"look mom, it's a womp rat."

I think my littlest girlie has been listening to her brothers and their Star Wars obsession a bit too much. She brought me her camera with a bunch of "womp rat" pictures she wanted to share with me. I can understand her thinking it was some kind of rat climbing out of the storm drain; a very ratty thing to be doing. She is now over at Cosmeo watching clips about her new "friend."

                *I need to make a correction here. I was just informed by my

                  oldest son that his sister told me it was a womp rat because

                  that is what he told her it was. She actually thought it was a

                  beaver when she saw it.

sunset

red sunflower

sunrise

sunflowers

I'm enjoying the beauty of our sunflowers while working in the garden.

first flight

mosquitoes YUCK!

No one likes mosquitoes, especially my girlie, but they seem to LOVE her.  She got over 40 "kisses" from them yesterday. 

        

All her shorts are now buried under her jeans in her dresser. She has decided she would rather be ‘a little hot wearing jeans’ than deal with all the bites. At first she tried to give them to me to store away for her sister, but I convinced her she should keep them just in case. I am sure she will forget about all the bites in a week or two and want her shorts back.

chicks

Our friends got some little chicks the other day and invited us over to meet them. They are about 4 days old and so cute! I couldn't tell you what the breeds of the chicks are; though our friends did tell us. We will have to learn them because my littles want to visit them often.

fire starters

My boys will be off to camp next week so this week we are getting everything together. The camp gear was pulled down, inspected and inventoried. Oh the things one finds left over from the last campout. Like a mess kit that still had some seafood stew in it eeeeeeewwww! I am glad I didn’t find it, bugs didn’t find it and I didn’t have to clean it!

All the rest of the gear is in order and minor disposable items are needed: batteries, food, rope, bug repellent, more batteries, duct tape, more food, lighters/matches, and fire starters. So tonight we made fire starters, lots of fire starters.

We made them out of cardboard egg cartons, saw dust, and old candles. I used soy and bees wax candles and sawdust from untreated wood to keep the fire starters more nature friendly.

Isn’t the soy wax pretty? It’s all white and flakey, kind of reminding me of snow on this hot day.

When the soy wax melted we added all the left over bits and parts of candles.

Then we filled the cartons with sawdust and poured the wax over it.

I hope they don’t try to light a whole carton at once. Never mind they are boys of course they will. I bet their Scout leaders will let them because they are big boys and want to see it go up in flames too.  Maybe I should cut them apart before they go to camp; is that spoiling their fun?

mermaid treasure

We celebrated a friend’s birthday last weekend and had an awesome time. The birthday girl loves mermaids and the color aquamarine. It is not just aqua. You can ask the birthday girl or make the mistake of calling the color aqua like I did.

We decided to make her a mermaid’s treasure chest and fill it with mermaid treasure.

It was so much fun making this gift my girlies want to make their own next week when the boys are at Scout camp.

watching the clouds drift by

chrome duct tape, super glue, and jewels

When you mix these three things with a couple little girlies you get some creative fun. My girls and I decided to fix up their ugly brown framed mirror after they finished their studies. I always forget the before pictures and hope that one day soon that will change. But thanks to my boys we have some during and after pictures.

It was a very simple project. We covered the frame with the chrome duct tape and super glued the jewels to it.

all patched up

This is a typical patching on my son's pants.  I don't understand how he rips out all his pockets.  We ended up mending 9 pairs of pants: one zipper and knees, one snap, pockets, and knees, one knees only, the rest were pockets and knees.  I am done with mending for a while (I hope.) 

I do have 2 pairs of jeans that need some work done for my girls, but those are a bit different. I can get creative and have fun. They are more like altered couture.

I did try to get my son to agree to something more fun, but he just stared at me for a while and said "no, uh, no way. I'm not a girl. Just jean fabric patches in squares and rectangles; maybe some camo."  So this was as creative as we got with his mending.

          

the ants go marching

We live on a peninsula witch is actually a huge ant hill. At least that is what it seems like. So when ever it rains or gets hot or cools off or the wind changes directions the ants go on the move. I really don't mind if they move away from my home. But the other day we noticed some on the porch. So I got out my favorite ant bait/killer and set out traps. Like good little ants they all did what they were suppose to do and line up to eat the bait.

Then they were not good little ants and they did something they were NOT supposed to do.  They came inside, uninvited, so we had to bait inside too. 

      

You can see my favorite ant bait that my sister Sara told me about.  It works.  Today not an ant in sight and I went on a hunt to find them.  Thank you again Sara!