Bug Off!!!

The love-bugs are back in town and they are in full force. I had to take a picture. I promised a friend that I would show her what it looks like. So.....

Look what I captured...

While at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, Rolo was the first to see this, and I got some neat pictures. I looked it up and it looks like a Black-chinned Hummingbird. I was pretty happy to get some pictures of this before it flew away. The boys were excited too and so were the other 60yr old kids around us. hehehe

Isn't it exciting when you are able to get a picture of something so wonderful?

Vacation

Today was our last vacation day. Where did we go? We went to Goose Island State Park. This is in Rockport, Tx. This was a great place. It has spaces to camp that are either by the water or deep in the woods. We have decided to start camping this year. We have to now. Hubby and I are loving being out with no one else around.

We had a late lunch early dinner or as I like to call it we had linner. We ate at The Big Fisherman. I totally forgot how huge their plates are. I had the lunch special since we got there before the 4pm deadline for that and had the bbq ribs and shrimp plate. Oh, that was yummy but two people could have eaten from that.

We spent most of our day at Aransas National Wildlife Refuge. We saw so many animals and flowers. I took close to a hundred pictures just today.
Although I took so many pictures I wanted to share a few. I thought of a friend when I took these. She loves poppies and sent me a picture once of them. This poppy is a native Texan though. It's called a White Prickly Poppy.
I had to take another picture after this bee landed on it.
Here is our encounter with a red winged black bird. It was singing to us.
Then I guess it didn't like us sitting around looking at it and taking pictures because it started letting us know it was getting annoyed. How cool is that?
All in all it was another great day. I have a ton more pictures. I took so many wildflower pictures that I don't know where to start to show some of them. I guess I will have to pick a few.

That is it for now.

Vacation-Fun

We went out to this place today. What was it? It was the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center in Austin. I have been here before but it was after most of the wildflowers were gone and it was very, very hot. Today it was nice and there were still some wildflowers. The guys went to this tower.
They liked being up there. I went too but I had to come down where all the flowers were.
This is my favorite picture. I love the way it looks. Maybe I can do something like this at my home.
I am the picture taker and decided to let hubby take this picture. I was not upset here just wasn't given time to smile after getting all the boys to look halfway decent. It was a nice day, again.
I was having a great time looking at all the wildflowers but the boys kept calling me an "old lady" cause I love going to this place. Are you wondering why? Well this is the first time I've been there in this month which is the month of all the blooming and there were bus loads of older folks. It was kinda funny seeing bus loads of people coming and for them not to be school kids. I think we were just about the only one's there with kids. All the other kids there were over their 60's.

Nature Picture Quiz

This post will stay on top till Friday. Scroll down for newer posts.

Ok, I know this one will be easy. At least I think it is. I think all the kids will be able to figure this one out at first glance. Leave a comment with your guess and be sure to come back on Friday for the answer and a little interesting tidbits on this amazing animal.

Next weeks picture quiz will be a little more challenging. I thought this would be a nice change and something the kiddos would enjoy.

By the way, do you see two animals or is it one? hhhmmmmm

UPDATE: Yes, yes it's a lion. Did you know that a male lion can reach a length of 9 ft. and weigh around 350-400 lbs? That is one massive animal. A lion can also give a short chase of up to 50mph. I guess we can't outrun them if we are being chased. What I found interesting is that a lion usually hunts at night but the most interesting thing I found is that they can spend a total of 20hrs per day sleeping. I guess I was thinking about this since it is almost 1am and I am tired and thinking of sleeping 20hrs myself. Thanks for those of you that participated. I'm going to bed now. Night, night. Oh by the way, there is a fly in the picture too. Great searching skills Meg!

Vacation-Trees

Can you believe all those flowering trees? We went to visit family in Kansas and as we drove into Wichita at 4am we saw what looked like snow on the street. I wondered if it was snow but then I saw that the temperature was in the lower 60's and I knew it wasn't. What it was that looked like snow was the fallen small flowers from all the trees. I had never seen so many different kinds of flowering trees. It was so amazing and I had to take lots of pictures to share.

The weather was wonderful too but we are home again and it's back to hot and humid Texas. I would love to move somewhere with less humidity and cooler weather. Any suggestions of where to move?

Our Fun Vacation

It was a nice time! Very refreshing and relaxing. We went to Lake Conroe and stayed at the most amazing resort. It had a full kitchen so we had a wonderful and freshly prepared breakfast each morning. Did I say we had a great time? Oh and the hot tub and jacuzzi in our room....aaaahhhhh.

So after relaxing and watching movies in the room we decided to visit this state park. We went on a nature trail and saw some neat things. I will share this about trees. There were so many and everything was green. It was neat to see the bark and different types of branches. Take a little look at what we saw.

I will try to share a little more of our vacation in the coming weeks. For now I have to get some sleep. That 12hr drive home is a doozy.

Nature Picture Quiz

Well as you can see I've missed this week's nature picture quiz. I could not get to an internet wi-fi area. This morning I got up early in the morning to get to our favorite place here in Kansas. It's a Panera's. If you have never seen or been to one you are missing something. They have wonderful breads and hubby's favorite coffee place next to Horton's in Canada.

Anyway, I should be back to my normal computer time by late Monday.

Our Sunset on Vacation

Our view from our room....what a sight!!!

