How Sweet!

Isn't this the cutest thing? My mother's orange tree has a little hummingbird nest. There are two little babies in there!

This is a shot of the two little behinds sticking out of the nest! They are the cutest things! They just sat there in their nest while I snapped away taking pictures!

And then today, I saw this near my back porch!

A lizard! Not so sweet, but interesting. The kids enjoyed watching him until he scampered away.

Maybe we'll find more interesting things this summer!

North and South

Oooh, I just finished watching North and South, based on Elizabeth Gaskell's novel, and it was SOOOOOO good! I haven't read the book, so I don't know how true it stayed, but this was a wonderful movie. The actors who portrayed the the leads, Margaret and Thornton were amazing together. It was romantic without much romance shown. If you like period movies and love to get lost in a story you might want to try this one. I recommend it highly!

Hearts for Home - June 15

I've decided to join in with Gae and others in the endeavor to commit to fostering our Hearts for Home. Here is what it's all about:

In today’s busy and aggressive society mothers at home are not given much encouragement to be committed to their role in being home.

In my weekly 'Hearts for Home' post I am encouraging myself and others to commit to thinking about what 4-6 things we can do each week to bring our thoughts, prayers and actions to keeping our 'Hearts for Home'.

I am praying that a spirit of gentleness, generosity in thoughts and time along with loveliness and grace would lead us to be all that God wants us to be.

I pray also that each person involved in 'Hearts for Home' would also pray for any others involved as well.

May you be blessed by this initiative. I pray it brings you and your family many blessings.

For this week, I will endeavor to:

1. Tend to my garden so that I can bring a little loveliness to the yard and inside the home.

2. Keep the dining room table clear of clutter.

3. Devote more prayer time in meditation of the Sacred Heart.

4. Listen to uplifting music that nourishes the soul and brings serenity.

If you would like to join in, visit Gae's lovely blog, Cherished Hearts At Home

Odds and Ends

I think the hard part of the kitchen work is finished! After all the wallpaper came off, I sanded the window panes that needed it, then taped aaalllllllll of them up. Very tedious!

The primer has been applied everywhere. All that's left is the final painting! Yeah! My friends and I will work on it this coming Monday.

I know this is blurry, but these are the little chrysalides doing their hidden work to become butterflies. After seeing Suzy's butterfly/chrysalis post, I wanted to do this too with the kids. She has a beautiful picture of the chrysalides. Ours look just like that, but of course hers aren't blurry. I think we may have four or five more days before the butterflies emerge.

Today was Emily's last day of preschool, sniff, sniff. She had a little party, then afterwards, many of the kids and their parents met at the park for a little fun. She is now looking forward to being a big girl and going to Kindergarten and being at the same school that Kathryn and Ryan attend.

Last night was the last meeting of the parent meetings I've been attending all year at the elementary school. It has been such a blessing. It hasn't been well attended, but those parents that did attend somewhat regularly were greatly aided in trying to be better parents. We discussed problems that we have in trying to raise Catholic children in todays world. We had discussions about our spiritual journeys, we prayed the Rosary, we had Adoration in the chapel, and we had good laughs sprinkled in there, too. Hopefully, the group will continue the next school year.

Remember my tree story last year? My trees were dying. Well, I think one of them is finally coming around. Instead of seeing brown leaves everywhere, I now see green ones sprouting all over. It looks so nice and I'm hopeful that the tree is in recovery and we'll get our shade back. The other two still look sparse but maybe there's hope!

I know the tree looks exactly like it did when I mentioned it last year, but it did get worse throughout the year. There's more green now.

I'll finally end this post with some of my flowers.

Sunday Praise - Trinity Sunday

Thursday

Another week is flying by.

Monday, my friends came over to give me a hand in my kitchen. It's taken so long because I'm not working on it everyday. I try to do a little, but cooking, laundry, and other necessary cleaning throughout the house gets in the way, as well as errands I need to run. The update is, all the wallpaper as been stripped from the walls, peeling has been finished and primer has been placed on most of the walls and cabinets. I still need to sand some of the diamond window panes and then we can get going on that. There is light at the end of the tunnel!

Ryan played his last baseball game of the season. They lost their playoff game. But that's not the end of sports! He will be practicing in the summer for Fall Ball in September. Emily is playing T-Ball and taking a general sports class through Sports and Recreation. She just has three more weeks of that. Oh, then I can't forget swimming. She's signed up for a two week class. Kathryn will be taking a basketball class.

I had to do some major cleaning in my pantry. Let me just say, moths-dried goods, yuck! I threw out old food packages, old containers, and sorted through canned goods checking the expiration dates and whatnot. I scrubbed the shelves and bought new containers to use for all the new rice, pasta and flour I had to purchase. I vowed that I will go through my pantry more often and do a better job with my rotation of goods.

This morning I worked on dinner food prep. We are having jumbo shells stuffed with taco meat. I cooked the shells already and I would have cooked the meat, but I don't have enough ground beef. I need to stop at the store and pick up more. My salad is prepared.

I'm off to the grocery store now. Have a good day everyone!