Humming excitement

Today we went out to Corpus Christi because hubby had a meeting to attend and of course we tagged along. I love seeing all the birds out there. Every time I see the pelicans I think of the pterodactyls. Those are some huge birds. Another exciting thing was I met a friend walking into a restaurant without even calling her. How cool was that. I just walked in and there she was. How fun.



After coming home I was excited to see hummingbirds at the feeders again. They came yesterday. Yesterday they were what I've always seen....the ruby-throated hummingbirds. Today I was happy to see what I think is Allen's hummingbird. I'm excited because this is the first time I've seen it in person. I took a bunch of pictures as they zoomed by me sometimes barely missing my head. I love waiting around to see these on our feeders.


I have a ton more pictures of these guys but that is it for now.

Homeschool Convention

This weekend was a fun weekend for me. We (hubby and I) decided to go to a homeschool convention at The Woodlands which is in the Houston, Tx area. Did I like it? Not really. I didn't find any workshops that were interesting. The vendors were ok too. The Arlington convention was a lot better in my opinion. I didn't even buy anything. Wow, now that is amazing.

What I did like was spending the weekend just hubby and I and going out where ever we wanted to, eat what we wanted to and watch what we wanted to on the tv in the hotel room.

One thing I do recommend anyone coming to Houston, Tx is to go to The Homeschool Store. That is my favorite store. They have an awesome used book room in the back. I take all my homeschool friends there. I did buy from there. I always do. I got a few CM books that I wanted to read. I'll start on that soon.

That is what I've been up to this weekend. Stay tuned for what we will be doing for school starting next week. Yes a revision already.

Saturday Nature Morning

Texas has been extremely hot and there has been record breaking hot temperatures this past week. Breaking the hundred degree mark was not hard at all this past week.

Needless to say we stay indoors most of the day with the A/C on to get a little relief.

This Saturday was different though. Not because of the heat but because we had to drive to Houston and leave hubby at the airport. Hubby will be at a week long school. We had to be at the airport by 6:30am which meant we had to leave home at 4:30am. Oh my, I am so tired but we had fun.

I took the boys first thing in the morning before the heat come on full force somewhere fun. Where did we go? We went to the Houston Arboretum and Nature Center. We saw flowers, mushrooms, squirrels, birds and butterflies. Oh and did I forget to say we had fun.

The mushrooms were on the nature trail and was the first thing we saw there. There were some beautiful butterflies. There were dark ones and orange ones. Beautiful creations!

Since we were there early, early in the morning there was still dew drops everywhere. No this was not from a rain storm. Houston has gotten more rain than we have where I live but I think they are still far behind in getting their rain for the year.

We had a nice time and plan on doing that again but it will have to be early in the morning or later on in the year.

Take a look at some of the fun the boys had out there. Not only was there trials and tons of flowers but some fun things. We didn't make it to the Discovery Center because it opened up too late but we had a nice time anyway.




Of course, my oldest has to have fun while I'm taking pictures. What a ham!

These were some of the things we did at the nature center. I never thought that there could be such a beautiful place like that in Houston. Houston is a city in all sense of that word. It's a major city but having this place to go to has to be very refreshing. It was for us.

That's me, ready to leave because the heat is starting to get to me. It was 9:30am and it was already hot by then. Now this was not all we did in Houston. After this we had to have A/C so we went to another place. We hadn't been there since the older boys were small.

To be continued......

Texas Wildflowers

We went out this morning and hubby decided to take us to see if there were any wildflowers yet. Since there has been such a big drought around here the wildflowers are not like they were last year but we found a few. It's nice to just look at the wildflowers and then try to identify them when we get home. My little one enjoys a challenge.

This first one is called Texas Vervain or Texas Verbena(Verbena halei). This was used as a medicinal herb.

The next one we identified as Spotted Bee Balm(Monarda punctata). If you click on the picture it is just starting to flower. We learned this plant contains the antiseptic drug thymol.

Then there is the Texas Thistle(Cirsium texanum). We read a little on this one and we'd like to get some of this one. This one attracts butterflies and we found out that goldfinches eat the seeds of this flower and they also use the silky fluff of the ripened seeds to line their nests. This year was the first year that we had goldfinches so this would make a great wildflower to have and maybe they will come back.

