Still Twitching

 You know what this is, of course.

Don't you?

Alright, then I'll explain.

 This is a picture

of a little girl,

dressed as a bride,

who just tried to catch a lizard,

and succeeded.

But not quite.

Adolescent Alligators and the Adorable Angels who Admired them.

We have found so many things to do with ourselves that cost little to nothing since moving to our new town, that I decided to share a little series called Free Fun in Florida. This is partly aimed at tempting friends and family members to visit us down here in our little corner of tropical paradise, the sooner the better. Not least amongst these inducements are the little angel-faces pictured below that will accompany you on all these delightful (and economical) excursions.

Meet your tour guides:

This is your senior tour guide. Her vast knowledge of every topic
will be sure to enlighten you.

Tour Guide No. 2: Listen closely or you may be confused into thinking that "dragonflies"
are actually called "american flags" or vice versa. Watch out, lizards she hands you
may not actually be alive.

Tour guide No. 3: If you are on the timid side, stick close to Ingrid.
She will be sure to warn you if there is any hint of the slightest danger.

But don't expect her to share her favorite safe perch with you.

Are you ready? Let's go!

Tucked away in the middle of a suburban jungle,
where you'd least expect to find it,
and only 15 minutes from our house,
there is a large preserve area where you can see all kinds of
Florida wildlife at very close range.

We have been here once before, and on that occasion we very easily spotted several full-grown alligators and myriads of turtles and fish. On this visit we found no adult alligators, but scores of "toddler" alligators. The cute little tykes swam around so cunningly, snapping at minnows and grinning sardonically at passerby. Still sporting their baby stripes, but looking in every other way like miniature versions of their parents, they may be small,
but they most definitely are NOT cute and cuddly.

This guy was about the size of a miniature yorkie. Precious, isn't he?



Alligators are an animal that I just can't summon up any affectionate feelings for.
But as a transplanted Michigan girl, they still hold a certain fascination for me,
and the novelty of seeing them in our own back yard
(No, not literally - Calm down Aunt Robin!) still hasn't worn off.



Does this seem a little ho-hum to you?
Don't worry, you're in good company.

Total Cost: $0

Eat your heart out (before the alligators do).

The Dark Side of Living in Florida

Yes, that is a lizard in my house. No, I don't know where it is at this moment.

Who says Florida has all the big bugs?

While in my sister's driveway in the middle of suburban Michigan last week, we happened across this very impressive praying mantis, who could give this guy a run for his money.

I took the risk of being devoured just to give you an idea of how big this guy really was.

Click on the first image to enlarge it. It always amazes me to see close-ups of insect faces; they have so much personality. Praying mantises appear to have rather pleasant personalities; kind of like your favorite science teacher, or Mahatma Gandhi. However, we know that appearances are deceiving, because I have personally witnessed a praying mantis devouring a live cricket in a most un-Gandhi-like manner.

Ethan proved that he is not one to be intimidated by carnivorous insects.

In fact, close supervision was required to ensure that both the mantis and the lamb would escape unscathed.

family renewal night

Last week was sort of a rough week in the parenting department. A combination of things have made us realize (not for the first time) how much we are in over our heads with this whole raising children thing. It is humbling, but good, because we are reminded to depend more on the one who does have wisdom, and who gives it out freely to those who ask (James 1:5).

We have made a commitment together to focus on parenting more purposefully, with God's help, on a daily basis. It is so easy for me to get in a rut of just "getting through the day" with my children. Then, at the end of the day, so often I realize that I have not accomplished a thing towards helping them reach our ultimate goals for them. So we've made some changes; hard changes, some of them, but we know they are for the better.

To commemorate our renewed efforts together, Jessie surprised me by taking the night off from his second job so we could spend some family time.

We headed to one of our favorite parks, where we cooked us up some hot dogs, and just enjoyed each other while

playing in the dirt

watching the local dumpster diver's antics

jumping off of boulders

climbing up stairs...

...and down stairs

running through shell paths

throwing rocks in the water

stopping to smell the roses daisies

getting our faces good and dirty

and visiting the "bus bathroom"

(always a source of great excitement at this location).

I'm excited to see what God will teach us this year about raising children. We are so blessed to have them. Sometimes we may miss out on things because we have the great responsibility of raising them, but the new experiences that we have, and the lessons we learn through watching them grow more than make up for them.

I love our family - and I'm so grateful to be sharing it with this guy.

sunrise walk

The girls have been waking up earlier lately. As a result we have been able to start many of our mornings like this:

Its a very blessed way to begin the day.

Although there are certainly some things I am finding hard to adjust to because of this new arrangement, I can't deny that there are some definite perks.

Labor Day

Labor day gave us the opportunity

to take the girls on a little nature walk

through peaceful estuary waterways

and freaky swamps.

We gazed at the view from wooden bridges, and marveled at oddly shaped trees; many of which were covered with these. (care for a closeup?) We saw countless cute little lizards, and Theia didn't want to leave; even after we came across this and these.

(That really is my hand, in case you wondered. And no, no trick photography here. That spider really was that big, and I really have lost my mind.)

......whoa.

Theia and I went to the mall today

and when we came home

we found waiting for us

quite possibly

the largest bug

I have ever seen

......bar none.

Baby-Baby-Wearing and other Stuff

I am still living in the afterglow of our lovely weekend. Thanks to the generosity of our friend Christi from church, Jessie and I got to go on a date! We haven't been out alone since we moved and we have been chompin at the bit to get out together. We planned on just leaving the older girls, but when we started to walk out the door with Ingrid Christi protested convincingly enough that we decided to leave Ingrid as well. I'm not sure she didn't regret it though, since Ingrid was fussy for the last 45 minutes that we were gone and her husband wasn't home to help her before we returned. I think he's still apologizing for that :). We are so grateful for the friends we've made here. The Lord has provided some amazing people to encourage us and increase our joy at our new home. After our date we had a romantic evening that may have involved candles and a massage, but I'm not saying. We had a family day on Saturday. We took the girls to the Manatee Recreation Area so they could get mud in their diapers play by the lake.

Eliza was sleeping in her carseat while we arrived so we played on the playground and Theia decided to have her first accident. Just as another family was arriving to play, she pulled up her dress and proceeded to christen the sand around her. I don't know what got into her. She's never done that before. Oh well, I was beginning to feel left out when I hear everyone else's potty training horror stories.

We actually saw our first alligator since we've been here. I didn't get a picture because it was way out on the lake and just looked like a floating log. We could see it better with Jessie's big zoom lens. We took a lot of nice pictures with his camera but they aren't developed yet so you only get to see the low quality digitals since we sacrificed our nice digital on the altar of 1 year old toilet mischief.

This is me posing as an artsy mom who wears her baby 75% of her day and takes stunning pictures with her high quality camera as a matter of course. Just for the record, I did make this sling myself, but I don't use it very often. I have been trying to get into the habit of using it more, because I do like babywearing. I was carrying Ingrid this morning in the sling that my Mom used to carry me in, and Theia asked if she could wear it. So I put a diaper pin it to make it fit and she was immensely pleased.

Don't you love how toddler's legs and feet are so chubby?

It looked like so much fun that Eliza insisted on wearing it too, for about 8 seconds.