It's only the end of June, and already the heat is stifling here southeast Texas. It's taking it out of me, and other than taking care of my family and our home, I have little energy for much else--including blogging.  This morning, The Husband came home from work and found that our caterpillar-now-moth had emerged from its cocoon sometime during the night/early morning hours. It was flying so hard that it would shake the jar when it hit :/ It sure wasn't a pretty little fella, but it was a neat process to watch take place over the last few weeks.  Anyway, we showed the kids, and the three of them released it before breakfast.  This afternoon, when I went to get Ella from her room, Jack managed to reach up on the counter and found The Husband's razor. Yikes!! I caught him just as he started "cutting his hair like Daddy." But he still managed to remove quite a chunk. Thankfully that's all that happened :/.  My cucumber plants finally kicked the bucket, and ...

A few weeks ago we had a very large (and very expensive--ugh!) tree taken down. It was close to power lines, and the top didn't look healthy, so we decided it needed to go.  Here's Jack watching them take it down while sitting with our sweet neighbor :) Anywho, now we have massive tree pieces/logs/whateveryoucallthem lying in our front yard. We tried to sell them to people who would chop them up for fire wood to try to recoup some of that money, but there are no takers other than the ones who want it all for free.  So.  While staring out my window, I started to dream up ideas for what we could do with them in our own backyard. I clicked on over to Pinterest and found some cute ways to use them in the backyard. I typed in "large tree stump logs yard" in the search field if you want to check out the TONS of creative things people have done.  I really liked these.  And these.  Even this one for the leftover stump in the front yard.  Now, all I have to do ...

Day 30 of Capturing December - Your Winter Wonderland

Gosh, it's a pretty day! It's 82° outside, and there's a slight breeze. It's almost cool in the shade.  I read this article while I had breakfast this morning. It encouraged me to let Jack take a few risks and play outside my comfort zone more. So, after lunch, we headed out to the backyard. I always worried about ant beds and poisonous plants that could be growing along the fence line, so I normally follow him around and direct where he goes.  Not today, my friends.  I put Ella on a blanket with a few toys and sat next to her. She ignored the toys and played with (and tried to eat) all of the crunchy leaves and sticks on the ground around us. Eh, fiber.  He pretended and ran with sticks, he dug in and poured rocks, he climbed on the playground, and he mowed the lawn (and his playground?).  We stayed out there for nearly 45 minutes, and the only times I gave him directions were when he was trying to pour rocks in the mi...