Last weeks of summer, so what does a mama do? Squeeze in all the things she said we'd do at the beginning.
On a whim, I took the brood to the butterfly encounter at one of our local nurseries. We bought a season pass in the spring, and it has proved to be well worth the money. I also got to pick up a few plants for around our yard while we were there.
I let the girls get dressed by themselves. AE looks adorable and Christopher Robin-ish in her rain boots, but why did HJ choose AE's old soccer jersey? I love that she paired the jersey with some beachy, terry shorts, ruffled eyelet socks and her "fast shoes."
I dressed the baby.
Love how they just hung those Adirondack chairs up in the pine tree!
The butterfly encounter is a multi-room exhibit, landscaped with all manner of nectar producing plants.
It is all enclosed in a greenhouse-like structure, so you can imagine the warmth on a lovely day in August. In central Florida. In August. To be fair, we did have a nice overcast morning that I THOUGHT would make it a little more bearable.
When you enter, you get a chart detailing the different varieties of butterflies and many instructions on how to behave inside. No chasing the button quail, no touching or catching the butterflies, except inside the designated area where you can feed them Gatorade.
If you squint, you can see the sweet little hummingbird that I was lucky to catch for half a second as she rested on this empty branch. One of the nursery employees was rehabilitating the sweet bird and brought her to work with him that day.
These are the sweet button quail that run around on the ground all throughout the encounter. They are hard to get a picture without laying down on the ground, but these old girls were roosting and preening right by the exit, so I was able to finally get a shot.
And so is our little button-nosed baby boy:
