Squished Scorpion and Neighbors

We've had 33 scorpions since moving here back in May, 9 of those were outside. We've had an influx of them this past week. I was hoping with the weather cooling down there'd be less. We finally met and talked to our neighbors about a week ago. They say they've been killing them every day. Their parents live just down the highway from us in virtually the same type of area and they don't get them...weird. Our neighbors seem very nice by the way, they have 3 kids...a girl just younger than Cam, another girl the same age as Emery, and a boy the same age as Joelle. The husband teaches and coaches at the high school and the wife owns The Grain Bin, a restaurant down the street from us. It's hard to meet people out here because we are so spread apart...people always wave as they drive by, but this was the first time we actually got to speak with them. It turns out they just bought the rest of the property behind and around us, so they were clearing some trees, etc.

Sleeping Beauties

This is Joelle's favorite way to fall asleep. When she gets grumpy or tired she likes to bounce. She's been known to come and ask us to bounce. She holds her blanky and lays across your legs while you bounce her up and down. I thought she'd outgrow this, but she still likes to do it and is getting heavier and bigger and taking up more of my lap to the point I have to hang on to her sometimes so she won't fall off, especially if she's squirmy. She also talks giberish, makes sing song voices, and loud noises while she's bouncing...I have no idea why, she's a weird kid. I guess we should video tape it some time.

Yummy, Yummy Chicken Dinner

I have a ton of random food pics that I took in hopes of blogging about some different recipes I've been making. This was a long time ago, I can't even remember the name of the recipe, but I know it is from America's Test Kitchen slow cooker cook book that I won a while back. It turned out really great. It was split chicken breasts, carrots, onion, and spices, etc. My favorite thing about it though was the broth that you end up with to serve over the chicken. It's pictured in the bowl next to the chicken. It was so good and I had a ton left over that I froze. I've whipped it out of the freezer later and thawed it and served it with vegetables and one night with veggies and ribs...so good!

Frozen Pudding Pops :)

My mom used to make us frozen pudding pops when I was a kid, it was one of my most favorite things. I found some popsicle molds from unpacking and finally got to use them. The kids loved them as you can see from the pictures. We sure ate a lot of popsicles this summer!

I love this pic of Joelle, as if she can't believe she actually gets to eat something so yummy and messy.
Pudding Pop Kids :)
Love this one too! My messy little monkey :0)
Bearded Emery

Good Time at the Park

This is a short movie I took when I saw Emery dancing to the band music at Kids' Day in the Park. Joelle was dancing too, but stopped when I started video taping it. You might want to turn down the volume in advance, the music was really loud.

Zeke and Cam

So it's no secret that Zeke and Cam are special buddies. I shouldn't have been surprised to find this one night when I went to check on Cam.

Garden Update

I was so excited to go out one day and discover 3 big zucchinis growing in my garden! They hadn't been eaten either. Something has been getting into my garden periodically and munching on my beautiful zucchini and ticking me off! I go out every day and try to block places where I think they might be getting in. I have put stacks of wood and rocks around the chicken wire, but they are digging underneath or squeezing through. My other garden was a square foot garden and in a planter so it was off the ground and I didn't have this problem. For the 3 zucchinis to have survived was a miracle. I went out just tonight and discovered another one that had been chewed on, grrrrrrrr, makes me so mad! So, this time, I picked one even though I wasn't sure if it was ready and I wanted it to get bigger, but I decided I didn't want it being eaten too. I have several more growing out there, we'll see if they survive or not.

Poor zucchini :(
My 3 big, beautiful zucchini, 5 beans( I have now harvested about 60, enough for everyone to have a small helping for 1 meal), 1 sad little pea, and some cucumbers. I had a ton of cucumbers.
Joelle modeling my zucchini :)