In just three months of recapping my months, I’ve realized how quickly we move from one thing to the next. Not necessarily in a bad way. But it does make me want to slow down even more. I’m pretty intentional about not saying “yes” to everything. In fact, I’ve probably lived the opposite of that in a negative way at some points. Mostly since having kids. Because they definitely make you reevaluate everything (and for the better in most cases). But I do want to be more intentional about saving space to just be versus getting caught up in the “do everything” mindset. Even at home sometimes (which is its own can of worms). It’s nice to not have plans all of time. Actually, really nice.

June was a pretty good mix of planned things and not planned things. Here’s some of what we did…

ZOOSIANA

I already posted a few pictures from a zoo outing last month, but wanted to journal a little bit more about it. It was really such a great day with my kids. Just me and them. We were supposed to have gone a couple of weeks before we actually did. But, rain. Lots of it. And there was threat of it (and existence of it) on the makeup day too, but we still went for it. Zoo memberships helped make that decision easier knowing if we needed to leave, we wouldn’t have wasted our money.

So, we planned this out, but it didn’t involve meeting anyone else and was easy and relaxing. Woke up, ate breakfast, then headed there. My kids have been many, many times with their grandpa, so they know the layout well and are always excited to lead the way. So, they did. And I just went at their pace. It was wonderful. We all had a great time taking in each animal, them spouting off allllll the facts they know (mostly from Wild Kratts), and enjoying just being outside. Thankfully, most of the zoo is shaded and a lot of renovations have taken place over the last year or two to make it nicer.

I’m pretty certain we saw every animal, which was awesome. There were tiny baby squirrel monkeys and red ruffed lemurs as well as 1-day old peacocks (SO CUTE). The tiger and porcupines were especially entertaining. We got caught in a super heavy downpour while feeding donkeys. But we were close to the train pavilion, so were able to take cover there (along with a few other visitors and about 20 peacocks). One of the keepers gave the kids peacock feathers while we waited for the rain to stop. I think that’s a fairly common thing if you catch them with enough to hand out. Super fun (and cheap) souvenir. After the rain subsided, we picked up the pace to see the last little bit of the zoo we had not seen up to that point and left just before another rainstorm began.

OYSTERS

I like oysters. At least the smoked, chargrilled/charbroiled, or fried varieties. I’ve yet to try them raw. Maybe one day. Anyway, even though I like them, I don’t eat them often. But they made it to my monthly round-up because I ate them two different times in June. Matt and I went to Uncle T’s Oyster Bar for our anniversary (ha we’re fancy). It was our first visit there. As an appetizer, we got the Holly Beach sampler, which includes four different kinds of fancied up charbroiled oysters. They were good. And when we told our son about it, it piqued his interest. He requested he and I go to Uncle T’s for our next date night together. So, we did. Ordered the same thing as when Matt and I went: the charbroiled oyster sampler and alligator tacos. He loved it all too. Yum.

DOT-TO-DOTS

Every so often, one of the kids decides to pull out a dot-to-dot book. Not just any dot-to-dot book, though. Ha.

I stumbled across a 1,000 dot-to-dot activity book at Sam’s a lot of years ago. I did a couple, then stuffed it away and rediscovered it a few years back. My son, who was (I think) 5 years old at the time took a big interest. So, I shared and ordered another. In fact, he really learned counting to 1,000 well doing these dot-dot-dots. And June happened to be the month for my daughter to start doing the same. She actually started in an up to 500-ish dot-to-dot book that I got at Dollar Tree. Went from needing help several months back to plowing through them fairly quickly. She requested her own 1,000 dot book. I have to admit, they are super cool. Frame-worthy.

500 dot-to-dot book from Dollar Tree

1,000 Dot-to-Dot Wonders of the World book

1,000 Dot-to-Dot Cities book

FLOWERS

I love having flowers at home. Here’s just a few from June:

Bachelor’s Buttons

Montbresia

Zinnias

When I first saw this beautiful viceroy, I thought it was a monarch. I was slightly unsure, though, and went inside to look it up. Didn’t have to. Showed the photo to my son, and he quickly schooled me on the mimicry of a viceroy to a monarch and pointed out key differences. Thanks, Wild Kratts.

