The Butterfly House

Brynn and I went on a fieldtrip today with her class to the Butterfly House over in St. Louis. Unfortunately, it decided to be a rainy day, so what was suppose to be a nice relaxing all day fieldtrip - spending time out in the garden grounds, enjoying a picnic by the playground - didn't turn out as fun as it could have. We couldn't be outside so much and it got crowded so we had to come back early (but that gave us some time at the Book Fair).

When Brynn woke up she was all psyched...asking to wear light/bright colored clothing so the butterflys would want to land on her and everything. But of course when we got in there she spent all of her time doing this...

...ducking and dashing and squealing...

...from these little, or not so little guys...

Can't blame her. We all know I hate things with wings. And these darn butterflys were everywhere and weren't shy and were rather fast and fluttery. It took everything in me not to act like her even though I wanted to.
But she didn't mind the bugs in their cages...

And kept asking to find the chrysalis...

This is her and our buddy for the day McKenna...

And here with her friend Nathan by the giant caterpillar...

Our brief stop for lunch on a wet, rainy rock...

...lunch got finished up on the bus ride home. But it was a nice educational day!

Red Peper Pasta

I got this recipe from my friend in AZ, Michelle Black. She made it for me and I was so impressed I started making it for everyone else. It was so simple and there were so few ingredients I called her before my first time making it to make sure I hadn't forgotten to write something down. Very easy and yummy! We love it!
Red Peper Pasta
2 cloves minced garlic
1/4 cup olive oil
12 oz jar roasted red pepers
6 oz chicken breast strips
8 oz farfalle pasta
Feta and parmesean cheese to taste

Cook garlic in 2 Tbsp oil. Add remaining 2 Tbsp oil and add chicken, cooking until no longer pink. Add roasted red pepers and cook 2 more minutes. Toss cooked pasta into chicken. Toss in feta cheese and top with parmesean cheese.

***As normal I don't really do measurements and add as much of everything as I want - the more the merrier in my opinion. And when I add the jar of roasted red pepers I don't drain the juices off, I add them also.

So I planted...

When we moved in, we had to sign a form that basically said we understood that the land our home was built on had been contaminated by some pesticide and so we wouldn't let our kids eat the dirt and we couldn't plant a garden. But I wanted a garden (and I needed to make up for the birdie incident) and so this was my solution...
Meet my Topsy Turvy Garden. I love it! And I have everything from tomatoes to pepers to cilantro to lettuce to jalepenos to zucchini to cucumbers.

It was quite the project this last week, and I couldn't have done it without the help (and muscles) of my brother Steven who stopped by for a few days.

And we kept him busy doing all sorts of other stuff too - like swimming...

And other projects...

Steven just pulled away to head home and walking back up the driveway from waving goodbye Tyler infomed me he missed him already!

Long to Short

Brynn decided once again that her hair was getting a little too long and she was ready for a cut.
Before:

During:

After:

She is quite please with the outcome. Gotta love a girl who knows what she wants!

Neighborhood Pool

Brynn and Tyler love to swim. And they are pretty good at it because I made them take survival swimming lessons in AZ. But I only tortured them out of love. And now I'm sad that we aren't in AZ for Dylan to learn the same way from our same teacher. Currently, we spend several evenings a week at our neighborhood community pool. Brynn and Tyler have tons of fun...

Daddy swims his laps...

And since they don't allow under 3 in the pool (not cool), Dylan and I watch...

...which he is fine with. Other than splashing his feet on the edge he is not a fan of swimming. Big surprise there. Well last night he had a little accident while tossing rings to Brynn...

...in he went, fully clothed, and he was not happy about it. So we stripped him down to his onesie and let him play at the stairs - where he fell in again. Great supervising on my part I know. I ended up getting a little wet that second time around. But I saw his kicking instict kick in and I'm thinking I may be able to teach him on my own :/ just not sure the public pool would be to keen on that idea though...

Earth Day?!?

So its no secret that I don't love birds...at all. I won't go on about why right now. I just don't like them so much. Well, when we got home from vacation I discovered that a bird had decided that our porch light (in between our garage door and our front door) would be the perfect spot to build its huge nest. And while I realize it was very well constructed and the bird had probably worked very hard to make a home; I did not need a family of birds dive bombing me or flapping its wings by me or dropping poop around the two exits to my house. So I informed PJ that the nest needed to be removed and thrown away. He, thinking I'm crazy, informed me ironically that it was Earth Day and he would be doing nothing of the sort. But I usually win when it comes to things like this. And after we were able to verify that there weren't eggs in it, we compromised and he took it off the light (which took some of his muscle to do) and moved it a few feet away to the puny tree in our front yard. I guess I could deal with that, especially since I didn't think the bird would come back after we messed with it. However, my dad informed me that thats an old wives tale and sure enough, the bird didn't mind the new location and decided to lay two eggs. The kids have been very excited and interested in the nest and birds - don't know where they came from. Well today happen to be a very gusty day. And by the time afternoon rolled around the nest and eggs had been blown out of the tree. My bad. So now I'm the worst person in the world. And PJ and Brynn decided to try and save the one remaining egg and make up for my shortcomings. I need to go and plant something...

Aunt Erin

We got a call from Erin the other night; and were excited to hear that she would be passing through St. Louis briefly. So of course we jumped at the chance to see her. We went to dinner and found a fun park to play at. It was definitely too short, but it was a lovely visit and the kids loved playing with Aunt Erin and telling her all about what they've been up to lately...

We're glad she called.