These guys are still out and about. They should be hibernating soon...we keep expecting them to be under when we go to say hi but I guess they aren't ready just yet. I got these awesome pictures the other day. There was some turtle piggybacking rituals going on and I couldn't resist!

Some got out awhile back, right before we were leaving for Georgia. We were checking them out one day and the neighbor boy came over to say that he saw two in his front yard. I was shocked and immediately counted them and four were missing. I was dumbfounded! As we see it, there is no way they could climb out, and we dug their wall down several inches so they couldn't tunnel under and out. I was suspicious of the neighborhood kids coming to play with them and possibly letting them loose, but I'd like to give them the benefit of the doubt. So we took off to Georgia and decided it was a loss.

This little lady might be laying eggs! She could just be chillin' out, but the thought of egg laying is more exciting! Anyway, we got back from Georgia and friend from down the street called to say there was a turtle in her front yard if I wanted to bring Joseph down. I couldn't believe it! I knew that had to be one of our missing ones. So I took off down there with a box and brought him back home. He was one of the big ones. We got excited about the fact that they might still be around. Josh read online that they don't travel far from their home base so we thought there might be hope! Another fun fact; he read that turtles have a type of honing mechanism within them and they will head to the place where they were born if they are lost. Then we saw a neighbor in the alley and he said the people in the house behind his had seen one. So I got busy with my magic marker and made 'lost turtle' signs. I felt a little silly writing "lost pet box turtles" but we hoped they weren't far and we could actually get them back.

When we were out inspecting the yard and turtle pen around that time, we did find the baby's shell. He didn't make it. Makes me think a cat or something carried him out, but I don't know how realistic that is. We just don't know how they escaped. I started asking everyone I ran into if they had seen any turtles (as I was hanging signs) and one girl had seen them! Two together! But that had been a couple of weeks before. So these guys were all over the place! We continued hanging signs and before we even made it home I got a call on my cell phone from a lady who saw the sign. She said she thought one was in her backyard. We traipsed all over her backyard looking for him and found the stinker behind her shed!! This was amazing!

I was so proud of myself! All but one was accounted for. Sure enough the next day another person called me to say there was one in her front yard. She said she had been laughing at my "lost pet box turtles" sign, then she ended up finding one herself! How's that for karma?! We raced down there and brought home our last lost turtle. We were really down on ourselves at first thinking of these poor guys. Josh's dad has had them for over a decade and we can't even keep them a month. We were really dreading telling him what happened, but now there is a happy ending! HA! On top of all that, the next day I was going to take down the signs and the city had already been by and removed them. I didn't have to do it myself and it was perfect timing with the return of all our babies back home.

These three are all males with their colorful skin. I swear they are getting more vibrant. I don't know if it is because of the cooler weather, diet, or maybe it's physiological, related to the move to their new home at our house - like they are comfortable and well adjusted now. I've tried to find out online but I can't find the answer.

We are just happy they are safe and sound...and oh so beautiful with their incredible orange and yellow necks and legs. They fit in perfectly for fall!

Well, This is a First...

We were having a little avocado snack for lunch today and Joseph was so intrigued with the avocado seed. It was really funny because they are so slippery and he couldn't keep a good grip on it! It rolled all over the floor and finally he abandoned it and found the shell more interesting. In the meantime, apparently he would wipe his hands on the back of his shirt because this is what I found.
Really? Was this necessary?

What a messy boy!

After we ate he was roaming around and playing like usual...but at one point he turned to me with a wild look in his eyes and they were watering really badly. He was starting to really panic and he was swiping at his nose and beginning to cry. My first thought was that he put something too spicy in his mouth...but then I started to panic too because I couldn't figure out what was wrong.

I guess in his scared state he was breathing hard enough to push something out of his nose! My little crazy head stuck something up his nose for the first time. It was so weird looking that at first I thought it was a really hard dried booger that was just bothering him. I soon realized he had put the little hard, nubby, round dried stem thing in his nose from the end of the avocado shell. It was a perfect fit.

Can I just say thank goodness it came out on it's own. I don't know how wrestling him to the ground with tweezers poised above his nostril would have panned out. He has never done anything like this before...what a nut!

