We shall call him...squishy!

We would like to introduce you to our newest family member..."Squishy." According to Google. he is a gray tree frog http://www.michigan.gov/dnr/0,4570,7-153-10370_12145_12201-60110--,00.html (Because here at The Schutte Family Blog, we're educational too!)

 A couple weeks ago, we started planting flowers around the yard. I was still in the "prep" stage and I was making lots of trips to the shed to gather all of the tools for planting. Megan was outside for approximately 1.2 seconds, when she came running to the shed, "Mom, mom, mom come here. Follow me. Mom, mom, mom come look what I found. I found a FROG!!!!" Yeah, she was a tad excited. So we took a few pictures, talked to him for a few minutes and then thought he needed to see out "toad house"...next to our fairy garden...the perfect place for him to live! I picked him up, discovered his really bright yellow belly, put him in his new toad house and then discovered that he had no desire to live in a house next to a fairy garden. (Yes, I knew he would hop away, I just wanted to amuse Megan.) Bye, Squishy, you were a nice pet for 10 minutes...

 ...This past weekend, Megan was done with her soccer game and we were out in the yard slowly starting our day, when I saw Squishy again! Now I will admit, I was slightly too excited to see him and may or may not have yelled, "Squishy's back. I see him!" (What can I say, I like science and like pointing nature out to my kiddos.)

Here is a close up of Squishy, I think he is smiling.

 

 We carried on with our Saturday, which included me pulling, digging, cutting old ivy plants up to make room for a grape plant and more strawberry plants. (In the photo above it the area by Megan's head.) I had to do lots of digging, which meant I found lots of fun slimy things to show the kids. In this picture Megan is playing house with a worm and a very tiny caterpillar. She was also giving Joey a mini-science lesson :)

Before bedtime, the kids  I wanted to see if we could find Squishy. He had hopped inside of the playground, tucked himself safely behind Megan's "favorite" rock and was ready for bed too. Needless to say the kids loved that a frog was going to be sleeping in their playground!

Sunday morning, we woke up to nothing on our schedule, so of course it turned out to be another day playing at home...it was perfect!!! It didn't take long for us to hunt for Squishy. The kids climbed up to hunt, while I walked around looking for him. We found him again! Or at least we found a frog that looked like him. (you be the judge...same frog???)

Both kids are really good about not getting too close, so he can just kind of do his thing. We hope to have him around for awhile, because what is cooler than having frogs hanging out in your yard!?! (Okay, yes, there are cooler things, but not in the eyes of a 6 yr old and a 2 yr old!)