Yummy things the girls helped with

Shortbread cookies...these were *ah-mazing* soooo grateful
to a fellow blogger for the recipe! The things you can
do with 'mistake' butter and sugar in your mixer, but
not enough ingredients to make the thing you planned to
make!


Christa's first go at making rice krispie treats! She did
wonderfully!


Mmmmm family recipe potato salad :)


some cherry pudding cake thing. It was DELICIOUS.

Garden 'friends'

Can you see the praying mantis?


Out of focus grasshopper


beetle!


Garden 'writing' spider - as ID'd by Lara :)

The Painted Lady Butterlies did emerge!

We saw some of them emerging, but never one full
emergence from start to finish. This is still better than last
year!


The larger 'tent' was nice, but harder to get a good photo
from :)

Banana-ness

Our neighbors blessed us with a lot of bananas :)


And since I already had enough in my freezer to feed a
3rd world country, we decided to make IMMEDIATE
banana muffins, and...


Frozen banana-cicles. Chocolate covered. :) yum!


they were decent :)

the girls...

future dog groomers of america...lol! They came up with
this idea all themselves. They decided to play 'Groomer'
outside and set up a dog table, get ALL the dog grooming
supplies and have a cash register, and money to exchange
and all! I love when their pretend play has real benefits :)
Sampson appears to like it too!


I walked in to see the above sight. A LOVELY picture
of all three girls, in the same FAIRLY CLEAN room, each
involved in their own individual-specific activity. *wow*
And no, it didn't last too long before someone was saying that
someone was in their way, etc, whatever. But what a lovely
moment!


Hmmmmm I *think* this was the County Museum?


The girls found a piece of fabric and 'made' a tablecloth :)

More "Just things I see"

The largest praying Mantis I have ever seen!  Doug brought it home
to show the girls. (it was already dead) It is now happily preserved
in a QUART size Mason Jar with alcohol and is added to our vast
preserved bug collection. I shall have to post pics of that some day :)


This is Zoe's artwork on the back of the van. It's our family,
drawn in stick figures, one figure to represent each member
of our family. Zoe wants those popular stickers for the
back of the van. Daddy says no, so Zoe draws her own :)


The other side of the van says, "I am a Rock Star" lol
She was totally a rock star and I was the limo driver, until
I washed the van :)


The apple below seemed to my children to need accessorizing :)
That's a hair piece on the stem. Quite attractive actually!

Just things I see...

the zucchini needed a belt apparently


and doug's back needed a slug...(he came in from outside
working on the boat and said, "This is gonna sound like a strange
question, but is there a slug on my back?" LOL


Yeah, eggs, on my floorboard. :P


Yup, that's a Golden Retriever. In a casual nightdress.

Random food and Chris...

Yummy.



This was our first try (in a long time anyways) at freshly
made sausage. This wasn't too bad!

So there was a frog...

Not only in the house, but in the kitchen. It
was spotted by Doug before he left for work
one morning. It was on the dispenser area on
the freezer part of our fridge where we get ice
and water.


When Doug called me and asked me if I had
seen it (he left unGodly early that morning, lol)
I laughed. I thought he was crazy. But alas,
after being gone for hours, and Sampson
the dog left out to peruse the whole downstairs,
this frog was *still* on the refrigerator! Aghast
that it was not eaten by the dog...I called Doug
and I owed him an apology for not believing him :/


Zoe made an ice cream cone sundae!


it was messy. but she loved it!

Christa and her interests :)

Christa loves bugs, nature, frogs, toads, etc. etc!


This was a pretty caterpillar!


Eating a bug? No. lol


We watched the ants tear up the caterpillar that was smashed
on the trail.