Texas Trip

This is long overdue, but I wanted to post a few of my favorite photos from our trip to Texas to visit my brother, Chad, and his family and new baby boy Asher. He's so cute!

Preying Mantis

I keep saying, Holly is preparing me to have boys...she's fearless! I saw something green in her hands and I didn't know what it was. All of a sudden she put it down and it started running. I thought, "Oh my, it's a bug!" Then I looked closer and saw that it was a beautiful green preying mantis. Ah, no worries. We all took turns holding it.

Holly put it on her tummy at one point but quickly realized, as it began crawling, that that was a little too personal and she grabbed it off. I guess her confidents does have its limits after all. =)

Finland Trip Slideshow

Coming out our ears!

Zucchini that is!

Our garden is just going crazy this season. We've had to give away so much of it because we can't eat it fast enough! I hate to admit it, but I'm sort of getting sick of zucchini bread. I know, how do you get sick of that? Especially my recipe. It's like cake! But, too much of a good thing tends to get a little nauseating. But, we've loved sharing our veggies with our neighbors. =)

This shot was taken about a month ago from an upstairs window. It's even bigger now! We have two HUGE pumpkins growing (good thing we only have 2 kids) and our cucumber plant now has about 5 cucumbers that will be ready tomorrow. I picked one today, along with 3 zucchinis, 4 squash, 10 cherry tomatoes and 1 strawberry. (Yes, only one strawberry. The dang squirrels keep getting to them first. ARG!) The onions look about ready and I used some fresh basil last weekend for a girl's night for that fresh mozzarella, tomato and basil salad with baquette pieces. So yummy! It was so nice to have fresh basil in my garden and not have to go the store and try to find a decent batch of it. Gardening has never been more fun!!!

While we were sleeping

Yes, it's true. Someone had the gall to come into our house while we were asleep upstairs, and steal my wallet, my Canon SD 800 camera and Doug's cell phone off the pony wall in our entry way. Crazy, huh! The thing is, we didn't even notice anything was missing until Fraud Detection called us with some fraudulent activity on our credit card. I then remembered how strange it was that my car door was open, as was Doug's passenger door, when I went to church that morning. I just figured Doug had gone out to the garage in the middle of the night looking for something. I went to church and forgot all about it. It all made sense when we got that call from the Fraud detection agency. (LOVE THEM!)
We are just so thankful that they didn't hurt the girls or us and that there was so little taken. It could have been a lot worse. We are thinking maybe they got scared off by a noise. Whatever the case, we've definitely become more thorough in our lock down, day and night, and Doug has installed several more locks on each door of the house. I thought I'd be more creeped out and have trouble sleeping after the incident, but Heavenly Father has blessed us all with peace and we have prayed for those who broke in that they might have a softened heart and desire to change. We know how blessed we are. Thank you to all of you who have offered support, and concern for our well being. We are lucky to have you as our friends! NOW GO LOCK YOUR DOORS! =)