We had a nice time just driving through the back roads and looking for flowers. We'll have to do this again in a few weeks and see what else we find.

We used this site and these books to identify our flowers.

A Nice Cool Corona

What kind of blog do you think this is? hehehe Were you expecting me to talk about a nice cold one. Well, it was a little cool today but not like that.

So what was it that I saw....scroll down......








A corona in the sky. It was a complete ring around the sun somewhere around noon. A little after noon maybe. We were driving home from our Sunday meeting and the boys said, "look mom, at the sun" now this was while driving. So I asked what they were looking at. As soon as I got home I got my camera out and took some pictures. I took a few pictures from the bottom half cause you can see the colors around the sun. It was almost like a rainbow around the sun.

A corona is the result of light bending by diffraction in the presence of small, spherical water droplets of ice crystals in high clouds. In its simplest form, the corona appears as a colored disk surrounding the sun or moon whose border is bluish, merging into yellowish white, with a brownish outer edge at the width of one or more moon (or sun) diameters.

We read up on what this was called and now we have one more thing we have learned and it's Sunday. The learning never ends.

For those that came by in hopes of learning more about a nice cool tall one....sorry to disappoint you. You still got a lesson about a corona though.

Wildflowers Popping Up

As we drove home today from our meeting I stopped to take a picture of our wildflowers popping up. We live out in the country so stopping on the side of the road is really not much of a problem. I just love to see these flowers come up.

We call these "buttercups" but their name is showy primrose. These show up during March through July. So they are on time in popping up. I'll try to show some others that have come up in our area this week.

What is coming up in your area? Well, for those of you that don't still have snow. hehe I'm not making fun...really!!!!!

Art Gallery

The boys have been taking art classes at the Art League here in town and they entered a contest. It was so cute to see every one's art work displayed on the walls. I only took one picture of the art work because I thought this one was much funnier. So this was on Sunday after morning of going to our meeting so that is the reason we are dressed.

There was another couple of our friends there so it was even
more fun. Can I say it was funner? hehehe Anyway, we had gone to have lunch in town and were stuffed. We all looked at all the walls of art work and then stood around talking to the friends there. Hubby was tired as you can see from this picture. I just had to take it. The kids thought it was so funny that they had to do a picture together.

So this was a post about art but ended up being about being just plain tired. Don't they all look so funny? He woke up while this was going on and smiled but I made him close his eyes back up for the picture. I'm glad we had a willing participant. This just makes me laugh.

We had a shower for my cousin that is getting married. It was a lot of work but in the end it turned out nice. The one sister in red is the one that will marry my cousin. She was trying to hide behind that paper because I privately said something to her. hehehehe Now why do people get shocked when I say things....I will never know. hehehe Anyway, I'll leave it at that.


We played games. All the sisters were busy trying to figure out the crossword puzzle my brother made up. It was about women of the bible.


Then of course was the good stuff. I made the desserts. I made a cupcake cake. Hubby made the stand and I made the cupcake to go on it. I put a small trim on the edges of the stand. I think it came out great despite hubby not finishing up the project till Saturday morning. (That's a whole other story...called procrastination.)

Then I also made cookies. They were called Cowboy Cookies. Sooooo good. They had coconut, raisins and oatmeal in them. I liked the recipe because the cookies stayed plump. You know how some cookies go flat? Well, this one was nice and plump. Oh, and did I mention they were tasty too. hhmmmmm!!!


If you are wondering what those little dresses are in the back...they were little boxes in the middle and we put candies in them. The colors we used were pink and brown. Don't forget to click on the pictures to see them larger and yummier.

Now you know where I've been since I hadn't posted much. Tomorrow is back to school and hope to share a few other things with you all next week.

Till then.....

Surprise with a Visit

Thanks to all of you that left me messages on my last post. I am feeling better. My headaches are almost all gone. I still get them but not as bad as that week straight that I had them.

Now, today we had an invite to go visit a friends home and they had her mother there too. This mother had given her daughter something of hers from when she was a lot younger. I'm sure you can see what it is.

Don't forget to click on the pictures to enlarge the pictures and see the detail.

