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Crawdads

We've had lots of fun with tadpoles over the past few years...so when Bubba and Uncle Chris mentioned that they have lots of crawdads in their creek, we couldn't wait to broaden our aquatic critter experiences!

We weren't able to find a good time to go while Bubba and Uncle Chris were there, and we wanted to hurry up and go catch some - you never know when/if there will be a big rain and all the critters get washed downstream...so today after school we just climbed right over their gate.

Their creek is so pretty.

At first we didn't see anything. And then finally we saw one. Then two, three, four...they were everywhere! Once your eyes adjust and you see one, they all kind of pop out. How many crawdads do you see here?

Did you find eight??

How about here?

Wow, there are nineteen!!!

Okay, that was fun, but I spent w-a-y too long on it... :)

We got out our cups and got busy seeing what we could catch.

Crawdads are definitely harder to catch than tadpoles. But we finally ended up with one!

Then we figured out that with some teamwork, we could surround them and though it was still hard, we could catch them a little easier than what we had been trying.

Josiah even caught one all by himself! (Granted, it was already in our bowl...but he was excited! ;)

After we had a small handful of crawdads in our bowl, the boys decided they'd had enough. They turned their attention instead, to playing in the water and throwing rocks.

But all too soon it was time to head home. But only after we picked up all of our sophisticated crawdad-catchers. :)

The original plan was to catch a few crawdads, and then let them go. But the boys really wanted to take them home to show Bret. 

So we kept a few, took them home, showed Bret, and then took them to the tadpole creek and let them go. We've never seen crawdads there, and I felt a little guilty - hopefully they didn't come to a long and painful demise in an environment not suitable for crawdads.

Update:
I guess I was a little more anxious about those silly little crawdads than I thought I was. I had the craziest team last night. It was spring next year, and we had gone to the park for our annual tadpole extravaganza...and were excited to see a handful of crawdads while we were there. And then we went out the next year, and there were just as many crawdads as there were tadpoles. And then the next year, all we could find was crawdads, not a tadpole in sight. We had completely upset the ecosystem. Good grief. Only time will tell, I guess! ;)

Little Flirt

Since we've been doing Runner's Club, Josiah has gotten to know a lot of the older kids. They may not know his name, but everyone knows now that he's Conner and Micah Wells' little brother. When he's not causing a scene with his antics on the swings, he's running around the track, goofing off and holding his own.

There's one little girl that he's always called "That Mean Girl." I still don't know if she's ever actually been mean to him - or if he just translates her non-eagerness to talk to him as being mean ;) - but for whatever reason she's "That Mean Guhl." I finally told him that he needs to stop calling her that. When he told me that he couldn't because he didn't know her name, I told him that he needed to ask her.

Well...I guess he did...because this is what Josiah and "That Mean Guhl" did for about two miles today...

Oh my...what are we going to do when he actually figures out how to call girls by their names and use that grin and those eyelashes to charm??

This Year's First Little Frogs!

Hooray! Some of our tadpoles are turning into tiny little frogs! Have you ever seen a frog just after it first climbs out of the water? It's so interesting - they still have their tails. And as they sit out on the rock in the sun that first day, the tail just shrivels up and disappears. We're so thankful that we have such a fun way to watch this little miracle!

Superheroes

I found these guys in the kitchen table while I was picking up the other day. Love those creative minds!

Conner:
(Can you guess what he's been studying in art? :)

Micah:

Easter

In addition to our Kool Aid eggs, we decided to try another new Easter project. I saw on Pinterest where somebody grew real grass in their kids' Easter baskets. It looked really cool and didn't sound too hard - I thought we'd I've it a try!

The instructions said that if you plant the grass two weeks before Easter, it should be just right for the Easter Bunny. We planted a couple of days earlier than that, just to be safe. Well...apparently it wasn't early enough. I mean, up (really) close it didn't look too bad...

 

But in reality, despite our best efforts, the Easter Bunny had to lay his eggs on dirt. We were really bummed.

Micah wanted to make sure the Easter Bunny knew we still loved him though. He left a couple of candy bars for him, and a sweet little picture.

Apparently the Easter Bunny accepted our apologies. He left a few goodies, including a new movie - Chipwrecked!

After a while, according to recent tradition we headed on to the Robey's for lunch and an egg hunt. BooBoo's individual fruit pizzas were a hit!

 

We were thrilled that Bonnie and Griffin are old enough to join us for the egg hunt this year!

Griffin was pretty excited about it, too! :)

We couldn't resist a few Wellsbrothers and cousins pics on Bubba and Uncle Chris' cool porch rocking chairs...

And then we wrapped it all up with Micah's catching his first butterfly of the season. He was quite proud. :)

...and would you believe, that after an afternoon rain our grass looked like this before we went to bed tonight?!

PS - and like this by Monday afternoon?? I guess we were just a day or two off. Making notes to try again next year...

Kool-Aid Easter Eggs

I found this idea on how to dye Easter eggs with Kool-Aid on pinterest - Kool-eggs! I'm not real sure why this appealed to me so much. It's not like it's really any easier than the kits you buy. And it might be a little cheaper, but not much. I just thought it sounded like fun.

So I boiled our eggs and we got all of our stuff together.

The first (most important!) order of business was to choose the flavor of Kool-Aid that would serve the job of quenching our thirst while we worked. ;) Lemon-lime, it is!

 

Then we poured the powder into our cups. (Mmmmm, it smelled oh, so wonderfully fruity in the kitchen!) Then we added a little water, no need for vinegar! (Yes, Conner is reading his "Bird Bible" while he's mixing. He's been into bird watching lately, and had been outside looking. :)

Then everyone chose a color and dunked their eggs. We counted to 30 together...

...and wa-lah! It worked! (Josiah was quite impressed!)

That first time was done nice and beautifully, everyone together. After that it was a little chaotic. Three kids counting aloud to 30, all at different speeds and times, one still needing a little help...two spills...a few little spats...you know, projects with three kids. ;) I took a little bit of video to hear all of the counting, but you can barely hear Conner, and I don't think you can hear Micah at all. (Probably because he had decided to do all of his counting under the table.)

After a little while we got brave and tried making a few designs. (Conner was just trying to make a "half-and-half" egg, but his fingerprints ended up making polka dots. Very cool!)

And a little while after that, we decided we should eat a few. Micah loves boiled eggs!!!

About the only drawback with our method was that we didn't have a little dunker-thing. (Which the kids haven't really used in the past, anyway.) The Kool-Aid did a pretty good job of dying those little hands, too. They thought it was awesome.

Then almost immediately, they grabbed about half of their eggs (I claimed the other half to make deviled eggs), and went outside to take turns hiding them and have a "practice egg hunt."

Love those boys! What a great Easter weekend we're having so far!