I am convinced that the memories my kids will walk away with are of their slightly insane mother doing things like wrestling loose sheep or frog hunting with headlamps on. A mom who let the laundry pile up but always had homemade meals on the table. And, the truth? I’m 100% ok with it. I would rather them have memories of their mom growing flowers or milking cows in her messy bun with no makeup than being put together or having the perfectly tidy home.

As the sun has set these last few nights, the frogs have gotten louder. I know, at this point, that Levi will remember his momma’s crazy love of the outdoors because the minute we began hearing them, his eye lit up and he said, “Mom! It’s frog hunting season!”

Last night, I took the boys (Gracie was too tired) out to the pond. With headlamps on in dark of night, the deafening sound of frogs surrounded us. Dean gripped my hand extra tight, excited to see their eyes pop up out of the water. We we made our way out there, the frogs got quiet, ducking back into the water. It a lesson in patience for the boys as we waited for them to come back.

But they did. Slowly, they would make their way back up to the surface amongst the grass. The boys would pounce on them, sometimes losing them in the water and other times, catching their slimy bodies in their hands. Their momma was right there with them, showing them all the different colors and spot patterns before releasing them back into the water. We filled our little bucket with a few tree frogs of all different sizes.

The boys proudly took the bucket back up to the house to show their dad. We released the frogs back into the pond shortly after. Here in a few weeks, we will gather some of the eggs and tadpoles from the pond to watch them grow in our tank up at the house. The kids love watching the transformation happen right before their eyes! When we were homeschooling, this was my favorite kindergarten science craft that I would pair with the science project.

We also got a little lesson on frog reproduction as a few of these little critters were happily showing us how it works. Lol.