Our 19th and 20th Weeks ~ 2014

Since I completely missed last week's recap post, I have to bombard you with two weeks worth of photos.  Sorry!  I will keep the words to a minimum when possible.  :)

I am still participating in Fat Mum Slim's Photo a Day challenge, so that is what these are from ... (some days are missing because those are the days I used photos from my archives).

{May 5 - 4PM}

The idea was to take a photo at/around 4PM and share it, so that's what I did.  This picture was drawn by a friend of Keira's.  It is Keira in fairy form.

{May 6 - From down low}

I had this idea to lay on the ground and take a picture up at the kids.  Keira was having a bad day that day and wasn't all that smiley.  And Alex is a little out of focus because I should have closed down my aperture.  Oh well, I still like this pic of them.

{May 7 - Taken from above}

A grape hyacinth.

{May 8 - Blue}

I was pressed for time and having a mental block, so blue food coloring in a vase of water would have to suffice.  :)

{May 11 - Mother}

My mom and sister came to visit on Mother's Day. Linda brought a bunch of old photos with her, at my request, so we spent some time looking through them and reminiscing.  We found my mom's senior photo and since the prompt was mother, I had her hold her senior photo from 1954.

{May 12 - Ready}

Our Painted Lady caterpillars were all in chrysalis as of Friday, May 9.  Not quite ready to join us as butterflies yet.  This particular one had fallen when I was transferring them from the cup to the butterfly house.  I looked up what to do and Google said it should be fine - just to lay it on a paper towel.  Thank you, Google!  :)

{May 13 - I spy}

I spy ... the face of an old man.  Alex sees a smiley face.  What do you see?

{May 14 - Lines}

There are lines all around us.  We just need to look a little closer to see them sometimes.

{May 16 - Create}

Only God could create such a fascinating creature!  (This was the first Painted Lady butterfly to emerge.)

{May 17 - Bag}

Alex put our bean bag chair on his head and said, "Look, mom!  I have a big brain!"

A quick recap of the past two weeks (more for me than for you, so you can skip this if you'd like)  :) ... 
last Bible study of the year :(
Grandparents' Day at the boys' school
Keira's school concert
my mom stayed with us Tuesday evening through Thursday evening in order to attend Grandparents' day and Keira's school concert - I love having her but it throws me off my routine.  :)
Staff Luncheon at the boys' school - I helped shop for, prepare food, and serve - whew!
Prom photo shoot - FUN!
Keira had a strolling strings gig at Kids' Day America
Doug and I drove down to his chiropractor's office to take advantage of a big sale they were having on supplements and we were going to go out to dinner until we pulled in the parking lot and remembered it was Mother's Day weekend.  :)  So we ate at home.
Mother's Day at my house - gorgeous weather - also celebrated my niece's birthday
my van got serviced/inspected
Alex got sick for a day and a half
visited a local apple orchard, took some photos of the blossoms and got to meet the owner who was very nice
had to postpone two photo shoots on Saturday because of the rain (but got them both in on Sunday)
we sold Doug's Hyundai, now we only have the Lincoln to sell.

I think that's about it.  At least that's all I can remember at his point!  Hope your week is going great!

Linking with Tamar ...

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Waiting for a Butterfly

What the caterpillar

calls the end of the world

the master

calls a butterfly.  (Richard Bach)

We've been waiting 6 1/2 months.  

Since September 9, 2012 - the day we brought the caterpillar home.



And the wait was so worth it.

Linking with Project Alicia, In the Moment with ..., and Live and Love ... Out Loud.


Before you go, make sure you check out the giveaway I'm hosting for a FUN children's book ... Hey God, I've got some guy named Jonah in my stomach and I think I'm going to throw up!

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Scavenger Hunt Sunday 03.10.13

I'm a little late to the party this week. Mainly because I was really stumped on some of these prompts!  So a few of my interpretations are possibly a bit of a stretch, but just roll with it, k?

{#5}

From the archives, obviously.  This was the butterfly #5 of the Monarchs we raised last summer.  This is the best shot I got of him because we were leaving for a day of fun when he decided to emerge.  So I wedged the bug box lid in our maple tree, snapped a few quick pics, and left.

