Happy Birthday to Kristen

Today is Kristen's birthday. I've been to many of her birthday parties! I found these pictures from one of her parties a few years ago!

I wish you a happy, happy day, you've always been part of our family. You were mine and Peanut's little girl before we had our own little girls. You even had a toy box at our house!

All you other little faces in that picture leave Kris a birthday comment!

Baby Bird

We have a bird nest in one of the hanging pots on our front porch. I sent J out to water the flowers tonight and one of the birds had hatched so he took a couple of pictures. I'm interested to see if they all hatch - or exactly what happens with the nest situation because one of the eggs in the nest was "different". You can see the other eggs in the pictures below, but the bird that hatched already was from a bigger, more speckled egg. I don't know if another bird came by and laid an egg in the already prepared nest or if the bird that started the original nest is dead. I found a dead bird on the porch under this hanging pot a couple of days before I noticed there was a nest, I just thought it had probably inadvertently flown into the window.

This is the baby bird napping (I guess). Not really that cute, huh?

Below J has moved the basket so it thought it was meal time and raised up with its mouth wide open for a bite!

Reasons Parker loves his P-Pa

P-Pa will follow for hours while Parker drives his tractor all over the Ponderosa.

He lets Parker wear his glasses.

When there is grass seed to sow, Parker is P-Pa's right hand man!

He lets Parker throw the grass seed on the ground. . .
And put the grass seed on Shrek, who shakes it off everywhere.

He lets Parker help carry the bucket. . .

And takes some time out to chase a toad.
He waits patiently while he plays in the seed!

If Parker decides to take P-Pa's truck through the woods, he drives him around.

And if Parker wants to do the driving, he can to that too!

Juice Box Trick

If you squeeze your juice box really hard at the bottom, you can make the straw fly out!

It is quite hilarious!

Wordless Wednesday

Unwelcome guests

Viewer Warning: If you are a little squeamish about viewing photos of reptiles, just roll on past this post. That's right just roll on down peek out under your eyelids until you are to the end because there are some large chicken snakes coming up!


Not once, not twice but three times today a different snake crawled right up to the back deck. Each time Peanut moved them to a new location a good distance from the back door, but they just kept appearing!

This was the second one.

The snake handler relocated him.

This was the third one.

Once again with the aid of a broom, he/she was relocated. It rained hard right after this, so what ever was drawing them here must have been washed away!! Chicken snakes are our friends, they get rid of mice and such, but when they gather up like that right in the yard they can scare the begeebers out of you!

Driving my tractor

This is the best thing we ever bought for Parker. When he is here, he rides for hours... down the driveway, to the pond and through the woods. He rides his tractor and makes his P-pa ride the golf cart in front of him. He's becoming a pretty good driver to be just 2!

It's better with spinkles!

When you stay with your nana, you can eat ice cream for breakfast!

Drink juice any time you want!

And you can eat hot dog and mashed potatoes

In the muffin pan

With sprinkles!

Wordless Wednesday

Just In Case...

...you haven't seen it on my blog, this is a thank you and kisses to Parker's grandparents for his toot toot table.

N' Awlins by way of Old Hickory

Steph and I went down to the Southland on Saturday to see my family. Everyone was there except my brother Ron who still lives in New Jersey. My sister-in-law, Jenny, brought me 2 pounds of fresh off the dock jumbo shrimp. Her dad owns a shrimping boat and her parents still live just south of New Orleans! Think Forrest Gump in a cajun way.

The first time I ever ate Cajun cooking was at Jenny and Ramsey's wedding. Her mamma can cook!!! Got me hooked big time! I have always tinkered with recipes, some from a box and some not, such as Jambalaya, Etouffe, and seasoned chicken. Tonight, I got adventurous and attempted Shrimp Creole from scratch. I had to put this shrimp to use!

I have a wife who mainly eats chicken. I have tried to show her the benefits of those lovable crustaceans, but with no success. I mean Mr. Jimmy Buffett even named an album after those pink crustaceans!!!! Back on topic, I substituted chicken in hers for Chicken Creole.

This is Steph's dinner cooking on the stove. I started with the same roux before I separated her chicken and my shrimp.

Here is my Shrimp Creole cooking on the stove. You can see that I am not the cleanest cook in the world.

Steph's dinner is finished and on the table. Chicken Creole served over steamed brown rice with some garlic toast.

Here is my masterpiece! Shrimp Creole served the same way. I like mine hot and have some Tabasco on the side!

I have the recipe if anyone wants to try it. It turned out to be an excellent dinner!

Choo... Choo...

Parker loves trains. In his new house he has a very large playroom with space for all his toys. We had promised to get him a train table for his track and Thomas engines. I knew they were expensive and I had even seen one on sale for $100. This week-end at a community yard sale we found just the right thing. Just as we were about to quite looking, we decided to stop at a spot where there were three sales close together. Maybe it was the shirt Parker had on, maybe she just liked the way we looked, but the lady holding the sale said, " We have a train table for sale." It was not assembled and leaning against the wall of the garage. I would never have noticed it! We took one look and knew it was exactly what we needed. Here's the best part--they only wanted 20 dollars for the whole thing. It included a bag full of trains and parts like trees and signs and people to set on the play area. We didn't need to negotiate, we started loading it in the car! And went straight home. . .

Where there was some very serious train playing.

It made Parker very, very happy. His mom says there has been non-stop train playing for the last couple of days!

A Walk in the Country

We have been walking everyday, trying to prepare for a trip to Chicago with Stephanie and Jay. We know there will be lots of walking and they are in good shape, so we go for about 2 miles everyday down our road. I took my camera one day to share it with you!
There are plenty of animals on our route. This is our donkey friend who comes to the gate to see if we have brought him an apple. Today he was lucky. Parker and Peanut took him apples all summer, so he expects it!

This is the hardest part of the trip making it up this hill. Still makes my muscles burn.
When I returned home I found that along the way I had accidentally made this very unflattering picture of myself!
We even ran into some neighbors on the road--if it is too far away to recognize that is most of the other Gibson Family who live in this neighborhood. (Brian, Kara and Brooklyn)
This duck family lives by a pond along the way.
These horses live in the field with the duck family. They come up to the fence and walk along beside us. I haven't brought them apples so I suppose they just enjoy the company!
On down the road is a herd of cattle. They hang out near the fence too. It's just like there is a welcoming committee all along the way.

And right now the honeysuckle is in full bloom. Can you smell it!

Wordless Wednesday

CSI Ponderosa

Here's the crime scene-- two scarlet sage plants broken and lying on top of the ground, near the driveway.

Here are the suspects:

Lazy dog

Crazy tractor driver

There were no known witnesses and in defense of the crazy tractor driver--no tread marks. Prior behavior from both suspects leads me to believe that either could have been guilty!