June Beginnings 2016

We decided to make the most of our early summer in Texas and venture over The Heard Museum nearby! They have lots of animatronic dinosaur trails (which we didn't do this time since it was pouring rain!) and an indoor natural history science museum with all kinds of amazing exhibits! I love sharing my love for learning and science with these little ones I am so thankful to spend my days teaching, loving and learning with! #perkofhomeschooling #lotsoffieldtrips #lovelearningwiththem! #ourfamadventures2016

It was neat seeing hundreds of years worth of tree rings on this tree as old as the first Industrial Revolution! Each ring represented an important historical event and spanned all the way out to modern days.  It was incredible and so neat to see time captured in the layers of this amazing tree!

The first exhibit was an indoor connected to outdoor beehive, showing the honeycomb and thousands of bees and their life cycle and honey making processes!

Don't get eaten by that alligator statue Nathy!! ;)

We even learned about the different capabilities and compositions of various animals and the shape of their eyes! So neat to see such a huge diversity of eyes! Everything from a fox, frog, snake, goat, shark and butterfly!!

Some sweet treats earned at our family chore auction! We have the kids do their regular expected routine chores throughout the week and then, on Saturdays, if they have got stickers each day of the week (to earn a sibling sleepover on Friday night!! hhehe...such a treat, they love this reward!!) they can earn money for chores on Saturday!! We put them to work and sure get lots of chores done together!! They are becoming quite good at them too!! Nathan is quite the helpful microwave, bathroom and toilet cleaner, while Gracie loves cleaning windows and folding towels and Katelyn is my go-to-girl for cleaning the stove, mopping, dusting and vacuuming! So proud of these hard workers!!

Nathan finally earned his ninja turtle night light after many many weeks of hard work! Each square is a quarter, and what an accomplishment it is for this boy!! Love that he keep with it, even after facing lots of discouragement and delayed gratification. So proud of these kiddos!

Reading books together!! I love seeing Katelyn play and take care of little Joshy...so sweet when he just sits with her and this gives her great motivation to read to someone!! He is such a little peaceful listener!

Fun friend poutluck gathering! Yummy treats too!

A fun homeschool learning book we have been reading! It is all informative about animals and on a 1st grade reading level too! So glad I found it for a quarter at our local library!! Score!!

In honor of World Oceans Day, on June 7 we created recycled art sea animals with friends and brought them to the SeaLife Aquarium for their Young Environmentalist Program!! So proud of Miss K and excited to see all our friend and family creations on the aquarium walls soon! 🐋🎉💕‪#‎marinebiologistsintraining‬ 😉😀 ‪#‎ourralphfam2016‬ ‪#‎bestplacetogowhenoceanisalittletoofaraway‬

Our recycled art seahorse!!

June 8, 2016 We headed over to the SeaLife Aquarium to participate in the young Environmentalist Program for Miss Katelyn, color a fun oceans mural, turn in our recycled art creations and reveal some cool new recycled art statue of a crab!

So amazed and in awe at the awesome octopus we saw swooping, swishing and climbing about in his tank today! Never seen an octopus so active before!!! AND we lucked out to see a baby Epaulette Shark developing too along with white polka-dot jellies, and getting to actually touch bright pink sea anemones too! They were sticking to the kids' hands with their unnoticibly stinging cells and they all LOVED it! ‪#‎soproudofmylittlemarineenthusiasts‬!! ‪#‎worldoceansday‬ ‪#‎lovelearningtogether‬! ‪#‎lovethesekidsandtheirsurprised‬&sillysmiles!

  

Woo hoo for our garden finds in early June too! A HUGE zuchinni, and a few partially devoured green tomatoes.  Those yucky grasshoppers, ants and Texas pests!! =P   So happy about our zuchinni though, my fav veggie! Hooray, stuff can be grown after all!! #wehadaroughfirstyeargarden #thosedarngrasshoppers!! #hoorayforagoodcrop!!

Cute Mr. Joshua turned 8 months on June 5th!! Such a cutie-pants!! Everything sure goes into his mouth!! AND he mastered the art of plank position holds (push-ups) and already started rocking and crawling a few strides on his own within weeks of this picture! We SURE love those big chocolate eyes and world-brightening smile!!

 

We decided to go out to celebrate my and Gracie's June birthdays early!! We each got a complimentary yummy dessert! AND it was fun going out together, since it is quite a rare occurence with our lively bunch and budget! ;) ;)  #JuneBugGirls!! :)

Hooray for June and the adventures and memories in store!