{word of the day}

SNOW! was the word of the day on Wednesday.  The kids had their first snow day.  In March!  My back is still a little sore from all the shoveling we did that day!  And it is about 70 degrees and beautiful today!  Not to last though, but we are enjoying it while we can.

{sharing}

I'm sharing a photo of our newly remodeled kitchen.  I shared a whole blog post a few days ago, in case you want to see the ugly "before" photos.  :)

{wiggle}

In another month or so a beautiful butterfly will wiggle its way out of this chrysalis we have been observing since September/October.

{cookies!}

This little girl loves cookies!

Thanks for stopping by!  Be sure to visit Ashley for more great Scavenger Hunt finds!

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Scavenger Hunt Sunday 07.01.12

Time for another Scavenger Hunt.  This ones comes to you from a hospital room.  My youngest son had his appendix removed this afternoon and we are spending some time at our local children's hospital while he gets better.  More details on that coming soon.  Instead, let's get to the hunt.  I need the distraction.  :)


Sarah is hosting the hunt this week since Ashley just had her baby girl.  Congratulations to Ashley!   Be sure to stop by and congratulate her.  And stop over and say hello to Sarah and link up if you haven't already!

{sunset}

Our church's Vacation Bible School was last week and sometime during the week, the lady in charge asked me if I could do something pretty with our main Bible verse for the week.  We made magnets out of this to send home with the kids.  This sunset photo was taken at the church so I thought it was appropriate to use.  I had a completely different picture in my brain that would be have been great, however I am not in possession of such a photo.  Yet.  :)

   

{sweet}

Our grapes are probably not sweet yet, but by the end of the summer, if the birds haven't eaten them all, they will be.


{hanging around}

We had our third Monarch butterfly emerge from her chrysalis this week.  So we have released three females so far and still have one more in chrysalis.  The butterflies like to hang around for a while after they emerge to allow their wings to dry.  I like to take advantage of this time and get as many photos as possible of the butterflies while I can.  :)


{funny face}

This is the son of a friend of mine.  I hope she doesn't mind me using this photo because this is only one of two funny faces I got this week.  My mind was on VBS, not the hunt.  Anyway, this is C.  He insisted on having me take a silly photo of him after his "serious" one.  I didn't mind at all.  He cracks me up with his funny faces.


{space}

I took this photo for a couple reasons.  One - to show the difference between a newly formed chrysalis (left) and one where the butterfly is ready to emerge (right).  And two - because I chuckled at how little space the second caterpillar left between herself and her sister.


So that's it for me.  If you'd like to play along for next week, these are the things to hunt for ...

1. Patriotic (Paper Heart Camera Theme)
2. View from Above
3. Mosaic
4. Something Tiny
5. Vibrant

I hope I can get all the prompts as I will be hanging out at the hospital for another five days or so.  I guess as long as the hospital people don't mind me wandering around with my camera, I'll be golden.  :)  Here's hoping we can see the fireworks from our window!


Have a great week!

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Wild & Wonderful Wednesday - the Finale

Hello!  And welcome to the final edition of Wild & Wonderful Wednesday.  I've been contemplating dropping this link up for a few weeks and I feel that now it is time to let it go.  I've enjoyed having each of you with me each week, but I feel bad that I just haven't had the time to visit everyone who links up.  While that may not be a big deal to some, it is important to me.  And if I can't give this link up my all, then I would rather not do it.

Having said all that, I want to thank you for linking up!  Whether you linked up once or you do every week, I appreciate your support!  Maybe if things slow down a bit in my life, I will start the linky back up again.  Maybe someday.  But for now, I hope you enjoy my last Wild & Wonderful Wednesday photos.

Those of you that were around back in September may remember this crazy-looking caterpillar that we found in our back yard.

After a little research we found out it was a Spicebush Swallowtail in its final larval stage.  So we kept it in one of our bug boxes and within 2 days it formed a chrysalis.

It had been in chrysalis since September ... apparently it was overwintering.


Yesterday I noticed that the chrysalis was getting dark - almost black.  Alex and I talked about it and thought that either it was ready to be a butterfly or it had died.