Monday Field Trip

Where did we go? We went to Houston to see the DaVinci exhibit. We had fun and spent all morning seeing everything including the new butterfly and bug area. All the kids from our local homeschool group had a blast.
It was actually amazing to see all the things they had there. He was way before his time.
The butterfly area was great! There was butterflies everywhere and of every kind. There were little ones and big, huge ones and black, red, blue ones. It's amazing to see them all in one place just flying around.
This was in the bug section at the butterfly exhibit. The kids had fun getting into the little honeycombs they had there.
We are now on vacation. I'll post Wednesday's Nature Picture Quiz and as much as I can while I am enjoying our nature vacation. I have some great pictures already.

Gotcha! Finally

Today I went out of town and had a wonderful time. I went alone. This was something I hardly ever do. It was refreshing to go out with a friend. Thanks Nancy for the fun.

I did take my camera. I was prepared. Dana over on her blog said once that she never has taken a picture of this bird in it's natural setting. So it's been on my to do list and I finally found it on my drive to Corpus Christi. I stopped on the side of the road to take these. They are very suspicious of people. He took off as I slowly moved closer. This is a magnificent looking bird.

Dana, I know a place you can go to see it flying around.

A Proud Dyslexic Moment

Have you ever wondered what a dyslexic sees or how they write? Do you think they are not being taught right? Maybe mom isn't doing her job. Do you teach phonics to them or do you teach them differently? How, how, how?

Last year ended my feelings of not knowing what was wrong. "What was I doing wrong?" That was my thinking. I always asked myself that question. A friend who happened to be a public school teacher at the time offered to test him. The diagnosis of dyslexia and Irlen syndrome was a relief. Now we know what is wrong and can work to deal with it in a way that is best for him. Till then he would not write. He felt embarrassed. He felt dumb. His handwriting was bad and his math was not that great either. This is one smart guy though. He can hear a story read to him and tell you all about it.

I've done lots of reading on dyslexia and Irlen in order to try to figure out the best way to teach him. I'm in the process of finishing up the book The Gift of Dyslexia by Ronald Davis. I'm still reading the books called The Everything Parent's Guide to Children with Dyslexia by Abigail Marshall and Reading by the Colors by Helen Irlen. The last two books basically tell me what I already know so far. I guess, that is why it is taking me so long to finish them. So far I am liking the book The Gift of Dyslexia. There is still lots to learn on how to help him.

So what is this all about? Well, my son came to me and gave this story to us to read. He did a great job! What is she thinking???? you may ask. Well, this is the first time he has written me a story. His handwriting is better. I can actually read it, even though it is not spelled right.

I am sharing this story because this is an accomplishment. This is a great thing. This may help those that don't understand what or how a child writes that has dyslexia to actually see it. The struggles are huge but we learn to deal with them as best as we can.
This story is about a chicken on a stick at KFC. Don't ask. It's something the boys talk about all the time. Chicken on a stick! Chicken on a stick! There is only one made up word in this story and it's deestinu, which is de-sticked. Even though the spelling is atrocious I understood it. He was very proud of his work and so were we.

Texas Bird

Today as we were going to town I saw this bird on our tree which I might add has got tons of leaves already. It would look around and then fly down and get some lunch then fly back up to the tree to look for the next morsel.
It looked at me and looked like he was wondering what I was doing.
If you go here you will see some neat pictures and hear what I have been hearing when I go outside. So are you wondering what it is or do you already know? It is the Northern Mockingbird. It's a neat bird to watch and listen to.

Nature Picture Quiz

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This lizard was hanging out on our window off the school room. What a distraction! Of course we had to stop what we were doing and watch this and take out the camera. So what do you think it is? I'm not totally sure myself but will give this one a try.


Please leave a comment with your guess and I will try to answer this by Friday.

UPDATE: Yes, I think it's a Texas Spiny Lizard. I did have to search and search for this one. I ask the kids what they think it could be called and ask them what I should search for. This way I get them involved. Way to go, Denise on your guess!

Vikings Lapbook

I've been wanting to post about our Viking Lapbook for a while but never have had the time to get to it. Today is the day or rather the night to do it.

The boys cut out and colored their viking ships. Yes there are three ships. The back one is mine. I had to join in on the fun and the coloring. They really liked doing this project.
We also started on a lapbook on Vikings by Hands of a Child. We have gotten so many free lapbooks that I decided to try to add some of them in our lessons. I've gotta use some of those freebies.
They had no problem coloring. I'm glad at least 2 out of my 3 boys don't complain about coloring. They also are doing extra writing because of these. I'll keep posting as we get some more done.

As the boys colored I would read out of a book I got at the library. I can't believe I don't have it in my library. *blushing* I got this neat book called First Facts about the Vikings by Jacqueline Morley. This is a neat book for the younger ones. My 10yr old as well as my 5yr old liked it. Lots of pictures to go along with the words. We also saw an IMAX movie called Vikings: Journey to the New Worlds. We got that off of netflix and I thought it was great. There were also a few more movies we saw that we got from the library. There was a short dvd from the series of Explorers of the World called The Vikings. It was only 23 mins long but it had a great teachers guide. I'll never forget to go to the library and look for those dvd's.

That is about it for now. Hope to get done with this by next week. I sure hope so. We've got a lot more things to go over this year.