Rockets

When my siblings and I were growing up, my dad and little bro enjoyed building rockets and then the whole family would enjoy launching and chasing them down. My dad, little bro (and his wife) have gotten into the habit of doing this again and we were able to launch a few rockets while we were there. It was kind of windy the day we did this so we only launched a few. (you guys ever get this one out of the tree?) J enjoyed playing with the rockets, and chasing them, but didn't like the loudness of them being launched. One of the rockets we launched was one that my SIL, Karen made when she was younger (in middle school I think) and since Karen is J's favorite Aunt, she had to carry this rocket around until it was time for the launch.

Snow Day

We flew out to Utah over spring break and had the chance to drive up into the mountains by my parents house and let the kiddos play in the snow. Being from Texas, we don't have "snow clothes" so it was pants and sweaters for us and the boys got cold quickly. We took some quick pictures and then put them back in their car seats to stay warm. Right after this picture, C fell face first into the snow and was a very unhappy camper for the rest of the day. W was pretty good natured so after he warmed up we found a soft rock to lean him up against while Daddy and J threw snowballs at Mommy.

Needless to say, this little one was in HEAVEN with all the snow (well, at least until the cold/wetness of her socks and pants set in).

The great and ironic thing about this is that the day before, we went swimming in my parents' pool.

Office Organization

I've had several people ask if I'm still doing my organizing projects, and sadly, I haven't been. However, here is on that I did back in April that I hadn't posted about - our office. Our office is actually just the other half of our playroom so when Erik finished the built ins in the playroom, I knew that the office needed attention too. The only before picture is one that I took while organizing our filing cabinet so it makes it look worse than normal.
The closet in our office was turned into my "craft closet" when I had to clear out my craft room to make room for a nursery. The only problems was that half my craft stuff was in the closet and half was in the attic storage space. Erik put more shelves in the closet when we started cleaning out the craft room, I just needed to utilize them better so that all my crafting stuff would fit in the closet.

So, after consolidating and purging we were able to get rid of one whole bookcase in the office, and fit most of my crafting stuff in the closet (my sewing machine and serger are still in the attic storage space along with some of my fabric - the closet can only hold so much ).

Maybe now that we're starting to get into a routine around here I'll get back to organizing, my laundry room is in desperate need of some help.

Easter Pictures

Jordyn:
Caleb:

Wyatt:

Others:

Butterflies

A couple of weeks ago, J and I found some caterpillars while pulling weeds in the yard.



After doing some research, we discovered that they were Swallowtail Butterfly caterpillars. So we caught two of them and put them in a jar with some wild dill (the weed we were pulling, and the weed that the caterpillars just happen to eat) so J could show them to her Daddy. Then we were going to let them go, however, when we got home from church, we saw this. . .


One of the caterpillars had made it's cocoon already, so we let her keep them so she could watch their transformation into butterflies. A few days later, the second caterpillar was in a cocoon as well. About a week and a half later we woke up to

We took the jar outside so that once the butterflies wings were dried it could fly away without getting stuck in the house. J was so fascinated that she sat there and watched until the butterfly flew off. It was worth it for her because on it's first short flight, the butterfly landed on her arm. It stayed there and rested for a short while before flying down to the grass where it could spread its wings into the sun so they cold finish drying out before it eventually flew off.

A few days later we repeated the entire process (including the landing on J's arm) with the other butterfly. J frequently asks where her butterflies are and likes to gather "caterpillar food" from the yard just in case they come back.

Child's Shoe Boxes

Recently, J has gotten several pair of new shoes (dance shoes, school shoes, sandals, etc) and along with those shoes come the boxes. In light of my organization projects I kept the boxes in hopes of finding a second use out of them. As I was searching through my mess of a baking cupboard I realized that this would be a perfect place for those boxes. I wrapped the boxes in brown paper (I was cheap hear and only wrapped the paper around the sides).

I labeled the boxes and then filled them with baking stuff. It may not be the prettiest thing around but it works and my cupboard is more organized.