Oh what a week!

Monday morning and it's time for school! Last week was such a success with the chidlren, that I simply assumed today would be no different. We've all heard the saying, "never assume anything!". For a change of scenery (and for what I thought would be a way to encourage my children to focus more on school) I took the kids to a field trip to a local nature preserve. Though our time outside was quite enjoyable time, by the time we returned home the children were on a roll with their squabbling, shoving and pushing. I came in the house exhausted and wondering if I even had it in me. Can I really do this? Do I really have it in me to be a "successful" homeschooler? I truly wondered as my patience was worn quite thin. And then I read my mail. And tucked inside a birthday card was this:

Have you ever noticed how often the Lord sends us just the message we need at just that particular time? It was as though God had read my thoughts (He did - and He says His thoughts are higher than ours thoughts, His ways higher than our ways) and sent me a message. Not just one, but many. And in the form of stickers at that! Oh, how I love stickers! Soooo, message taken; encouragment received!

Next day I chose a quiet afternoon in our own backyard. It was another beautiful day and I couldn't bear to see us all stay indoors. Blanket, books, pencil crayons and paper, kids in tow - to our backyard. We were on the lookout for birds to study (where where they?!) and SOMETHING to reinforce what I'm teaching. Nothing. Oh - I'm not teaching nothing. Just nothing tangible for them to see. Yet. Until ALC came across this... thing! On my tomato plants!

Ok - NOW we're getting somewhere! We found out, much to our horror as it's quite a pretty and ugly little fat big thing, that the beast on our plants was a green hornworm caterpillar. And not only did we find one, but we found three! Two we captured in jars and one we left for nature to take it's natural course:

You see, once those tiny little white grain-of-rice-looking things are all over the hornworm's body, it means they're already being attacked by parasitic wasps and once these little wasps hatch out of their eggs (the little white grain-of-rice-looking things) the wasps will destroy the hornworm caterpillar that is attemping to eat all my tomato plants. I think the "hungry caterpillar" was a green hornworm. They're huge and fat! So... two have been captured in glass jars and one left to it's own demise. How fun is that for a real-life nature study? And this after we've been learning about the life-cycle of caterpillars and butterflies. You can imagine my excitement when later Zee ran into our schoolroom to pull out his little book on bugs 'n butterflies! So I think I'll take things one day at a time. I am trusting that with each step I take the Lord is leading my, guiding me, granting me wisdom. I'm not doing this on my own - I've got the Creator of the Universe on my side! And boy, am I excited to be learning and re-learning new things about His world!