Daddy & AR's Yard Work...

...the Sunday after we got home from OBX, Daddy started a project in the yard. Little Miss AR was excited to help!

First, they had to scoop all the grass off the lawn.

Then Daddy showed her how to shovel the dirt out of the way.

AR caught on fast and got the hang of it pretty easily; she'd had a lot of practice with this at the beach.

My new favorite picture! This is Matt's shovel which he's carved his name into and is the main focus in this pic. Matt's pretty in love with this picture too.

All that work made AR one thirsty girl!

Misc. Monday...

 ...UGH! As you can tell from the title, this was SUPPOSED to post yesterday! When I scheduled it on Sunday, it said scheduled and then when I just saw it didn't post about 10 minutes ago, I logged on and it said draft. Blogger keeps doing that...any ideas??? Now on to the meat and potatoes!

...hey all! Hope you had a good weekend! This is probably the only post you're going to get from me this week. This Saturday is the MIA Conference so I'm busy, busy, busy gearing up for that. I'm super excited about what all it has to offer and the speakers that are going to be there but I'm even more excited because I get my guest room back! It's currently been storing giveaways for 200 attendees. So on to the miscellaneous, shall we?

*I was thoroughly looking forward to a weekend of nothingness. Well, I was well on my way to that at 4pm on Saturday when I was still lounging around the house in my pajamas. Then my husband called to inform me that he had a blow out in his truck just west of Columbia. He was with three other guys as they'd been at a paintball tournament. I quickly threw on some jeans and jumped in the car (sans bra, thank goodness its oversized sweatshirt season!) and drove 2 hours to pick up the guys and drove them 2 hours home. We got back to STL around 8:30 and the tow truck had JUST arrived to pick up Matt. To say I was upset would be a MAJOR understatement. Once I got home and calmed down, I realized I'm very thankful the guys didn't get hurt and I sent up some major prayers for that.

*FYI-Matt knew he was in the dog house. When I got to the exit they were at (might I add this was the creepiest, most desolate exit EVER), I offered him a cookie and he said, "No...I feel bad." I responded with, "You should but you can still have the cookie." You might be asking WHY Matt was in the doghouse since a blow out wasn't his fault. WELL, my lovely husband told me their tournament was in Columbia when in reality it was halfway between Columbia and KC. He also "forgot" to tell me that he was even driving. These things, coupled with his family calling me every 5 minutes while I'm trying to get him a tow truck and our conversation less than 24 hours prior about him making more wise money choices and stressing me less equals Matt in doghouse.

*We did not "grow" a garden this summer/fall. A garden kind of grew it's self. Sunday both Matt and I laid down to take a nap so we didn't feed the dogs at their precise time. I woke up about 30 minutes later than we normally feed them and they were both snacking on baby tomatoes straight off the vine!

*Due to the conference this weekend, this is the first time since we've been married that I will NOT be attending Opening Weekend for hunting at the farm. I'm okay with it but very sad. I told the ladies that are helping me with the conference that we need to pick a different date next year.

*Holy moly! Can you all believe Thanksgiving is in 2.5 weeks and then Christmas is a month later?! Seriously, time is FLYING! I'm usually an overachiever and done with my Christmas shopping but I just started this past weekend. I know some people are all about Black Friday and going to the stores but please give me online shopping and I'm a happy girl!

That's all I've got for now. If I have time to post again this week, I will but if not, I'll be sure to post on Monday about the conference...only the highlights like Dr. Hottie who I'll FINALLY meet after a year!!!

Pumpkin Pickin'...

...Saturday was a long, fun day! I got up and ran a little. Boy-its weird to go from running 20+ miles to less than 5 but my body needs to recover so I just need to deal with it. So after my run, I went to work so I could take a half day today and head to FLORIDA for Beth's wedding. I got off work at 1 and stopped by the nursery (for trees, not babies) to help Matt pick pumpkins.

Here he's driving us out to the pumpkin patch...
Here's me riding the wagon out, kinda...

Everyone always post pictures of good pumpkins but the truth is, not all pumpkins are perfect. RIP Pretty Pumpkin...

Still just my point and shoot but I tried to get some pics of the pumpkins at different angles. Its really hard to take pics when it's so bright out that you can't even see the screen...

