Sand.

And sticky paper.

$1.00 from my friend Tar-get! 

Who knew?

The Princess was meticulous. 

Dough's was more sporadic.

They are both beautiful.

And colorful.

It looked like so much fun, I should have gotten in on the action

By the way, the caterpillar is still with us. Looking forward to watching him! 

I made chili this evening for dinner.

I decided some fresh parsley might taste good in aforementioned chili.

I went out side to clip a bunch.

I found this on the stem I just about cut.

The kids and I put him into our butterfly 'cage' and brought him inside.

We did some research and found out that this is a black swallowtail caterpillar in it's final stage before spinning its chrysalis.

Evidently, this guy likes to eat parsley.

This evening, he looks like he is preparing to enter his chrysalis.

He's actually a little curled up in this picture, so it's not a very good indication of his true length.

But I assure you when I found him in the garden this afternoon, his size was enough for me to mutter a few choice words.

Apparently, this type of caterpillar overwinters in its chrysalis, so this guy might be with us for a long while. 

More as it occurs… 

Lately I've been taking the time to rediscover my children.

I'm appreciating more and more just how precious they both are. I am continuously amazed at what beautiful, unique, intelligent individuals they are turning out to be.

Dough, especially, has been going through a time of growth lately. Intellectually, emotionally, and I think he's a few inches taller than he was just last week!

He wants to 'do school' like The Princess. 

His current 'thing' is numbers.

Counting. Time. Dates. Phone numbers. Addresses. The finger numbers for The Princess's violin pieces.

It's amusing. And exasperating.

Today, I gave him a wipe off workbook with numbers in it, thinking he would count and scribble and be happy for a few minutes.

Instead, I got this…

Do you see the red crayon carefully tracing each of those numbers? Yep, that's all Dough.

Remarkable considering the child doesn't hold a writing utensil correctly, despite my best efforts to convert him. 

And he's so proud of himself. He even provided me with a one finger point, which are becoming increasingly more frequent in occurrence…

He couldn't, and wouldn't, be my Dough without his love for cars and 'car game'…

Oh, and I know you are envious of my stark white walls and celery green carpet. Aren't you? AREN'T YOU?

Yeah, I thought so… 

Being able to sneak up behind him with the camera and take a picture of his sweet little feet sticking out from beneath him makes it all worth it.

Even being bitten at the dentist office this morning… 

*I'd like to preface this post with a thank you to Brad, who has once again come to this blogs rescue… Or, rather has rescued me from the onslaught of spam I was receiving through my email account linked to this blog. Thanks to him, I am now the proud owner of a gmail account with my site's name right in the address. So, if you need to contact me, you can click right up there on the right, and I can assure you that your precious emails will no longer be lost amongst the spam! Poor guy probably thinks I am one brick shy, but he puts up with my crap and continues to host my blog. If you happen to be looking for a new blog host, click down on the right, under site hosting to contact him. Thank you!

This evening's photo of the day was not taken by me. I would have taken it, if I had another arm, or maybe a clone.

I did, however, make the skirt that I am wearing in the photo.

I don't often show off the things I make on here, but I am in LUUUUUUVE with this most recent addition to my homemade skirt collection because of it's laid back, beachy feel.

Tomorrow the kids go to the dentist. That might make for some interesting pictures!! Ha! Ha! Ha! 

For reference,  here is Dough at 7 months…

I used to stick him in a laundry basket and drag him around with me while I cleaned the house. He hated the swing. He hated the bouncy seat. He hated being on the floor. But the basket was cool with him.

Apparently, old habits die hard…

This picture was probably taken right before he yelled at me to stop smiling. That's a crime in our house. No happiness allowed! 

Oh, and this time, it wasn't me dragging him around the house. It was his sister.  

I found a link to this today. 

All you do is type in the name of an author and the website tells you authors who are similar, and therefore, an author who might interest you.

Now I'll never run out of good books to read! 

 My beloved sister got me this for my birthday.

It's so shiny and beautiful and small…

Did I mention that it was my birthday gift?

Yeah, well, this is who uses it most often (that is, when Hubs doesn't take it with him to work for the bus ride).

I guess it's a community gift! 

I didn't get to post as originally planned yesterday.

To make up for it, I have included several photos that didn't make the cut for the month of July.

First, Dough happy…

Second, The Princess happy (with the stuff she got for her birthday to accompany her brand new Ea5y Bake 0ven)…

Last, a picture I took at an art show the kids participated in mid-July. I love this photo, despite my children's annoyed looks because of it's simplicity and movement…

I couldn't come up with an appropriate title for this one because it means so much more to me than just one word can describe.

Maybe just… Perfect. 

I needed a way to keep track of the books I have read. I like order and structure.

I'm neurotic like that.

So, I asked Hubs to make me a spread sheet on Exce1 to accomplish such a task. (Yes, I suck at Exce1. Don't laugh. It's so 1999. *snort*)

Here he is working diligently on it. (And you can see where all the emptycerebrations.com magic occurs. *double snort*) 

Being Hubs, he couldn't just accept that I am a little strange and leave it at that.

No he just had to be a smart ass about it. 

But I'm not the only one who is a dork. Oh no!

Today The Princess received a letter in the mail commending her (I first typed condemning. heh.) on a fabulous academic year.

Although we 'home school' we are currently enrolled through a virtual school, to which we are held accountable for time and academic progress.

I see it as getting my feet wet in the home schooling world, because I'm pretty sure after this year (maybe sooner) I'm jumpin' ship and going all out.

Anyway, I digress.

Today she got a letter in the mail congratulating (and condemming… hee hee hee) her for an outstanding year and the envelope contained a certificate and award for Academic Excellence.

Now, I don't know what the stipulations are for getting this award, but I can tell you that in less than 4 months The Princess cruised through kindergarten at nearly 100% masterly level and began 1st grade by May.

She should be ready to move into 2nd grade in the core classes (language arts, phonics and math) some time around Christmas.

Yes, my child is a nerd. In the the absolute best way possible. And I can't even put into words how proud I am of her.

As a special treat for receiving the award, we took the kids to get ice cream tonight. They had something called Blue Moo Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough. 

It was very blue… 

Oh, and I finally broke down and picked up the WRONG prescription from the pharmacy just so that I would have something to tame the wild beast get me through until I could find a new doctor. 

Can you tell?

By the way, to add insult to injury, in regards to the doctor/pharmacy/prescription debauchery, I tried to get onto my insurance website… to find a new doctor… in network… only to receive an error message stating the the site would be down for the next few days for maintenance.

Really people. I was near breakdown by this point. It was freakin' terrible.

But, here we are a mere 2 days later and I'm back to being the happiest, bubbliest, sweetest mama on the planet. Now if only I could hide this tail and those dang horns…