Growing, Learning, Baking {PHFR}

{pretty}

Our lilacs are so close to being in full bloom! We have four huge overgrown bushes that are going to get pruned HARD once they're done blooming because they've been neglected for who knows how long... If only they weren't so haphazardly placed on the land (like all the rest of our plants, apparently...)!

Cecilia picked this bouquet of wildflowers, none of which we have identified aside from the obvious violet... They sure are pretty, though! One of these days we'll learn every single plant in our woods!

{happy}

This random plant started springing up in the yard last month and none of us could figure out what it was, but it was so *interesting* that we figured we'd leave it be to see what came of it. Finally it resembles enough of a plant that I was noticing it in other yards around town, and realized it must be peony? Lo and behold, and internet search proved me right! It is!!! I LOVE PEONIES!!! 

However, it's in a really awkward part of the yard... So... How hard is it to transplant peonies?

{funny}

Cecilia is currently a little obsessed with fossils, which I'm encouraging as much as possible because hello, it's not princesses or ballerinas! There's this website called Snagshout where you can get certain Amazon items at a discount if you promise to review them, and I guarantee it's not a scam because I've used it successfully before (not an affiliate link, just a recommendation!). So when I found out that they had a whole bunch of Dr. Cool Science Kits (that one *is* an affiliate link, thank you for your support!) I was pretty psyched to order the fossil dig kit for 50% off!

I mean, we could try to find a fossil site around here, spend hours attempting to find fossils (while mostly trying to keep Peter from drowning), and go home grumpy and empty-handed OR I could wimp out and buy an experience in a box!

Experience in a box it is!

They adored it. I highly recommend any and all of those science kits, they're awesome!

And they both happily made charts with drawings of what we found (even John Paul, who is so anti-drawing it's not even funny...).

My favorite part is "Cecilia's cookie" which she had abandoned after lunch, offered to John Paul, set aside after he refused, and then rediscovered hours later. He was INCENSED that she wanted to eat it and didn't give it to him! So in retaliation he... Drew a picture of it? 

{real}

I made these pretzels (which we all always love) and this cheese dip (which the girls did not like, but everybody else did) for dinner the other night and they came out beautiful! 

Of course, pretzels are best served warm, so I popped them back in the oven to keep warm, since it would take a while to cool down after I turned it off.

If I had remembered to turn it off.

They ended up rather... Toasty. Everybody still ate them happily, but needless to say, I didn't take a picture of the blackened pretzels...

Linking up with Micaela for Theme Thursday (New Life AND Plants!) and Like Mother, Like Daughter for {pretty, happy, funny, real}