Flowers, Plant Identification, More Letters

First day of the week, Roman date of May 9:  It was Mother's Day in the U.S.  We loosely observe Mother's and Father's Days.  I surprised the boys by renting a Care Bears movie on iTunes, so they watched that in the morning.  The boys learned an important truth, that you cannot use good power to do evil.  An evil bear used deception to steal away the Care Bears' power.  They realized that their power had gone out of them, but when the evil bear harnessed the power and tried using it to destroy the Care Bears' kingdom, Care-a-Lot, it would not work.  The power was useless.  Then the Care Bears realized that even though their special power harnessed in their belly badges were gone, they were still Care Bears.  The main character, Oopsie Bear, had not had a belly badge in the first place.  Maybe that's why he always made mistakes.  He unintentionally was the cause of the Care Bears having their belly badges stolen in the first place.  Oopsie reminded them all that he had still been a care bear, even when he didn't have the belly badge (and thus the special power).  They all united together with one mind to show they were still full of love and care.  The evil bear couldn't stand it.  Anyway, in the end, once the bears realized they were still Care Bears, their power went back to them.  Each one's belly badge found its way back to the right bears.  The evil bear was flung out of Care-a-Lot.  Of course, I used the movie to teach the boys a biblical lesson.  Satan will never be able to use good power, the Spirit of God, with which true Christians are begotten, to destroy the Kingdom of God.  Good will always prevail over evil.  As the scriptures say, IF it were possible, the very elect would be deceived.  The very elect will not be deceived, though.  Only those with a false spirit will be deceived.   In the end, all the evildoers will be flung out of God's Kingdom. 

We had a LATE lunch or EARLY dinner, depending on how you look at it, at Red Lobster.  Nathan took us out to eat.  I love their salads and the wild caught Alaskan salmon with broccoli....oh, and needn't forget the Pina Colada.  I don't know anyone who makes a better Pina Colada.  Either I was just really tired, or the alcohol made me sleepy, but when we got home, I took a nap that lasted over two hours.  A nap is a rare treat for me.  It was nice that I could take one while Nathan took care of the children.  Jade got to shoot his bb gun.

*2nd day, May 10:    Jade did a page of double-digit addition, wrote a letter to my grandpa, and shot his bb gun.  We read our proverb and a chapter from Mark's gospel narrative.

*3rd day, May 11:  I reviewed family order and our relationships with others in various places of authority with Jade and some basic U.S. history, as well as basics about the different continents and the difference between a map and a globe.  Proverb and Mark.  Jade wrote a letter to Nathan's grandmother.  I think he may have done some math. 

Trusten pointed out a squirrel outside Nathan's and my bedroom window in the morning.  He and I watched it, and I got it on video.  It was digging in the yard.

*4th day, May 12:  We read our proverb and a chapter from Mark.  Jade practiced some triple-digit addition and did some reading aloud and answered some questions about the reading.  The reading selection dealt with tagged and radio-id'ed animals, which I thought was great, since we'd just talked about that a few days before.  He wrote a letter to his Aunt Meg, my sister.  Then we all went for our daily walk, and I took several pictures, and I'm getting ready to work with Jaden again on the plant project.  

Well, I can't include all the pictures here, though those whom are members of our Shutterfly picture website will eventually see them all.  Here are a few:

Some sort of phacelia, I think.  I'm not certain.

Canada Dwarf Cinquefoil/Common Cinquefoil

I'm unsure of what plant this is, but they are all seemingly infested with some sort of tumorous growths.  Jaden burst one of then open, and it was empty.  However, we brought another home, and he showed Nathan, after Na got home.  Nathan then burst it open outside, and it had some sort of tiny insects, or rather insect larvae, I believe, crawling around in there.

I also took pictures of Queen Anne's Lace, wild blackberry, some sort of phlox or Wild Sweet William, and some sort of vetches.  I also took a picture of some bush with berries that I have not yet been able to identify. 

