Butterflies and Cars

In mid-April we went with some friends to the Natural History Muesum's Homeschool Day.  We spent some time looking at minerals and gems again, but the main event was the butterfly pavillion.  The kids took a ton of blurry pictures of the different butterflies they saw there, but I kept only these. 
   

This one was called a buckeye.

At home, we were finally ready to let our own butterflies go.  We had ordered them through somebody at park day, and it was fun to watch them grow and transform again.  The release was really cute - the butterflies climbed all over the kids, and one hung around our yard drinking from flowers for awhile.

   

  
Connor got to participate in his first Pinewood Derby at Cub Scouts.  He designed and built his car all by himself, although I don't know what assistance he had with the woodworking - they all did that at somebody else's house.  The green is supposed to be the Monster Soda symbol.  (I'm not sure why, but Connor thought that would be cool.)  His car did respectably well, and he had a great time!
  

  
Corinne started standing while holding on to things, and her siblings were very proud (so was she.)
   

  
Evan, Elise, and Connor did a couple weeks of swim lessons with some kids from our ward who run a swim school.  Connor learned some strokes, Evan just cried the whole time, and Elise had a major breakthrough!  She finally learned to put her face in the water and swim to the wall.  It was amazing how, once she got over the face-in-the-water thing, she just took off, and is now as pool safe as possible.  Yay Leesie!
  

  

  

For handwriting practice, I have Elise copy passages from her McGuffey Reader.  One day she picked this, so I had to send it to Grandma.
  

  
These were just cute.