suggestion!

I was like 8pm when I remembered…trying to get the girls showers done and herd them into bed but I knew if we left it ’til morning we would forget and we are leaving on vacation tomorrow so I said to Laney, “Go grab your flashlight!”  Boy did that make her day…we were going on an adventure!  Anything that involves a flashlight has got to be loads of FUN!  And I grabbed a pair of scissors and I told her we were going to go cut the sunflower.  Of course Ava wanted to join in so we waited for her…

Here are the fruits of our labor…

When I picked Laney up from school today she said that she got to go up in front of the whole class and share her story about her flower!!!  I was SO excited for her!!!!  And she was so excited about that!!!  The expression on her face and the attitude in her body language said it all!!!

I asked her, “Laney, were you excited to do that?”

And she said, “Mom, does my face look like I am?”

I looked over.  It did!!!

So…I had a couple of you ask me how the girls did yesterday…well they did just great!!!  Corey was right!  And I’m sure the numerous prayers offered up by me didn’t hurt either!  When I saw Laney in the carpool line she was so excited to see me and I got out of the car to get her she was just bubbling over with how much she liked it and how well she did.  She talked my ear off and didn’t even want to watch her movie in the car…well at least not for a few minutes.  Then when she was done telling me what she wanted she was like, “Mom…can I watch my movie now?”  I had to laugh.  She was all excited about math and art and couldn’t wait to go back tomorrow and the first thing she did when she got home was pick out her uniform outfit that she wanted to wear the next day.

So this is what happened with her today…and she had been telling me this all summer but I didn’t really think it was going to go down like this.  All summer she had been saying, “Mom, on the first day I want you to walk me in but then after that I’m going to go into school all by myself just like Ava does.”  And I was thinking, “Yeah, right.”  But I said to her, “OK Honey!”  Well guess what she did today!!??  I parked and walked them to the door thinking I was going to walk Laney all the way in.  We get almost to the door and Ava sees one of her friends and takes off…no surprise there.  Then Laney says, “OK, bye Mom.  You can go now.”  I stopped.  I was in shock.  “Laney, you don’t want me to walk you in?”  “Nope!  I’m all set!”  And she goes through the doors and motions with her hands for me to scoot!  I stood there gaping.  And she just kept walking.  Never looking back.  I peered through the windows of the doors making sure she went the right way and she did.  And she never did look back.  Not once.  My heart broke into a million pieces and yet I was so proud of her at the same time!  I got teary eyed again…yes, Jill, I did…but I think they were not just tears of sadness but tears of joy and of pride.  How can a little girl of 5 seem so grown up all of a sudden?

Ava had a great day yesterday as well.  She got in the car and said she had a great day but that’s all I could get out of her right then.  She was tired and grumpy and needed to eat.  When we got home she wolfed down so much food I swear she hadn’t eaten all day.  Then she started to feel better and started talking about her day…who was in her class this year and who she was sitting by and who she played with at recess and all about the new classes they are having this year…technology class…which from what I could gather was just a fancy name for computer classes…just more of them.  She just couldn’t stop talking about that teacher and how that teacher had to clean all two hundred computers and all the dust bunnies and found popcorn and even a lollipop in one of the keyboards.  That was her favorite part.  She made me laugh.  I love hearing about her day!

Oh and yes I am enjoying the quiet today…very much!!

We went out to do some final school shopping.  School starts on Monday for us.  Its the final countdown!  I needed to get a couple more things for Ava.  The school that the girls attend require uniforms so I had to get her a couple more things and found those at the Gap Outlet.  And I had to buy her a couple more pairs of shoes…I can’t believe how much she has grown!  I met up with my friend Jill and her two boys.  We wandered up and down the sections of the mall and the kids ran around (its an outdoor mall).  It was a nice day.

I’ve decided that I either have a plethora of things to write about or I have absolutely nothing.  Like right now I have several things I could pick from.  A few days ago I was beating the bushes for anything!  I wish it came in a steady stream.  My husband just said to me…”well why don’t you write these things down when they come in spurts but save them for the “dry times”" but I’m just not like that.  I like to write things in “real time”.  If something happens now I don’t want to be posting it weeks later just for the sake of having a post every day on my blog.  Maybe I’m just odd.

I found this quote the other day and I’ve just been so struck by it.  I think its going to be my theme for awhile…use it as a reminder…here:

“The only thing that can stop us from accessing our creativity is fear… fear of failure, fear of our own limitations, of comparisons, of success, and the list goes on.” — Maria Mikailas

I don’t know about you but this is me to a “t”!!!!!!!!!!  Especially the comparison one!  I’m my own worst enemy.  And I don’t wanna be!

Here’s a photo I took tonight…I love cosmos!

My peonies have bloomed.

We have been watching them everyday.

For some reason they are just as beautiful and fascinating to the girls as they are to me.

Every morning the girls go the the back door and look out to see the progress they are making.

This morning a bunch had opened.

The lighting was just perfect and I thought oooo camera!

I must say I’m getting pretty excited with the results I’m getting with my camera and with myself in my recent photo taking ventures.  I’m thinking a couple of these might be worth blowing up to 8 x 10.

Last night I was roaming around the yard taking some photos of what was blooming in my yard…