family party

We spent the afternoon (the GORGEOUS fall-like afternoon!) at my nephew's birthday party. Here the kids watch the birthday boy opening his gifts (his parents prefer that I don't post photos of him). Even though this was technically a family party, he did have a couple of really nice friends over, and the kids all had a blast playing together. I wasn't too terribly surprised to find out that these boys happen to be homeschooled, and I had a good conversation with their father who has the bulk of the homeschooling duties in their household.

Here's all the party going kids (and a couple of the adults) playing a rowdy game of freeze tag.




Pizza for dinner, what could be better? Well, at least according to Zoo Boy. J was eating his usual dinner, "Cheezy Cheese and Crackers" (WisPride spreadable cheddar on stoned wheat thins).


The boys and their cousin found a wooly bear caterpillar and set up a comfortable container to study it in. They had a bunch of fun "taking care of" their caterpillar all afternoon, and I had just recently read about wooly bears so was able to answer the questions that some of the kids had about them. For instance, this wooly bear is a young one -- it's mostly black. As it gets older, the small orange stripe around it's middle will spread and eventually it will be entirely orange in color. It will hibernate for the winter, then in the spring it will spin a cocoon and turn into a moth.

In dropping off our babysitter prior to the party, her mom met us in the driveway and invited us in to see the monarch butterfly that had just emerged for them. (They are another homeschooling family.) They had found the monarch eggs on milkweed plants this summer, hatched them out, and grew the caterpillars out until they became chrysalises. They just happened to have one of the butterflies emerge shortly before our arrival, so the kids were able to let it crawl all over them. (Wish I'd thought to grab my camera when we went in!) They showed us two more chrysalises that Butterflies will emerge from either tomorrow or the next day. Really cool stuff!