We aren’t a sports family. Sure, I played T-ball and soccer as a kid, and I went to plenty of football games through high school (Go Big Red) and college (Go Gators), but overall, we just aren’t a family that plays or watches sports very often. I try to get the girls to play soccer with me in the backyard, and they’ll kick the ball and hustle around for a minute, but then they are off to something else. One time, I tried to show Abby how to play badminton and after she whacked her hand with the racket a few times, she’d had enough.

Last week, we were babysitting our nephew Noah and the girls got the soccer balls out to run around and play with him. For some reason Abby started trying to organize a little game between her and Maddy and after one kick of the ball she starts hollering, “Off-field, off-field, that’s off-field.” I asked if she meant offsides and she said no, so then I said, “Oh, you mean out-of-bounds.” And she agreed that’s what she meant. Next kick, ball goes flying, and she’s yelling “Off-bounds, off-bounds.” At that point I just chuckled and decided to let them keep having fun, so what if they don’t have all the terminology correct?

We may not be a sports family, but we are definitely a gardening family. And like many of you, the butterfly garden is one of our favorites. Watching the life cycle from egg to chrysalis to caterpillar to butterfly is pure magic. To get your own butterfly garden going, check out our Teaching Thursday tips on Gardening for Butterflies. It’s great to be a Florida gardening family.