More Ants

  Here is the mostly 'final' ant farm. The ants seem to be satisfied with their tunneling system and now just scurry around in the tunnels as opposed to digging extensively.

After yesterday's ant escape, many of the ants seem hopeful that the top will open up again.  Quite a few are clustered near the top, waiting eagerly and forlornly.  Forget it, ants!

As a slight aside, I am enjoying a book written by the caretaker of a reptile house at a large zoo.  One chapter recounts the excitement when a king cobra escaped from its cage.  King cobras are large and extremely venemous.  It took 3 hard, scary days of searching to find it, and they were able to recapture it.

As I said to Kevin, after reading about a king cobra escape, an ant escape seems very minor!

Cute (and Confined) in her Overalls

Someone kindly gave me these overalls and, truth to tell, I wasn't too enthused about them.  They are darling, but they don't have snaps between the legs, so getting to the diaper is not easy.

 Two days ago, that liability became a definite asset!  I walked into the little girls' bedroom and smelled something...bad.  I won't go into gory details, but Sarah had created a diaper malfunction and the results were a long way from pretty.

Kevin then told me he had seen her separating the tabs on one side of a diaper so that it fell off.

Houston, we have a problem.

Enter the overalls. There is no WAY that girl is getting to her diaper with those overalls on!

Problem solved, until the overalls needed washed, which didn't take long!

Today we're trying pants that fit quite snugly around her waist and I'm hoping for another Diaper Disaster Free Day.

Ant Escape

I had the best of intentions.  The ant manual said that once a week, I should open the ant farm to give them a little oxygen, though they don't need much.

So I did.  The top is on tight and it takes some strength to get it off, so while the opening I made wasn't big, it wasn't a teeny crack.

And the ants SWARMED!  OUT!  AIGGHGGHGGH!

Apparently they can bite so I just shoved the top back on and killed the ants that escaped.  I think I killed 4 and a 5th got crushed by the top.

So, lesson learned. I'm not opening the top unless they are ALL are at the bottom of the ant farm.

Ant Farm

The ants are SO COOL!

Here are the first couple of days of tunneling.

Here they are on top of their gel. The gel is translucent and is suitable for tunneling and eating. What more could some nice harvester ants want?

 And they are off!  Tunneling, I mean. This is from yesterday.  They've dug more since, of course.  I don't have the pictures on the computer yet but will update soon.

 They are way more interesting than most television shows.  The kids have spent many happy minutes watching them carrying gel to the surface. 

Today's Cute Interaction

We were driving to the library and 11 year old Lydia and 6 yo Miriam were pretending we were on a rocket going to the moon.

Lydia:  Thanks to the power of space travel, going to the moon on a rocket is as easy as taking a taxi!

Miriam:  What's a taxi?

Had to laugh. She knows rockets, but not taxis.

Injured Ankle...

Not mine, but Kevin's.  He was playing racquetball Wednesday and came down wrong on his left foot.  We were concerned he had done serious damage but he took yesterday off and has spent much time being careful with it, and it is much better.

One small silver lining to his injury is that I appreciate him even more than I usually do.  There are things he does around the house that he always does, so I tend to take those things for granted.  Well, the children or I have had to do some of them the last couple of days. 

Tonight I should probably take the trash out, as that requires strength and leverage.  Our big kids are getting fairly big, but none of them are heavy.  Lydia is our heaviest child and she isn't 90 lbs yet.

Birthday week!

Angela turned 5!

Here she is, waiting for her presents.  She liked them all.

Daniel hung out doing some tummy time.

Naomi and Lydia made a cake for Angela.

Later in the week, Joseph turned 8!

He is excited about an ant farm.  Ants are on order!

Our 2 littles didn't have a birthday, but get a picture posted just because they are cute.