Jade also played Art Zone on the Internet while Trusten watched an episode of Davey & Goliath.  Jade also drew me a new pretty picture with his new colored pencils that are made from twig bark.  He then put it on the refrigerator for me by using magnet letters.  At the top, he put the letters M-a-m-a and the bottom J-a-d-e.  :-)  What a nice surprise.

We had a raccoon come steal some of the cats' food, on the back deck:

5th day, May 13:  Prov. and Mark.  Jade wrote the words of "Jesus Loves the Little Children" in paragraph form.  Somehow or another sponges got brought up.  Jade was asking me about them, so I explained real animal sponges and the synthetic ones.  I showed both boys pictures of sea sponges on Google Images and read a bit from Wikipedia.  I later talked about how some sharks will eat plastic and metal trash in the ocean, and Jade didn't believe me.  I showed them a Youtube video about tiger sharks that explained it. 

We took our walk, and Jade shot his bb gun.  He also hoed part of the back hillside.  I held my red honeysuckle out of the way, while he hoed around it.  I got cuttings from one of our previous neighbors last year, and I'm so happy that they made it.  This year, I gave her two of my three Day lilies that I had grow from last year's parent.  I've started to have blooms as I write this, but below is a picture from this date showing the first buds:

Both the boys played in puddles today, as it has rained a lot.  Trusten has new puddle pants so that he can play with Jaden.  I need to get Jaden the next size up, I suppose.  They're getting small.  Trust got in the sandbox with his puddle pants still on.  He played a bit, and then he spotted a caterpillar in the sand.  He dug it out, he asked me what kind it was.  I fetched out moth and butterfly guide, but I could not figure out what it was.  It was a caterpillar, though, and not some sort of other insect larva.

6th day, May 14:  We read the bible.  We also went through April's issue of Heaven's Family, where I read to the boys about orphans getting a new orphanage and a family being happy to get a water filter so that they no longer suffered illness from contaminated water.  We also read through some of my last issue of Arbor Day.  One of the articles was instructing people not to take firewood from their homes to a campsite away from home, because of the chances of introducing a foreign insect to that area which could wipe out plants.  I better explained to Jaden the reasons why this was so, since he sounded very interested in that.

Then we all took a walk, but I didn't take my camera.  I missed a rare event, I'm sure.  We saw on some animal feces both a female Diana fritillary and a Pipevine swallowtail.  Those who know butterflies realize that these are colored and patterned similarly.  I really thought that was neat that they were right beside each other.  I knew I should have taken my camera!  There were scavenger beetles around, too, as well as flies.  It's a shame to see such beautiful butterflies delight in something so disgusting.

7th day, May 15:  On the sabbath I taught the boys their thankfulness lesson and read from Proverbs.   I started on the 7th commandment in the book I'm writing.  After the sabbath, we all watched a movie together...can't remember the name of it.  It was a bit amusing, not one of the funniest, but some parts were pretty funny.  It was something to do with a former night guard going back to the museum at which he worked.  Something about a fight at the Smithsonian.  Anyway...

I got some new books.  Nathan logged into my Amazon wish list.  I didn't even know he knew I kept a "wish list."  Anyway, he went through there and got me several books.  I had to tell him to get them used, as he was clicking away to buy them new.  I got:

"The Private Eye : "5X" Looking/Thinking by Analogy - A Guide to Developing the Interdisciplinary Mind"

"Night Sky: A Guide To Field Identification

"The Amazing Story of Creation: From Science and the Bible"

"The Story of V: A Natural History of Female Sexuality"

"DNA and the Criminal Justice System: The Technology of Justice (Basic Bioethics)"

"What a Difference a Daddy Makes: The Indelible Imprint a Dad Leaves on His Daughter's Life"  by Dr. Kevin Leman (I've read three of his other books.)

I'm excited!  :-)

Well, that's it for now.