St. Andrew's

This was a really enjoyable vacation, even though there were some rough attitudes every now and then. It's hard to be happy all the time when you are sunburnt and have whiny babies and have to unpack camp, yada yada.... but it was still fun. Adam is the worst off- he did not use any sunscreen the first day :(

This is setting up,

and Tripp got so dirty in record time!

An evening at the beach. We came on this trip with a handful of friends and their families. We went to the mountains last year, Lake Carter, and it was a blast. This year we had fewer families, but we plan on making it an annual thing. It is really loads of fun!


We couldn't keep them out of the water, and poor Tripp just kept getting knocked down, but he didn't seem to mind one bit. He just kept going back for more.



We went to the Alligator Walk to see if any were out and about.

No alligators, but I wasn't complaining.

Our last day at the beach.

They played pretty well together.


My cute hubby!

And to prove that I was there, here is my tanned face peeking around the camera:

The real culprit turns out to be, not deer... no. It is that ugly tomato hornworm caterpillar in a picture in the post below. I caught one that had munched through two pepper plants and was as big as my pinky finger. It made this horrible clicking noise, I guess to try to "scare" me away or maybe it was scared itself and screaming at the two huge sticks trying to pry its legs off my plant. Those things are strong, and I didn't want to touch it. But now I can take down all the red celophane that looked very weird, and be on the look out for these caterpillars. They come out of nowhere it seems. This year for gardening has been a very educational one.

Okay, I am very protective of my garden. And I don't appreciate anyone coming around and messing with it. This includes YOU:
I had the cutest little budding tomato plant, and you reduced it down to this,

a stalk!

Well, I'll show you. With this:

Crinkly paper to scare you with the noise you'll make as you bump into it. Oh, and not to mention the yellow-eyed cat that will come in handy long before Halloween.


I have yet to find a good way to scare this guy,
but his time's coming.

But there is good news:
Check out this cute little pepper!
The boys of summer-

A budding artist....

This is Erick's drawing of his Mommy, and I don't really have a widows peek, but he likes to connect his circles. He drew one of my mom that made us laugh so hard, because her head was the shape of a cell phone, which is very appropriate for her.

He mainly draws in green, because that's his favorite color, which he no longer refers to as green-sucker. I'm really proud of him though, and how much he likes to draw and color. He really wanted to help me paint the bathroom walls, which is a really cool idea, but that will have to be for another room.

I'm so excited about my garden! I have a cucumber, which isn't as cool as I thought since they give me terrible heart burn. BUT, I have some blossoms on my pepper and tomato plants- yay! I really need to put some pictures on here(**Pictures now added). I planted some marigolds in my garden to deter deer and possible other veggie predators. I didn't realize that I had bought and planted the JUMBO marigolds, so they are two and three feet tall and are finally about to bloom.

This was my garden a month to three weeks ago.



This is my garden today!






I'm also working on remodeling my bathroom. I need to post pictures of that too, so that I can share my joy of being creative with you(**Pictures now added). I'm doing a technique of a faux finish with tissue paper- it looks awesome and covers up a lot of imperfections in the wall. The previous owners not only wallpapered the bathroom badly, but they also painted over the wallpaper badly. So this should make it look a whole lot better. It will be the best looking room in the whole house- and I only spend a few minutes at a time in it.

The paint looks gray, but it's really a blue color, and I would post pictures of the whole bathroom, but it isn't finished yet, so I'll make a final post about it when it is all finished!

Potty time (and the livin's easy...)

Erick is now peeing and pooping on the potty! Yay!!!! It wasn't easy, but it wasn't as hard as it could have been. He has several new toys (his potty prizes) and he gets potty candy, which are mainly Hershey kisses and gummi worms. It's funny because he calls them baby worms. I really wish I could record him and put his funny little voice on here saying, "Mommy, I went poo-poo!" It sounds hilarious, and very southern. He's growing up so fast!