These pictures may pain you. They may cause nausea. They may give you headaches, stomach cramps, chills and diarrhea. This is the condition of the extra bedroom in our house. It's the bane of my existence. It's time to do something about this!

The shelves are out of control. There is a small, sorry attempt at organization with cute baskets - but it doesn't cut it. The shelf is pretty shaky and glass is precariously balanced on top. Yikes! Watch out below!

Oh boy do I have my work cut out for me. I am pumped though and ready to tackle this junk room. My potential 'craft' room is nothing but a 'crap' room. Soooo...Josh and I inherited two, great, awesome, huge, nice, sturdy shelves and now I have the tools I need to get this place under control. My project for the weekend ensued...and it took Monday and Tuesday too. I think I've gotten my fix of organization for awhile now. And boy oh boy does it feel AWESOME. So here is our new and improved office/craft room...we like to call it our 'croffice'.

Walking in the door you will see two distinct areas. The key was breaking up the current desk which has two desks that were attached to make an L shape. I've set it up so I have one spot for scrap booking and one spot for sewing. The closet over there is well on it's way, too. It is the home to the wrapping stuff, my wreaths, and holiday decorations. We have a handy man (great guy if you need someone!) coming out in a couple of weeks to help us finish the floor in there. The previous owners didn't complete the closet flooring in this room and in Joseph's room. It was silly and has become a pain for us. I think there was so much stuff in the closets that they didn't want to move it and just decided to stop there. Anyway, the closet floors will be finished soon enough and we'll put some built in shelves and a hanging bar in there, and louvered bi-fold doors. Now for those of you saying "oh, but it's so easy to install laminate flooring!", come on over and we'll get you set up. We decided our time is worth more than messing with it!

Here is the scrap booking area. I haven't gone through all my boxes of pictures and purged/organized yet like I would like to but I went through all of my scrapping tools and paraphernalia and at least got that straightened out. The little shelf to the left is the new home to my Mary Kay business. Loving that! The black chair isn't staying - I think I'll use some wooden folding chairs that we already have. Was thinking about backless regular ol stools but I'm going to try these other chairs first.

Here is my favorite area!! The sewing/crafting area! On this shelf I was able to arrange all my glass-ware/vases/decorative containers, etc on the very top. I was always battling with that mess. Next are all my paints, floral tape/sticks/wire/etc., beads, ribbon, sea shells, and the list goes on and on. BTW, I found those clear plastic boxes at Home Depot for $.99, so for a mere $10 I am completely covered. I actually need a few more because I am obsessive like that and I want to move out the clear boxes with blue lids for the clear lidded ones. Then on the next shelves are my sewing notions and thread and on the bottom shelf I have my fabric and knitting yarn in the nice big baskets (Ikea $14).

This shelf became our bookshelf and office supply area. I adopted a policy thanks to HGTV awhile back regarding the fiction paperbacks I've already read; if I can get it at the library or waltz into Paperbacks Plus and re-buy it, then I don't need to keep it. For the longest I always kept the books I loved. I never planned to re-read them necessarily and always requested them back if I loaned them out, but that just wasn't working out for the little space I had to store them. It makes much more sense this way. Kind of like the "if you haven't used it in six months/one year, it goes out" clothing policy. Anyway, all my extra baskets are on top (only the ones that were nice enough to keep!). There was enough room on the top couple of shelves for all of my frames that rotate around or are waiting to be used - I have a frame thing. Third down are all my candles and candle making stuff. Then next are the books waiting to be read. Between Josh and I, paperbacks were narrowed down to one shelf! Next are magazines, reference and other "keep" books like my "Judiasm for Dummies" and Josh's "Golf for Dummies"...you know, the necessities.

And with that, we have completed the tour. I hope you have enjoyed your stay here with me today. Come on back again soon, pull up a chair and sit for a spell!

We went on a rug hunt today and found a beautiful, bold, floral graphic type rug that we really liked. I did an internet search on it today to make sure we get the lowest price, so I think it's a go. Next will be some nice curtains and we have ourselves a beeeeautiful new croffice! Joseph is pretty pumped too. He keeps running in there and saying "light" for us to turn on the light so he can play. Best of all, we finally have every room in our house 'open door' ready! It's the best!

