Butterflies!!

One of the many butterflies flocking to the zinnias.

 Surprisingly the heat the past few weeks have not reeked havoc on my flowers. They have shown a few signs of not liking the heat, but all in all they are doing fairly well. My roses still have rose buds developing and opening up. They aren't as large as the first ones that I had open but they are still pretty!

MY zinnias are still just overwhelming. They seem to kind of like the heat. After they are beautiful and are time to cut off it seems two more grow back in its place. Butterflies have started flocking to the zinnias. I have tried for a few days and finally got some shots of one of the butterflies. Usually around five or so when Jerrod gets home there are about five or six butterflies there sitting on the zinnias. I

Another shot of the butterfly.

have also noticed a lot of dragonflies around them also in the evenings.

Hope you enjoy the photos!!!

BIRD!!!!

 Meet Da-Da! This little guy is a blue jay that has been visiting our porch for the past few days. Gabryle gave him or her its name. There are actually 2 of these birds that have been coming, but I honestly can't tell if I have both of the birds or just one of the birds in these photos.

Gabryle has learned the past couple of days, that when he sees the bird, he very quietly walks up to the door and watches. If he says something he usually whispers, and it is always "Da-Da" Why this is what he calls it I don't know, but it has stuck!

 He gets so excited when he sees this little guy! He gets upset when it stays gone for too long and always keeps an eye out for it. Today we tore a couple of pieces of  bread for the bird and it has come back off and on through out the afternoon and evening. Gabryle will watch it pick a piece of bread up, stick it in its feet and then take smaller pieces off of it.

I suppose we should get a bird feeder to set up on the porch so Gabryle can watch it and get some other birds to come up to the house. I know there are some Robins in our neighborhood. We have seen a couple of them. And of course we are having TONS of butterflies right now in town. The girls are loving watching the butterflies. We have had quite a bit in our neighborhood also.

Mackenzie's class has been learning about the life cycle of butterflies starting with the caterpillar. They have had 4 caterpillars in their classroom and have watched them go from the caterpillar into the chrysalis to the butterfly. She said the last two hatched today. One hatched while they were doing their practice spelling test, and the other one hatched during one of their recesses today. Once they are ready her class will release the butterflies out in the playground and let them fly off to wherever they decide to go.

I'll work on getting better pictures of Gabryle's birds over the next couple of days. As soon as I can get it I'll post it for you!!

Till Next Time!!!

Paint and a butterfly assignment

The paint before I put the color in it. (THIS IS NOT THE
PUFF PAINT!)

 Kylie had her last monthly family fun activity homework to do this weekend. This month, May, it was to decorate a butterfly. Kylie decided she wanted to paint it. I obviously had no paint so I looked online to see different ways to make your own paint. Plus I didn't want to have to get all three of the kiddo's out to go to Wal-Mart or Dollar General.  Gee!!! I never realized there were so many different ways to make paint out there!!!!!

I finally settled on a recipe that I think turned out pretty cool. The recipe we used tonight is as follows:

Kylie's paint colors, Pink,. Green, Blue and Purple

Kylie finishing the first of the paint for her Butterfly

PAINT RECIPE
Equal parts Flour and Water
Food coloring

Mix the water and the flour together till it is lump free then add the food coloring to desired color. I used the Wilton Gel Food Color, just because that is the only food coloring I use anymore. It's my favorite brand. 

Kylie working on the paint

Kylie decided to have pink, green, blue and purple as her colors to paint her butterfly.  I gave her a brush and one paint at a time and she went to town decorating the butterfly how she wanted it.  The best way to describe the end results is the paint ends up with texture on the paper. It reminds me of the texture of pressed paper that you can find in the scrapbook section of craft stores that you can still feel the fibers in the paper.  I love it! Kylie thinks its cool how it is rough and it has dark and light in it on the paper.

We let the paper dry completely and she decided she wanted some decorations on it. I looked online and found a recipe for a puff paint. (Some call it 3-d or raised paint)  The recipe for it is as follows:

different angle of the butterfly

PUFF PAINT RECIPE
1 cup flour
3 tsp baking POWDER
1 tsp salt
Water (enough to make the paint the consistency of pancake batter) I used just under 1 cup of water.
food coloring

The completed Butterfly!!

1. mix the dry ingredients till combined
2. add the water till you have the consistency of
pancake batter.
3. add the food coloring till you have desired color.
4. put in either a small squeeze bottle or pastry bag to use to decorate onto paper
5. after you have the paint on the paper pop in the microwave for30-45 seconds to "puff" the paint

I'll admit I do not keep small squeeze bottles or anything like that around the house. I just used the pastry bag and it worked pretty well I think. I just cut off a small tip on the bottom of the bag that was large enough for the paint to come out but not enough it was hard to control.

Kylie's butterfly face.

I just had to microwave for 30 seconds and it was enough for it. I bet however if you use more of the paint than Kylie wanted we would have had to do more in the microwave.  We also waited till the first paint we used was 100% completely dry before we used the puff paint. I also tested it on a different piece of paper just to make sure that it would not mess up.

Hope you enjoy and maybe get a chance to try these different paints we used tonight!!!!

TILL NEXT TIME!!!