These little ones were my favorite because it had both orange and white on it!

We picked for at least 30+ minutes, the boys would cut the vines then I would put them on the wagon. The vines are kinda prickly when they're first cut!

Here was a little pumpkin trying to grow and you can see the buggie crawling on it...

Here's the fruits of our labor, over 80+ pumpkins!!! We took some to the stand to sell from the nursery but 70 of them are for a special event I have at work in a couple of weeks.

It may not be Eckert's or Rombach's but it was fun to get out in the field, get dirty and help out! Don't worry, we only brought 5 pumpkins home for our front porch!

What's the Dill Pickle???

...during Matt's man-cation, his friend gave him like 5 or 6 GIANT cucumbers! I swear sometimes I think Matt finds the most random things to bring home and then its like a challenge. Try to find some way to use them before it goes bad. The one bad thing though is the things he's brought home or we've grown lately (jalapenos and cucumbers), I do NOT like and Matt gets tired of the same thing very easily so variety is what I have to find.

So Sunday afternoon, I find this recipe to make my own dill pickles. Luckily, I had everything on hand, yes including dill, so I was good to. While I brought the mix and vinegar to a boil, I was busy slicing up the cucumbers and putting them in jars.
I felt like there was WAY to much dill in this recipe and when I went to pour it into the bottles, holy dill burning my nostrils!!! It was kind of crazy. Here's the finished product cooling waiting to go in the fridge.
I didn't use actual canning jars. I used an old Ragu and Frappacino jar with pop tops. Matt and I accidentally learned we could do that one time when we made homemade applesauce!

I also made my own version of this recipe but I used a lemonade-ish sports drink thing so I don't think it had quite the same effect. FYI-its still sitting full in the fridge.

Matt and I tried the pickles on Wednesday and they weren't too bad, maybe a little vinegary. Matt liked them so much that he's now on the search for more cucumbers so I can make more and then we'll can them to eat over winter!

Jalapeno Poppers!!!

...so I had all those jalapenos and nothing to do with them, right? Well my bestie from college (oh I miss those days!) sent me a recipe for jalapeno poppers. Works out perfectly because this past Monday we had our end of camp dinner (yes people we're down to 7 days...SEVEN DAYS!!!). So I decided to try this recipe out. Here is everything I started with:
The recipe was VERY easy. Cut them in half and clean up that way. Then spread cream cheese inside the half and sprinkle shredded cheese and wrap in a half piece of turkey bacon. Cook it at 400 until it's bubbly and the bacon looks done (about 15-20 min). Finished product:Couple of notes...
1. I wore plastic gloves! Cutting and cleaning took quite a bit of time.
2. I prepped them the night before so I could just pop them in the oven.
3. Should have used more bacon, as you can see, as it cooked, it no longer wrapped the popper.
4. SO glad I put the foil down instead of putting it directly on the pan, super easy clean up. Should have sprayed the foil though so they didn't stick as bad.
5. I mixed the cream cheese and shredded cheese in a bowl and put the mixture in the jalapeno instead of sprinkling the shredded cheese over the top.

Everyone liked them and as much as I hate spicy stuff, I tried one. It had a little kick to it but it wasn't that bad. Matt is on his annual "vacation" AKA the St. Charles County Fair so I didn't have a taste tester or a leftover eater so that kind of made me sad. I'm definitely going to have to make it for him when he comes home.

One of my staff made white chocolate popcorn which is my absolute FAVE and she brought me my very own bag...she really knows the way to my heart! This stuff will surely get me through the last seven days...

Holy Jalapenos!!!

...apparently the only thing that can grow in our garden is a TON of jalapenos, a couple very cherry tomatoes and a couple banana peppers. I came home Saturday night to this bowlful of Matt's fruits (or vegetables) of his labor.
The next morning, when I asked him what was he going to do with all those jalapenos (I mean I am not a bread making machine here!), he informed me that he was going to sell them in the front yard. Luckily, it rained that day so there were no jalapenos being sold on my front lawn. I try to sneak them out to friends because I'd rather someone use them then they wilt and go bad. I know a few of you bloggers out there have gotten a few from me.

