Memorial weekend and other stuff

These pictures are from the last two weeks.  There are a lot, just to warn you.

Last weekend, we grilled hamburgers, hot dogs, and chicken wings.  The wings are a little spicy but Addy can handle it.  She loved them!

Izzy - not so much.  She put a wing to her lips and then complained for like 10 minutes about how her lips were burning.  She's trying to cool them down with a carrot.

Got some baking done - sandwich bread, chocolate zucchini muffins, and french bread (no picture).  Have I mentioned that I liked to bake?

There's a tree behind our fence (still on our property) that Jared dug up for me.  We moved it to our back yard because there is no. shade. back. there.

The girls mostly played with worms.

Addy kept trying to poke them with a stick.

Jared had to dig pretty deep and then the girls got interested in trying to help pull it out.  Addy still tried to poke worms, too.

Planting in the back yard and filling the hole back up.

Then we roasted marshmallows.  It was difficult to get any good pictures, I guess because of the smoke and everyone kept moving.  Or maybe I still don't know how to work my camera.

I got a magnifying glass at the Dollar Tree and Izzy thought it was super cool.

Examining a peanut shell.

Spiders in the corner.

Jared's mom gave us a little bit of mint to plant and man did it go crazy.

We pretty much had to start over with our garden, except for the starter tomatoes that Jared bought at Walmart (one plant died, though).  I guess we planted too early because only 2 pepper plants came up out of all we planted.

So, Sunday (the previous Sunday) I planted a row of colored bell peppers and a row of squash - both from seeds.  Jared planted a row of okra, a row of green bell peppers, and a row of jalapeno peppers.

These next few pictures are just random ones taken through the week.  Izzy loves ladybugs.

Addy loves to feed the dogs - sometimes out of play cups, ahem.



Izzy is a maze machine!  Two days in a row, during naptime, she worked on mazes and ended up doing probably 30 of them.

Jared went on a school field trip to Silver Dollar City, so the girls and I got McDonald's and went to the park.  (So much for our no-eating-out-for-a-month goal.  Gonna have to start over.)

Hung there just long enough for me to take the picture, then I had to help her the rest of the way.

Izzy's so crazy, such a daredevil sometimes.  She went down head-first, on her back.

Addy, on the other hand, sticks with the little slide.

There's a sidewalk trail that goes around the whole park.  The girls always like to run around it at least once.

This past weekend, we spent a lot of time in the back yard.  Oh, Pelphrey, just a waiting for a peanut.

We ate outside Saturday and Sunday night.  Izzy is already in her pajamas because I was chasing her and she fell in a bunch of mud, so I went ahead and gave her a shower.

Jared did a good job grilling!  Everything came off the grill - even the corn, potatoes, and zucchini.

Please ignore our messy backyard...

Smelling the sausage...it was too spicy for her.

Eating up the rest of the cupcakes from the birthday of a boy I babysit.

Izzy gobbled hers up before I got a picture.  I had to take the liner away from her because it was almost dissolving in her mouth as she was trying to suck all of the cake crumbles off of it.

Sunday morning we went to the river.  This is a butterfly garden that they must have recently built, because I've never seen it before.  We didn't see any butterflies there, though, only close to the water.

Very cold water.

Didn't take long, though, to start running and jumping in it!

There was water running out from under some rocks and the girls kept saying they had to go wash their hands in it.

So pretty.

In addition to pictures of the girls, I took a bunch of pictures of flowers (Jared was like, "I know what we're getting you for Christmas"...my camera is not a fancy expensive DSLR camera).  I have no idea what most of the flowers are, but there were a bunch of different kinds and one of these days I'd like to be able to identify them.

I really can't tell if Addy's eyes are closed.

Smelling the honeysuckle.  It was everywhere and smelled sooooo good.

Another flower.

More flowers.

They're always finding huge rocks to throw.

And more flowers.

Examining the plant life growing in the water.

I think this will be the last of the flower pictures.

Being a goober, acting like she needed help.

Big sissy came to the rescue.

Love this picture.

Addy looks shocked.

Found some cool rocks.  This one was flat on the other side.

Addy found a rock that looked like a stick.  She proceeded to put it in her mouth.  Several times.  Blech.

Pointing out the honeysuckle.

Addy acting tired, but she was really fine.

Later that day, we broke out the slip and slide.  At first they just jumped through the sprinkler part.

It took Izzy several tries to finally get the hang of it.  She just wanted Jared to pull her in the beginning, though.

Addy let him pull her once.

Izzy finally got brave, though, and did it!

I think Addy fell here.  She fell a lot.

She decided to play it safe and just scoot.

Then she went to eat peanuts.  She was getting on to the dogs for some reason.  She's kind of bossy.

Izzy's having a big time.

Addy's still scolding the dogs.

 Of course, Jared just had to try it out, too.  Pretty sure he had just as much fun as they did.

What a pose.



After the slip and slide fun, we went inside and Jared made some fried pickles.  They were seriously the best fried pickles I've ever had.  Hands down better than any I've had at a restaurant.

I think Jared ended up eating about 5 - he was busy frying them up.  The girls, though, ate about 25....apiece.

I was surprised Izzy liked them because they were a tad spicy.

Watering the cherry tree.

The roses.

The garden.  You can see the squash coming up on the right side!  Yay!  The bell peppers, in the next row, haven't come up though :(

And, of course, watering the slip and slide.

Monday afternoon, Jared planted plants and what not in front of the house.

This picture is in front of Izzy's window.  There used to be big, pretty bushes here but they got some kind of bug infestation which we couldn't get rid of, so we just had to dig them up.  This is the second year that we've planted flowers from seeds, but both times the flowers have only come up on the left side.  We figured out it's because the right side doesn't get as much sun; it's shaded by the stairs.  So, Jared planted a little rose bush to see if it will flourish.  If so, next time we'll probably just plant those rose bushes all the way across instead of attempting seeds again.

Yesterday he planted the little bushes which you can see on each side of the picture by the house, and the plant right in front of the log.  We transported this humongous log in our car from Springdale.  I wish I would have gotten a picture of it in the car - it was quite comical.  It was sticking out of the truck and between us in the front seat.  Jared just had to have it!  It looks good, though, so I guess it was worth it, ha.

The plants on either side of the whiskey barrel have been there since we moved to this house.  They come back every year and have pretty yellow flowers.  Of course, I don't know what kind of flowers they are.

Monday night, we ate outside for the third night in a row - this time we ate pizza!  Two of these went in the freezer for a future dinner.  The bottom right is a buffalo chicken pizza.  (Sorry about the poor picture quality.)

Oh, Izzy and her bugs.

Hope everyone had a wonderful Memorial weekend!