Fall Nature Table And Esperanza's Caterpillar

Today we were blessed with clouds, sprinkles and cool Autumn breezes. It was the perfect day to spend a little bit of time indoors for a change. I cleaned and organized inside a little bit. One of the things I did was clean up our nature table. I try to change it with each season, but this year Spring and Summer kind of morphed into one and we have neglected it a bit. Esperanza continued to add to it throughout the season, but nothing else. It was a mess with all types of flower petals, feathers, sea shells, rocks and other random warm weather items Esperanza has collected over the months piled up, collecting dust.

Yesterday, while we were outside cleaning up the yard, Esperanza found a caterpillar. She wanted to keep it. She's found lots of caterpillars in the past, but never asked to keep one. I agreed. It would be a fun and educational opportunity. She named her caterpillar Arial. I talked to her about the lifecycle of a butterflies. We made a home for Ariel with leaves, sticks and dirt inside of a container. We made a lid with air holes in it and then needed a place for it to be placed for the next few months (after doing some research, I discovered that caterpillars found in Fall will transform into the pupa and will not emerge until Spring). Great, I didn't realize what I was getting into and thought we'd have a moth or butterfly in just a few weeks. Oh well. Hopefully we can keep Ariel alive through the whole metamorphosis process then release her once she emerges with wings.

So, today we placed Arial and her home on the nature table along with a few other 'fall' items. The caterpillar, along with the dozens of chicken feathers, is the biggest difference in this years Fall nature table compared to other years. Fall is my favorite season so our nature table will make several transformations over the next few months with pumpkins, leaves, nuts, sticks, feathers, rocks, pine cones, candles and other fall themed or colored items as well as Halloween decor and any other random thing or item Esperanza and Ezra will collect while out and about. Oh, and Ariel will probably go into the garage once she becomes a pupa (to prevent her from emerging too soon).

Our caterpillar in her home next to some leaves Ezra collected

 A bowl of 'seasonal' yarn adds a little warmth to the space

 acorns, pine cones, feathers, moss, rocks, sea shells and walnut shells 

Dirt Day With Cousins

A couple of Saturdays ago, we had some the kids' cousins over to play. It was originally just going to be Rafael. But I couldn't break little Kiko's heart again, so he stayed to play as well. Armando was supposed to be home all day, but he ended up getting more work than expected. The kids were too loud so Ezra only got a few minutes of a nap in which made the day a little bit more work than I'd hoped. Then about half way into the day, my niece Sarah called and asked if she and her kids could come over to visit. She had Jeramiah with her also (our niece Elda's son). 7 kids total. 2 little girls, 5 little boys...all ages 5 and under. Crazy! Jeramiah is 5, Rafael and Esperanza are 4, Kiko and Yareli are 3 and Estevan and Ezra are 1. Whew! They had soooo much fun playing together! Sarah went to the store to get food to cook for dinner at one point and somehow got lost. It was just me and all these kids for over an hour! I didn't even try to supervise anything. All I did was count heads every now and again to make sure they were all there. It was pretty entertaining.

A few funnies:

Kiko speaks very little, if any, English. I kept asking Rafael to translate for me. He wouldn't though. He would just stare at me. At one point in the day, Kiko kept telling me the same thing over and over again and I had absolutely NO clue what he was saying. My response each time was "yo no compredo, habla me en English" (I think that is some version of "I don't understand, talk to me in English"). He still kept saying the same thing in Spanish. Finally, Esperanza, who must have gotten frustrated herself by the communication problem, yells "MOM, he is saying he wants to play with the train!". She understood what Kiko was asking for and eventually decided to take the initiative to translate for me. There was a little train set that I had put away earlier and apparently, he wanted to play with it again. This proved to me that Esperanza understands way more Spanish than she is usually willing to admit.

Sarah's son Estevan is a couple month older than Ezra. He might be short, but this kid is solid. He's a tank and will plow through anything in his way. He would touch Ezra, and Ezra would fall down. After the first or second time, Estevan began to like pushing Ezra down and Ezra became scared of him. He's see Estevan coming towards him and would instantly cry and run to me. It was funny and sad at the same time. I started calling Estevan a bully. In Ezra's defense, he did miss his nap that day.

Here are some pictures of the day. I always wonder what events, moments and days will become part of my kids' future memories. I hope that some of these blog posts will still be around for these kids to look at in the future to trigger memories and/or enjoy remembering moments through these pictures.

We built a fort over the pool outside for them to play in

 Rafa, Kiko and Esperanza

 Kiko and his dirty face

 He's sooo darn cute

 Our 'great' nephew Jeramiah. He was the oldest of the bunch that day. At 5 years old, he started Kindergarten this year.

 Boys, dirt and trucks.

 Kiko was dropped off wearing white shorts and a white shirt. I immediately dropped what I was doing when I took a look at him and pulled down the 3T bin from the garage shelf and changed him. Good thing. This kid was covered from head to toe in dirt within minutes. 

Esperanza had also put white on that morning. I forgot to change her before she started playing in dirt. Oh well, it's almost too small for her anyways.

Estevan, the big bully tank

 Somehow, I got all seven kids in each of the next 3 pictures. Not wonderful pictures, but what do you expect when there's that many little people.

 My niece Sarah, cooking us dinner! She didn't hesitate to put my apron on and make herself comfortable in my kitchen. I love that!

Ring Around The Rosies

Pushing Trucks

Virgos

We had a birthday gathering for all the Virgos in the family a couple weeks ago at my moms house. Angelica turned 18 on August 27th, Antonio turned 15 on August 28th, George turned 63 on August 31st and Mary turned 29 on September 3rd. 

All but the last 2 photos are courtesy of Geneva. I thought the ones of my mom and Angelica were cute so I had to post them all - good thing Angelica never reads my blog.

 Not really birthday related, but I still have to include this adorable picture of Anycia I hijacked from Geneva. 17 inches of hair cut recently!!!

 My lil Leo Esperanza was included in the birthday celebration too. Geneva and the kids brought her a belated birthday gift - a hula hoop!!! After just a few minutes practice, this girl can hula-hoop!

A moth or butterfly pupa (yes, I had to Google it) on a tree in my moms backyard. I'd like to think it was a butterfly pupa since it was next to the butterfly bush.

 Ezra

Peachy

We've been eating a lot of peaches lately. In a typical year, I might eat half a dozen peaches, If I'm lucky. This year, I've surpassed that several times over. The kids, my sister and I went peach picking a few weeks ago, then my mom and I each bought a box of peaches at a stand on the side of the road last weekend. I might have bought a few peaches here and there at a grocery store too. Besides eating them fresh, I've canned a couple dozen jars of them, dehydrated a bunch, juiced a few, infused some in ice water and still have 8 or 9 left to do something with before they go bad. I experimented a lot with canning - some in light syrup, some in heavy syrup (that was the batch Esperanza added a little more sugar than I had planned. After tasting them, she says they taste like candy). I canned a batch in honey as well as a batch in a Hibiscus syrup. I have various sizes of cans various sizes of peaches - halved, quartered, sliced and diced. The total amount of peaches - roughly 50 pounds! Not sure how peach canning is supposed to subsidize the cost of food later this year since I don't usually buy canned peaches to begin with. They will have to replace blueberries I suppose since I didn't get nearly as many to freeze as I usually do. 

~Here are some peachy pictures~

 This was Ezra's first peach I think. He devoured it! When I went to try to help him turn the peach around to avoid the pit, I think he growled at me. Needless to say, Ezra loves his peaches.

 Mary and The Giant Peach

 He was practicing his peach pitching skills