A Nature Trail with 14 Cousins ~Visit Home

After a wonderful trip to the used homeschool book store and lunch we took the kids to a nature trail my sister-in-law suggested. My sister, my husband's sister, and my husband's brother's wife marched around with our 14 kiddo's. There was 15 if you count the one in the belly! Cousins everywhere! It was wonderful.

I got out of the car to see this, the youngest until the baby is born.


Remy found a carpenter ant right off. See if you can find him.


The children passing around a critter.


Remy with a little frog.


My sister's youngest girl with her sweet nature find. :) Yea, she is pretty awesome!!!


We found some water with turtles.


This cutie belong's to Matt's sister. :) He is one of the twins.


Here is the other cutie!


My boys looking at the turtles together.


Some of the menfolk.




My sister always had chunky babies so she was all about getting a squeeze from my husband's brother's little girl. Isn't she a doll?


Trying to get a group photo.


Okay, ya'll just do a silly one! ;)


I love these next photos.








I really enjoyed this day. I love those women and those kids. I just hate we aren't a big part of their lives. All of them are just wonderful. God has other plans for us. Just trusting that plan. To think we have been gone 13 years just blows my mind. Sometimes it feels longer and sometimes shorter. Going home and seeing all the lives created in our absence just makes it seem like forever. :( 

Looking for Flowers...and Creatures

Elijah needed to make a fall flower museum for science so we took a walk and found some.


He found so many for his project.





Remy wasn't looking for flowers but he was on the lookout for little creatures.





He chased this guy for a while. Seems he was too quick for the Remmit.





Finally Eli hit the jackpot! This is the flower he was really wanting to find. He wanted to see how many insects he could find on it. In his book it showed a city. He was not disappointed. He took this home and looked at small aphids and beetles under the microscope. There were even little spiders. I am so glad we remembered to do this. The project came up when Golden Rod was not in bloom. I made a note of it to get to later.








Noey loves to go for a stroll with us.





Remy caught something!








It was so sweet to watch Eli gather his flowers. He so enjoyed this outing with a purpose.





He had made a ring out of a dollar. He stopped me and told me how perfect the fold was because you could see these words:





Noey didn't make it the whole time. He slept all the way back to the house and then finished his nap in the stroller in the dark kitchen.





Remy informed me that the squirrels at our house would need this for their winter nests. We took the moss home, of course.





Eli decided to help Remy with his creature hunt for a while.





More flowers!





My sweetheart son. I pray he always takes the time to enjoy the simple things.





Remy was all about the bugs that day. I could hardly make it back home! :)





Such a fun walk with my three sons.

Black Bayou in the Fall

As soon as the air wasn't so hot to suffocate us we headed out to one of our favorite spots for a nice walk.


We came upon something we had never seen before.





They were all over the ground. Daddy noticed they were in the trees.





Then he found the sign.





Eli looked it up on his phone and Daddy decided to open it up.





Noah found some nature to hold right off.





From here:





Eli gathered some seeds and showed them to me.





I crave these walks and the freedom that comes with them.











Eli found a cypress stump that looked like a spore hand!





Crazy kid, oh how I love you.





So much to find and show mommy. :)





Some discoveries are not for holding!





Our little walker!





This kid is loving his phone.








We watched this guy for awhile.








I love hims face.

















Walking along the water.





What have the boys found?





Remy's favorite bug.





Exploring textures...





Look at this seed pod!





Time to go home.