Favorite Olipop flavor

Feels like of 90 (which is welcome on a Louisiana June afternoon), hot coffee, and a fire.

I didn’t plan it all out. But it was nice.

My girl made me a plate and served it to me with pistachios and pecans. ☺️

Sunset driving over the lake by my dad’s house last night.

We had the best day at the zoo yesterday!

It was overcast and thundering and not super busy. We saw every single animal, which included lots of babies. Got caught in a heavy downpour and waited under a pavilion for a while, which was fun. And a zookeeper gave the kids peacock feathers.

I started a monthly round-up last month, so I’m sitting down again to do one for May.

It was a sweet, busy month. We’re not far into June, but when I looked through photos I have from last month, some of those things seem like they were multiple months ago. Time is weird sometimes.

Here are some highlights from our May, which was really just a couple of weeks ago.

BUTTERFLIES

My girl got a National Geographic butterfly kit from her Paw for her birthday. It comes with a voucher to order Painted Lady caterpillars when you’re ready. So, we decided to do it a few weeks after she got it. The caterpillars arrived, and we got them set up in their jar. The info packet says you’ll get five, but she got six. I think it took about seven-ish days for them to start making their chrysalises. Only three appeared to have made it through the process as only three were hanging from the jar lid. The others ended up in chrysalises but were on the bottom of the jar. But when I transferred the three that were hanging, Ro said we needed to keep the others just in case. As you can expect, she was right, and one of the ones that was on the bottom of the jar emerged from its’ chrysalis as well. We got it into the larger container with the others and observed them for a day, then released them. It was a neat learning experience for her.

MOTHER’S DAY

Mother’s Day is really special to me. I always, of course, think about my mom (who passed away when I was 10) and my Memom (who pretty much raised me after my mom died and passed away herself 5 years ago). I desperately wish they were still here with me and my family. But, I’m a mom too now. And it is really, really, really one of my very favorite titles and responsibilities in my life. So, I’m just really grateful that I get to celebrate that and be loved by my children.

The actual day was a good one! My kids (and husband) celebrated me well. We went to church (Matt spoke, and it’s worth a listen), then I chose to go to a restaurant we had not been to in a long time—La Cuisine de Maman. They gave me thoughtful gifts that I really like! And we spent the rest of the day at home together.

Waiting to be seated for lunch. The restaurant–La Cuisine de Maman–is on the grounds of Vermilionville, which is a really cool and beautiful historic and folklife park that is situated alongside the Vermilion River in Lafayette, LA.

My gifts! A LEGO set to add to my Botanicals collection, a 10 oz. YETI that my bud picked out for me, a super cute set of anklets that my girl picked out for me, and a beautiful great blue heron art print from a local artist.

YETI DRINK DATES

As I just noted in the photo above, my bud got me this little YETI for Mother’s Day because I had mentioned that I liked them! My girl already had one from a couple of years back. So, I guess B felt left out. Ha. He decided to get him one with his own money for his weekly coffee.

Since we all had our own, we decided to have a YETI tea time one evening when Daddy had a meeting out. We had a few other YETI drink dates in May as well. And they’re just the best.

Ro made place cards for the occasion. Sweet girlie!

PLANNING SUMMER

Our entire Summer isn’t planned out, but I did manage to get a few things set in stone. I also have several things that don’t require much pre-planning saved in my brain (or maybe on a piece of paper somewhere) that I’d like to do when it works out.

A few things we have planned:

1. Some fun activities with our homeschool co-op, including: “tech apart” day, bowling and laser tag, volunteering at a local organization that serves our local homeless community, a patriotic art lesson, and an island survival game day
2. A couple of baseball games in Dallas
3. Some swimming, hopefully

A few things I’d like to do at some point:

1. Build bird houses with some inexpensive bowls, cups, and plates
2. Do a watercolor tutorial from Brighter Day Press
3. Sun prints (I already have the supplies!)

It was a family yard day today. The kiddos willingly worked hard. 💚

Reflection circa Thanksgiving 2020 in Sikes, Louisiana #mbjune