Well, this morning as Alex and I were getting ready to walk out the door to go to Bible study, I checked on it and inside the bug box lay a beautiful butterfly!  I thought it was dead because it was just laying there, but when I opened the lid and picked it up, it fluttered and moved around.  We were so excited!





Not knowing what Spicebush Swallowtail butterflies eat and having to leave to get to Bible study, I quickly sliced an orange and placed a piece in the bug box and off we went.  When we got home, we got to spend a little more time with him.





Unfortunately his wings aren't formed correctly and he will probably never fly.  Not for lack of trying though.  He's a fighter.  He didn't pick the best day to emerge since the temperature today didn't get much above 40 degrees.  (After last week's summer-like temps, it felt very cold).  So we placed him in our butterfly house and he's currently hanging on one of my primrose plants (the only flower I had to offer him).



(This photo is of his good wing).


Hopefully he'll survive the night and tomorrow I can find some nectar-producing flowers for him.  In the meantime, we are enjoying his company.  And the fact that he stayed pretty still for his photo shoot.  :)

Now it is your turn!  Link up your Wild & Wonderful photos below.  

Just a few things first ...

1.  Grab my button for your post and link up below (or use a text link).  Thank you!

2.  Link up your post URL (or Flickr photo URL), not your blog URL.

3.  Photos must be yours please.

4.  Try to visit and comment on a few other linker uppers. 

5.  You have until Saturday at midnight to link up!

<center><a href="http://kimberlysperspective.blogspot.com/"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfwwyaMEvjZkk1W2QvexI3Mq6nMxsLltPDHIZ9MGgTqe6vRUdZBrqjZkUU5MSlwqcNCqKkln6_IfbLazBDkdcnTctpPuYXZ1vFqN06YX7wkpoTJiIkvHB0dH7VlNb3nMGT-3GxFBHjrk0Q/s1600/Wild-and-wonderful-wednesda.jpg"/></a></center>

Also linking up with these lovely ladies ...

           

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Week 42 Summary

I had such a fun, busy day yesterday that I didn't get my weekly summary posted.  What was I doing?  Well, first I ran in a 5K race.  And I ran the entire thing which I wasn't planing to do since I haven't really been running due to my knee hurting.  But I did it in 31:32!  I was so excited!  Then I ran in a 1K fun run with the kids.  Alex wanted me to run with him, but he took off and blew me away.  That boy can run fast!  

Then after a quick lunch and a shower it was off to Sam's Club to try to raise money for the boys' school.  Unfortunately we weren't all that successful in selling our discount cards.  But Nick, who went with me, did a great job and really stepped outside his comfort zone asking people if they wanted to buy.  His sweet face even got us a few dollars in donations.  :)  He's awesome.

Lastly, I tagged along with my daughter's Youth Group to a local farm for a corn maze, hay ride, and bon fire.  It was fun hanging out with a bunch of teenagers for the evening.

So by the time I got home last night after all that, it was all I could do to post yesterday's photo of the day.  I was beat!

Anyway, here's what my week looked like in pictures ... (and I apologize that they are all over the place!)  :)

16 - Finally got around to putting up some fall decorations.  Tracey at Inspire Me Photography picked this photo as one of her Top 5 this week.  Thanks Tracey!

17 - Sunburst in a leaf filled with water.

18 - Nick in his favorite pink t-shirt (it has skulls on it) - for I Heart Faces Think Pink challenge.

19 - Alex playing in the leaves.

20 - Late bloomer - coneflower.

21 - Spicebush Swallowtail butterfly chrysalis.  Click on the link to see the caterpillar that formed this chrysalis.  It is pretty awesome!  :)

22 - A cool, old barn in a soybean field - it was across from the farm we went to with the Youth Group.

   

Hope you had a great week also!

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Photo of the Day: July 2

ISO 800, f/5.6, 1/50s, 18-55mm lens with 10x macro filter

One of our Monarchs in its chrysalis.  We currently have 4 chrysalis and one caterpillar in J form who will be forming his chrysalis sometime today.  I love the gold sparkles!  It is amazing to me how even their chrysalis can be so beautiful!  Next week we'll have our first butterfly!

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