Garden Pictures

Mom asked for some pictures of the itty bitty bell peppers so I thought I'd update all the plants. I didnt get a full garden shot. I never think about it! You can also see my awfully dry oklahoma soil in most of the pictures! It just rained this morning and it was already dry and cracked by the afternoon.

My one lonely corn stalk is as tall as me. It has two ears growing on it!!! I'm thinking about taking the ears to the grow shop along with this picture when they are bigger. (If they get bigger!) (The lady at the grow shop told me it wasnt possible for one stalk of corn to grow alone)


The itty bitty bell pepper. This one is a couple of days old.

The biggest roma tomato. It has been big and green for a while now.

My first red cayenne pepper!! Almost ready to pick!

Small bell pepper

These are actually my biggest bell peppers and they are medium-sized. I just cant get a picture that shows how big they are.

I have bad news....

I tweet.

Well, technically, Allison at GSO Weddings tweets. Yes, I signed GSO (Glass Slipper Occasions) up for twitter and began tweeting on Friday. As much sadness as that has brought my family so far, its been great for business!! Ok so no actual clients have signed a contract yet but within 24 hours of signing up I got photos from a photographer who had been putting me off for months!!! (Thats HUGE!) The more photos I get from photographers the better my online portfolio looks and the more (potentially) clients I can get.

I know what you're thinking, though, who on earth would care that I had chicken for dinner last night? Well right now, 11 people. (which means I'm wildly unpopular in twitterland- the people I actually know on twitter (not celebrities or news outlets) have between 33 and 395 followers.) Thats what they're called- followers. You should join just to say you have followers! And actually you don't tweet about chicken. UNLESS the chicken reminded you of the fantastic chicken a client had on the menu at her wedding last month and you're going to post a link to the pictures. THATS twitter! It's just another social network but this one works great for business! I can't figure out why a person would tweet about regular life all the time. But I won't dwell on that. I need the non-business people to have twitter accounts so they will follow me and then click on the link to my website and book a wedding!

Peyton in the pool

Here are a few videos of Peyton in the pool. I accidentally recorded them on 'compress' mode so I dont know how they'll turn out. I'll take better video next time!

The first video is just of him swimming. He does a really good job already!

The next one is him blowing bubbles like his daddy.

The third one is him jumping off the ladder. I thought he was getting out of the pool the first time I saw him do it so I told him to get down. I don't know what he's yelling before he jumps, I think maybe 'down' or 'now' since I told him to 'get down now'. I don't know!

June Update

Well its time for another update. Can you believe this time next month Peyton will be TWO?? It's hard to believe! On the other hand he seems so grown up!


It's always hard to remember what we've been up to over the last month! I had a marathon of weddings this month so I've been pretty busy with work. Last weekend was the first weekend I had off in a month so I really enjoyed some downtime. The garden is doing well. Brandon and Joe have eaten a few jalapenos already and everything else is getting ready to ripen. It's going to be hard to keep up with watering this summer. Last week was in the 100's ever day. The poor garden is pretty wilty!


Speaking of heat, we decided to get a pool that the whole family could enjoy. We spent the several days in it last week and it was wonderful! Of course we all got our innagural sunburns, too! Some worse than others! If there was ever any doubt, I can promise that you can, in fact, burn skin that is under the water!


Now that Brandon is off in the afternoons and it's too hot to cool off the garage, he'll probably join us in the pool. It's also too hot to golf! One day he and his friend Ryan decided to golf in the afternoon and then cool off in the pool. The one thing they neglected to factor in was that the pool is more like bathwater temperature right now. It wasn't the refreshing swim they had planned!


Peyton and I spent a couple of days with our neighbor friends last week. I watched their twins while their regular babysitter was home with her sick child. I took a picture of them on the couch. They were so cute playing together!! The girls are 3 months older than Peyton.

Well I think we sound positively boring this month! But thats okay with me! Its too hot to do much right now and things will pick up soon!!

See you next month with Peyton's birthday recap!!

This is what summer is all about!

Here are the pictures from our very fun day in the pool! I don't know how hot it got today but it was HOT! I did catch the 7 day forecast, though, and it read: Tu - 100, We - 100, Th - 100, Fr - 100, Sa - 98, Su - 98, Mo - 98. So I"m thinking we'll be back in the pool all week! Poor Brandon had to work today. I think he called for 'updates' on the pool three times!

Soo happy!!

I'm afraid Peyton is going to think Daddy is more fun than Mom in the pool...

It is a little funny that I got NO pictures of Peyton in his life jacket! He spent 1/2 the day in it! When its just the two of us he wears the life jacket and sits in his ring! And I wonder why Daddy is more fun...! Oh well! There are more eyes and hands around when Daddy is in the pool.

This is how the pool fits in the yard. We put two stepping stones on the edge of the garden so that you can go ahead and step in the garden without hurting anything.