Now go back to the beginning to look at the before pictures! And try not to laugh at that!

I had a birthday celebration at mom's house with dad and Shannon and the girls. It was spectacular! Mom made my favorite: guacamole! And a big pot of chili. It was perfect for these fall days.

The girls made chocolate covered strawberries...yummo. Jospeh really like those! Almost as much as...

...cake!! Guess who we found fist down in chocolate cake?! The stinker was awfully quiet, I should have wondered where he was. Mom went into the kitchen then grabbed us real fast to come and look at who found the birthday cake.

Funny though, because Josh and I both thought to ourselves that we needed to move the cake away from the edge of the table but neither of us did. I guess we deserved that!

He was sure proud of himself. And sure cute getting into all that mischief. But don't tell him I said that.


Another picture that says a thousand words: look at that monkey face. Look at all that smoke!! And by the way, I blew them all out on one try.

The State Fair 2009

We knew the State Fair would be a lot of fun this year with Joseph being so active. He loved it! With the deluge of rain this fall, we battled the weather. It sprinkled a lot and rained hard once or twice but we had our umbrellas and ducked into the food pavilion to chow down.

Corn dog: check
Sausage on a stick: check
Roasted Corn (from a very specific booth): check
Fried pickles: check
Funnel cake: next year, my fine fried friend...

I was so outnumbered with the car show....both of my boys favorite thing to do there. Come on guys, how 'bout that butterfly exhibit in the garden or the arts and crafts building?? It'll be fun! Really!



This might be the picture of the year for me. Joseph's face shows total concentration on getting the whole corn dog in his mouth. But he also has to eye Dad to make sure he's got the right method. Ahhh, family traditions. And later that night, he ate a whole dog all by himself - the one above was mine and I was forced to share.

The petting zoo was a great hit. When we first walked up Joseph stuck his hand right in to touch the goat...no fear here. Aside from the rain, it was another perfect year at the fair!

Nothing Like a Good Ol' Box!

My Birthday With the Girls

Best friends, mimosas, and chocolate cake...does it get any better than that? The gals gave me a stupendous birthday lunch - the big three-oh. I still feel 25 though. I guess 30 is ok for now as long as time doesn't catch up and give me bad knees or an aching back daily!


They are so funny! They are waving but it looks like two thumbs up and a peace sign! They love the stairs at Kristen's house and we always have to hang out there for a bit.

This was a serious cake...it was chocolate with fudge and chocolate mousse. I told Summer nothing big since we are watching our weight - nothing with leftovers!! Then after I had some, I was SO happy there were leftovers to take home. It was one of the best cakes I've had in a long time.


Joseph loves babies and got a chance to hold Abby "all by himself"!




And couldn't resist a shot of those baby toesies! If I hadn't had such a big piece of cake, I could have snacked on those sugar sticks!

Thanks gals for a wonderful morning! I had a blast!

A Few Last Pictures From Georgia...

Here are a few from the flood cleanup. They got the road cleared out very fast...probably helped that some big houses with high property tax are on this road - and the fact that it was the only road out for hundreds of people. Our area wasn't as devastating as I thought it would be. There was debris everywhere, mail boxes were trashed, a handful of abandoned cars, and homes were flooded (people who can afford to fix it, mind you) but overall we were very lucky. That's the raging Chattahoochee back there - way over it's banks. The power of water is amazing and scary.







Being on the edge of a forest, Joseph had quite the time collecting his beloved sticks!

I don't know what kind of worm this is but man he was interesting looking!

Joseph wasn't too happy when he saw Cesear cozied up with his monkey and blankey. I thought it was pretty funny though.

My sweet boys all dressed up ready to head to services.

I don't remember exactly what was on TV that had him so interested. Wish he would sit still like this more often!


Eating out every night (except the one night we were stranded) meant that Joseph had to keep entertained. But he doesn't usually have any problem with that.


Farewell, fine Georgia! Until next time! But please don't rain like that again!