She has records too!!! It works too!!! We heard it! How cool is that? We heard Judge Rutherford talk. This friend said she has a box full of records. What a cool experience for us all. The boys got to hear history. We all got to see the extra needles in its little round compartment next to the round part you put on the records. The piece under the part you put on the record is the crank that you take off of there and insert it into the side and crank away to make it turn.

After hearing that and playing a game of cards which my little one won we listened to hubby play his guitar. Now click on that picture of him too and you can see close up the guitar my hubby made by hand. This is guitar number 2 that he has made and he is on number 3.

So that was our day today. It was nice. Oh and the food they made was the best. They made a deep fried turkey. OOHHHHHH it was so good.

Fun Weekend

We were invited to a gathering at the park. It was hot, that is about all I can say about it. My baby wanted to play in those tubes no matter how hot it was.
He also got to play horseshoes too till the brother in the wheelchair took over, hehehe. He wanted to play a bit more but was happy to have been able to try.

Then Sunday at the meeting my baby and his little friend posed for pictures. They are so funny. I could not take one decent picture. It was an ok weekend but way too hot.

Lots of color and music

There is lots of colors springing up everywhere. Lots of pretty colors! Spring has arrived for us. If you click on this picture to see it closer you will notice that the flower actually looks like an orchid.
What has also arrived is time to get that mower out every weekend to cut the grass. That also means time to get out the allergy medicines. Good thing my oldest doesn't have problems with allergies like the other guys do.
Our trees are starting to get their leaves too and the birds are all around. Can you see the red and yellow on his wing? His song is so recognizable to me now. Lots of music outside now. They are loud. You can click on the pictures to see this guy better.
These are a few pictures from today's outdoor walk. I love going outside and hearing all the birds from close and far away. My favorite thing to listen to is the leaves as the wind blows them around. Soon, I will hear that too.

A New Beginning

Today was the first day my oldest got to drive! Yep, this was the vehicle. He is actually big and heavy enough to drive this. He tried last year but this mower has a safety feature that if there is not enough weight on the seat it will turn off. This year was the year for him and hubby couldn't be happier. I know who will be driving every weekend this summer. Our 5yr old looked out the window and said that he couldn't wait till he got to do that. His day will come soon enough.

Our Wonderful Weekend

This weekend we were in San Antonio with lots of friends. We took in some spiritual food then we went to take in some physical food and some wonderful association. This is part of our little homeschool group that meets up on different occasions. The funny thing is that we can never take a great kid picture. If you see most of the kids are making some sort of face. We all had a wonderful time being together.
Of course, I gotta show us homeschooling moms. Don't we all look great?

Don't we look happy to spend another day together drinking in all the wonderful information we received and also our time together? I am all refreshed and ready to go again.

Not Bragging, REALLY!!

As we were leaving our Sunday meeting we turned on our van and we are still officially in winter but does this look like winter temperatures to you?

A Bird Day

On Sunday on our way to town there was some stinky skunk road kill and there were 5 black vultures and 1 crested caracara also known as the Mexican Eagle. I still don't have my zoom lens so you will have to click on the image to see it closer. As you see the crested caracara was the first to fly away as we drove up. It landed on the field. I will one day take a closerloser picture of this bird. Till then this is all I have.

Lunch Time

On the way home from our Sunday meeting and a funeral talk, I saw something and made hubby back up for a picture. It was a Red-Tailed Hawk. It was on a private driveway eating something. When we backed up it flew with its food in its beak. We drove as close as we could get to it without making it go away again and got a few shots. Now I still don't have my zoom lens so I had to zoom in on the computer and it's not as clear as I would like it but you can see what he has.
You can see a little of the red from the tail and something else in the tree.
Yes, it had a snake. It flew away shortly after this but what a neat find. The boys thought it was "soooo" cool.

How about an orchid?

We went to visit a friends husband who is very sick on Sunday morning. He has some orchids that are over 50yrs old. He has a greenhouse in the back that is heated in winter and has fans and vents for the summer. These flowers are truly amazing.



Isn't this orchid amazing?
These were tiny flowers all on one long stem.
I love yellow roses and yellow orchids are beautiful also.
I had to take this one. I just love my new camera. I can now take pictures like this and see the bee in mid-air.

What beautiful flowers. Some even had a wonderful scent.