Butterfly Pavilion

Ben has wanted to take the girls to the Butterfly Pavilion for quite awhile. We discovered that the library offers free passes! We signed up, and today was the day.

Before we got to the butterflies, we stopped at the tarantula. UGH! But, the girls LOVED it. Her name is Rosie- and there are actually 50 Rosie's. No Rosie works more than two hours a week.

They got to touch star fish:

And, then we finally got to the butterflies!

Can you see one? Claire was so proud to show them off.

Audra had an owl butterfly land on her. It stayed there for several minutes. We thought it was a fluke...

It is like a rain forest. Very humid, which made me realize maybe I don't want to visit the rain forest.

Digging up some worms:

 Fun play area:

Ben had one land on his hat, though you can't really see it:

Then, we went back in, and an owl butterfly flew onto my leg. And it didn't leave. Apparently Audra's butterfly was not a fluke- owl butterflies don't like to leave. I did not like it. At all. It felt like little tiny bites on my leg- yuck!

Overall, was really a great day. The kids had a great time- and it lived up to Ben's expectations. What a great day!

Swim Test!

You can barely see her in the picture, but today was a monumental day for Camille: She passed her swim test! It was actually kind-of funny. She told me she wanted to pass it so she could go down the slide, so I told her to go practice swimming. She went, but forgot to roll over to breathe when needed so she would stop after 3 feet. I said, "You need to roll over and breathe! Go try it again." Then, she forgot she needed to roll back over after breathing, so I reminded her and said try it again. She went back out, remembered all those steps, and swam perfectly. We went over to the big pool for the test, and she easily passed. I was so impressed! It was her first time trying. The first time she tried a few months ago, she totally freaked out because she couldn't touch the bottom. The second time, she could only go half the distance. But today, it was beautiful- she easily passed, and then proceeded to go down the slide several times. She was so proud of herself!

Art Work

Audra made this lovely masterpiece at Cloverleaf:

And, Claire spent almost 3 hours on this Zentangle Artwork at a co-op. Claire is definitely a doodler- all of her assignments are covered with her drawings. I really need to think of signing her up for some kind of art class.

Fun Run!

I have had a lot of Camille posts lately. That's just the way it is at the time.

Camille had a Fun Run at school today. I think she had a lot of fun with it. She really did great.

 They mark how many laps they did on their shirts as they run by:

The theme had something to do with castles, so each class had a banner and they ran through a tower.

Birthday Dance!

We have a lot of plans the next few weeks, so Camille got to do her Birthday dance at Ms. Muffy's today! This is always a major highlight for the dancers.

No Biting!

Camille has had a real problem with nail biting. She bites her nails so much that they bleed. It is awful, and must be incredibly painful.

For months I have been trying to think of things that would encourage her not to bite her nails. Socks, band-aids, of course the usual disgusting nail polish- even really fancy nail polish that wouldn't be fun to ruin. All kinds of incentives- ice-cream sundaes, restaurant trips- anything I could think of.

Then, we were at KingSoopers and they had HUGE stuffed animals- like ones taller than her. She said she would stop biting her nails if she could one.

DONE!

It took, actually, several more months for her to finally stop.

Today, finally, I was able to clip her nails and she earned her stuffed animal!

We went to three different stores. Apparently life sized stuffed animals are only sold around the Christmas and Easter holidays.

Finally we found ourselves at Goodwill, and she found her animal. It needed a little stitching up and a bath, but now we have a happy girl, a beloved elephant, and long nails! Yahoo!

Sick Girl!

And, sometimes, you just need to stay home from church and take a nap.