I did take a gander at some of the jalapenos and holy hot tamale-look at this one!We'd better have a fire extinguisher present when someone eats this one!!!

The Hot Stuff...

...so Matt is in charge of our garden this year. Well, let me rephrase that, Matt is always in charge of the garden and anything that has to do with outside the house. However, this year, I just decided to not give any input as to what was being grown in the garden which is fine by me. So Matt planted jalapenos:
...and some banana peppers (I did request bell peppers but I was too late):
So Matt brings home this giant pepper from the nursery that looks like the banana pepper above. It sits on the table for a couple days then I decide it needs to get cut up so I chop it up along with a jalapeno I picked. I make his lunch and put a bunch of slices of the "banana pepper" and just one or two slices of jalapeno. When I asked him about his sandwich that day, his response was, "It was HOT! Did you put that pepper I brought home on it?" I tell him yes in which he tells me that it WASN'T a banana pepper but instead it was so sort of hot pepper when alone isn't that bad but put multiple pieces of it on your sandwich with jalapenos and that makes for a hot hot hot lunch on a 90 degree day-oops! Sorry Mattie!!!

We also have tomatoes growing, both regular and baby size. The regular sized ones aren't quite ready to be picked, you can see them through the cage but we've been eating the cherry ones faster than we get to the house from the garden. Like the bowl? I made it!!!
So there is our garden so far, hopefully we get a lot more tomatoes and we've already got jalapenos out our ears so we can make some more salsa-yum!!!

Sun Chip Bag Project: Update #1...

...remember this post? Well, I'm trying to see if I can watch my Sun Chip bag compost. I put it in my garden on May 26 and here's the one month update...

Okay, so I had told you I felt a lot of "No Shadows" in my future, well there have been but there's also been some we've missed if you can't tell. I tried putting apple cores and banana peels inside the bag to help it along but some little doggie sniffed it out and tore the bag open! I think this would go a little faster if I would put the lawn clippings, cores, peels, etc...on TOP of the bag rather than beside it, in it or on the edges but then I wouldn't be able to document it. You can tell that there's some decomposting going on, in this picture note you can see fading spots where you can almost see through the bag, see the stuff that looks like red, that's where the silver part is going away and that's the red from the front of the bag:
Back to Shadow, on Monday afternoon, I came home from work and put the dogs in the backyard while I got ready for that awful run. I hear a knock at the door and it's the next door neighbor who had watched Shadow get INTO the garden despite the chicken wire. She kept thinking I would come out and get him but after about 5 minutes or so, she came over to tell me. Later that night, Matt was mowing and caught him in the act...uh oh, little Shadie spent the rest of the evening in his cage while sis Emma got to prance around the backyard.

Funny thing, about a week ago Matt noticed something had eaten one of the heads of cabbage and Matt chalked it up to a rabbit slipping in somehow. This past weekend, we noticed how bad Shadow's gas smelt...Monday night Matt put two and two together, we think Shadow had gotten into the garden, ate the head of cabbage thus inducing farts that almost ran us out of the house! Here is a picture of the cabbage still growing, notice the empty spot in the middle, that's what Shadow ate:
Oh! Faith had it right, although some other were close, the mystery item in the "What I Do for a Living" post was a frozen soccer jersey that I used for a...ready? ICEBREAKER!!! Happy Friday!!!

My Sun Chip Project...

...so I'm sure you've all seen the new Sun Chip bags that make enough noise when you open them up that even your neighbors are sshhing you, right? Well did you know that you can put them in your compost pile? Here is a (very bad) picture of what is shown on the back of the bag.

So after finishing off my delicious Garden Salsa Sun Chips, I took the bag outside, filled it with grass clippings, found a stick to put through the bag and secured it to the ground in our compost pile. I plan on watching this, hopefully disintegrate, and give you all full updates.

However, I'm worried that this little critter might be tempted to mess with the bag and ruin my project. I feel a lot of "NO SHADOW!"s in my future.

Matt has taken on the garden this year and I haven't done a single thing with it. I was just so discouraged by it last year because all we got were tomatoes, jalepenos and a little lettace and carrots. Here are the start of some tomatoes.

Here is Matt tending his garden.

I hope that my Sun Chip project works and I can give you full updates!!! Happy Memorial Day weekend!