gardening, birthdays and such

I finally got all the pictures off my camera and onto my computer. I didn't realize how much I had to blog about but I'll have to make some choices and limit it a bit.

A few night ago while Tyler was working late the kids and I spent some time on the trampoline together enjoying this lovely, very non Junish weather. Peyton is such a cutie when she jumps I took about 2 dozen pictures! I wish this picture below was clearer, she was making the funniest faces.
You can kind off see below, but she was wearing underwear that used to be Ben's. I thought it was cute that she was in her frilly princess nightgown wearing boy briefs. It really sums her up well, she is a little tomboy princess.

She also helped me make Ben's cake. I am surprised that she can hold the mixer by herself with one hand. Mixing is her favorite part, she says when she grows up she wants to crack up the eggs.

We had family over for cake and ice cream the night of Ben's birthday. I even picked up Grandma Kay so she could be with us. It ended up being a late night but it was fun.
All of the in town cousins (Essien and Dustin) were there. Ben never requested any certain cake and he never complained about the cake I made him. It was lacking in decorations but everyone said it was very yummy and moist. Moist is always what I hope for!

Benjamin is 6 now and pretty much the same as ever. Always making us laugh, loves games, especially the Wii and his new Lego Pirates of the Caribbean game. He has the funniest and most adorable was of saying things. He loves having a sandwich for lunch and he is an amazing reader. He is a cuddler and a love bug but when he is going somewhere, like school, you may not even get so much as a "bye". He really likes to have a friend over and he is really good on the trampoline, front, side and backflips are his specialty, he can even do 2 back flips in a row! We love you Ben!
The thunder and lightening storm was our Sunday show. It kept the kids up later than normal but we all enjoyed watching it.
Monday my friend Christie B. came over to make clips and brought us a zucchini from her garden. I told her we didn't have any zucchini or cucumber yet. I took her out to show her our garden and low and behold we had 2 cucumbers! I forgot to get a picture before I cut the big one, here they are below.
Isn't that beautiful? I love having food growing right outside our kitchen window!
Today I decided to get a hold of the weed situation in the garden and check our plants and look what I found! A green bell pepper. Our yellow and red plants have peppers on them too but they are still green, and our jalapeño plant has lots of peppers on it. I am really looking forward to our tomatoes, I don't know why, but this year our tomatoes are growing like crazy.

My first crop!

If I can even refer to it as that! Our garden is looking very sad as I have cut every last pumkin from it and our watermelons are extremely puny. I have every single pumkin we grew sittinf on our front porch! Not as crazy as it sounds since there are only seven and six of them are very little. I have learned a few things about gardening and am hoping for a better and bigger crop next year. I am just very happy that we each have a pumkin and there is one giant pumkin.
Anyone recognize the Witches hat from a super Saturday a few years back? It is among my very favorite SS items. I love how it looks with the paint colors on my door.

The boys, namely Micah, were so excited to carve our pumpkins, I think the little ones are too small and the giant one is too daunting for me. I always seem to be the one that ends up cleaning them out! How does that happen?

Benji, the cutest pumkin in the patch!

Ladybug mating season

Ok, so, first things first. I have all of my sidebar stuff still, it's just not on my sidebar, it's at the very bottom of my page, not real convenient. I know it isn't because I changed my background because I changed my background to try and fix it, it was fine with the previous background and then it wasn't, no changes made, other than a new post. So anyway, I still need help, also, my layout option is no longer there, it is however on my other blogs in my dashboard. Anyway, I guess I'll have to just live with everything being at the bottom for now.

I have several posts to do, but I am for some reason blogging about ladybugs. I went out to water my garden this morning and they were everywhere, which is nice because we have their favorite treat, aphids. As I was looking at them I realized they were all mostly in pairs, one on top of the other. I don't know how I thought Ladybugs reproduced, but based on my surprise at seeing this I apparently didn't think they actually had intercourse. I am glad they are happy in my garden, we could use some aphid control. My watermelons are growing quite nicely, there are a lot of them, my pumpkins are blooming, no fruit yet, but the leaves are looking kinda sad, too much yellow. This is our first year really growing anything, so it's practice. I hope to put a nice big garden full of yummy things in the next planting season.


Here is a closeup of a pair of ladybug lovers. If you click on the picture you may be able to see what I saw. I'm not the best photographer, nor do I have the best camera.

Fences and Frogs

Although we're a bit late for a garden this year plans are underway to be ready for the next planting season! Tyler built a fence and gate to surround our garden area and had some help from the boys. This year we are going to make it a pumpkin patch, I thought that would be something fun for everyone and I hear it helps make the soil richer for planting season.

As you may know from previous posts, my kids have a thing for frogs. The boys have on many occasions roamed the neighborhood collecting and naming frogs. Well, on May 12 I was sitting at the kitchen table watching Peyton through the windows playing in the backyard. It appeared that she was holding a large rubber frog, well, we don't have a large rubber frog. So I went out to see what she had...

Click on the picture to see the shot of her frog I captured. She kept letting the frog loose in the fountain and then picking him back up, as soon as the frog would start squirming Peyton would squeal and let him go again.

3 huge holes!

You may know that for the past few months or more we have been working on our front yard, and by we I don't exactly mean me! Tyler and Matt McCauley have been doing most of the work. Last Saturday Tyler spent 3 hours digging a 5x5x3ft deep hole for one of the Olive trees we have coming on Tuesday and he planted the cypress trees (I think that's what they are). He got sick and then he went out of town, so he wasn't able to dig the other 2 holes. Brent and Matt came over today and they were able to finish the other two holes, yea! I know it doesn't look like much of a yard now, but it will soon. It is really going to make a difference just having the Olive trees in, I can't wait. I look forward to the day when it is warm and I can sit out on the front lawn with the baby on a blanket and watch the boys play outside and ride bikes...