Any idea what this is? It's a Passion Fruit Flower!

^ Side view^

^ Top view ^

This flower/weed grows on a vine that wraps around one of the porch columns. We've been in our house for 4 years now, and last spring was the first time I ever saw it. It just bloomed again today.

Neither I nor google nor any of my flower ID guides knows what this interesting flora is. But I know I love the purple color!

So if you know, please enlighten us! :)

UPDATE: I found an answer! Actually the ladies--who know everything!--on a homeschool message board I frequent passed along the answer. One of the moms even posted a link describing the symbolism of this flower. The passion part of the name was given by Spainish Catholics hundreds of years ago as a way to describe the cruxifiction of Christ. The beautiful purple radials represent the Crown of Thorns and the top 3 stigma represent the nails.

Explanation aside, I look at its rich colors and am awed by the creativity of the Creator. When I really start to focus on the new life around us, even dandelions amaze me! I may be a novice at identifying flowers (and don't get me started on my embarrassing ineptitude of naming trees), but I so enjoy looking at them with my kids--who never seem to miss a single amazing one. They love the very nature that I have taken for granted for so long. :)

He found the piano!

He climbed unto the bench and banged the keys with his hands before he realized it was so much more fun to play with his knees!

He's starting to walk some, but it's just so much faster to crawl...and climb. :)

Sweet Dreams

My kids have been drifting into dreamland as visions of chocolate bars and chocolate kisses and other chocolate treats dance in their heads. A pleasant way to go to sleep, don't you think?


We're winding down our school year with chocolate! This is the most fun and educational study we've done by far--not to mention the most delicious!

Let's see, we

• graphed m&ms (each child had 57 pieces in her bag; red the fewest, green the most)
• practiced fractions with Hershey bars
• learned how monkeys make chocolate (they spit out bitter cacao seeds, a new tree grows...hey, you go read the book!)
• ordered a kit that contains an couple of real cocoa beans (they look like almonds)
• studied the nutritional info (it didn't stop us from devouring a bag of kisses)
• read the history of chocolate (100s of years ago the Indians added peppers to flavor their cocoa)

We even learned what m&ms stand for--and it's not Makenna and Mabry, much to the disappointment of the twins. ;)

Even if you don't homeschool, or just need a fun study, check out this yummy unit and enjoy it with the entire family. :)

Time to play!

It's nearly impossible to learn anything new when the weather is hovering around the mid-70s. So we swapped our textbooks for a picnic at the park!

Here's Micah with his new "friend." :)

He still can't walk, but this park is a climbing heaven for him.
CG, like all other 8-year-olds, shows off her carwheels.K is attempting to cross the bars backwards. I think here she's trying to decide if she really wants to do it.
Then there's M, just hanging out.
M found a "frame" for the picture, so here's the whole marvelous bunch!

Mother's Day

I'm so blessed with 4 of the wildest, most imaginative, energetic and creative kids around. Because of them, this season of mothering is, um...well...entertaining. And never, ever boring!


My lively little ladies truly tried to do something nice for me for Mother's Day, but when they put all their pennies together, they only came up with $2.87. They dug through the couch cushions, but came up empty-handed. They even looked though my money cup in the laundry room, but I had emptied that last week to buy me a cherry Dr. Pepper from Sonic (gotta love that 2-4pm Happy Hour). ;)


So they went to their daddy, and he gave them a great idea--a gift certificate to Pampered Chef.


So, CG typed the gift certificate message and then each girl personally colored in a heart. They were a bit upset that the markers bled through the creases on the fold...but I think it's darling nonetheless.


I find it funny that I will now own an apple peeler/corer/slicer thingy from PC, especially since I'm inept at all things related to cooking. But my kids will get great use from this tool and I won't have to stand over the sink peeling and de-coring and cutting apples for these kids as their baby teeth continue to fall out--they can do it all by themselves!


And that is the greatest mother's day gift! :)