It kind of is nice having the garden right there, though. At dinner we had an onion on the grill and Brandon wanted to have a couple of jalapenos with it. So we just plucked a couple of jalapenos out of the garden and threw them on the grill. Doesnt get better than that!

Two things I've learned

I learned two things yesterday. First, you know those personality tests that tell you that you are a lion or a bear or a whatever? Well Brandon and I must be lizards. Second, Brandon isn't allowed to go with me to make purchases of any kind.

I'll explain... I discovered that we are lizards because, like lizards, we will continue to fill our living spaces until they burst at the seams. We've seen this in many instances. We had to buy the TV that we bought in order to fill the hole in the TV cabinet completely. There was to be no space on any side of the TV. We regularly would purchase things that didn't fit in our vehicle. It would ALMOST fit. Sometimes it was too big by even 1/4 of an inch.

That leads me to why Brandon isn't allowed to go with me to make purchases. He was already banned from going with me to purchase electronics. We can shop together but when we make our final decision, I go alone and get a store associate to help me take the thing to the car. Like the TV, we went to Walmart to buy a small, $50 pool yesterday. It was a great deal, it had a filter like I wanted and it was small enough to fit in the backyard with no problem. We have the garden, after all, so space is an issue.

Oh my.... We now have a 15 foot wide, 4 foot deep pool wedged into our backyard. Its going to be fantastic on the 100 degree days (which we've already had one or two)! But the widest place in the backyard is 16 feet.... Seriously.

Somehow the thing expanded another foot once it was actually up correctly. I'll have to add another picture today to show you how it actually fits in there.

Kristine and Joe and Kathy came to help us put it up. They were funny when they arrived- Kristine said that when they drove up she commented that she was surprised we needed help; she thought we were getting a pretty small pool. Kathy said 'she must have taken Brandon with her'!

(By the way, it sounds like I"m really complaning about the pool. I'm not. I'm just still in shock!) We can afford it- this one was actually (mathematically) a better deal than anything in the store and this way our entire family can enjoy it. The other one was really more for me and Peyton. I just wasn't prepared for a pool of this size! Actually, neither was Brandon. For two intelligent people, our spatial recognition seems to be a little off! For the record, though, I did measure the yard. But that was when we were going to buy an 8ft pool. I only measured the part of the yard that we were going to put THAT in!

Well, I'm off to enjoy! Come visit sometime!

The first jalapeno of the season

This is our very first pick from the garden! It's a little small but I wanted to pick the first peppers a little early to keep the plant going strong. It's ready to eat so off it came! I think I'll let the next batch mature a little more. I dont know- I have so many jalapenos I can probably get every stage of heat from them! Not that I even eat them...

The cayenne are getting there. They're pretty long but still green. I want those to be red when I pick them.

Oh! And the bell peppers either have mind-reading powers or an internet connection... The very day I wrote about their lack of growth on here I went out to water in the evening and they had all begun to bud! Once those things get started they're off! Already I have one that's pretty big. They are about the cutest thing when they are really small, though! All of them are, actually! Teeny tiny little versions of themselves!

Photo Update

I thought it was time for a photo update. The first picture is from swimming at Uncle Joe's parent's pool. The rest are from our family day at HeyDay. Its one of those pizza places with games and activities.



Peyton was tired after swimming! Watching daddy putt

Getting a putting lesson

Learning to drive a manual

Snake Count

Oh- the snake count is up to 7 now. I found 1/2 of one after the guys mowed yesterday. And my poor toad got caught too. I have mixed feelings about his passing. I believe is one mission in life was to give me a heart attack. I swear he almost succeeded a few times. He would jump out at me when I was turning on the water sometimes but then I got used to that and he moved down to the corner of the house and would jump out of my way just as I was about to step on him. But he was the one welcome animal in my backyard! Oh well! His brother lives in the front yard and as far as I know he is still jumping around somewhere.

I just realized that I needed to ammend what I just wrote. Peyton is hilarious when he is A LITTLE tired. When he is a lot tired, there is nothing funny about it. In fact he throws fits so terrible that the dogs don't even want to be around. They line up at the door and want out of the house when he throws a tired fit! Its funny that the dogs rush out of the house but the fits themselves are no where near funny! Just had to clarify that one!

Peyton's Tired Talking

Right now I'm waiting on Peyton to settle down for his nap. He's in his room now talking to me. He's saying (sometimes yelling) 'Mama Done!' over and over. Which I'm pretty sure translates to "mama, I'm done with my nap'. Its pretty funny. He's not upset, he's just telling me that he's done! (lately he's 'done' with everything! He just learned to say it last week)

This morning I listened to him on the monitor for about an hour just talking and singing to himself!

Last night I went in to check on him before I went to bed and he'd been asleep for a while but I thought I woke him up. I think I did a little bit but not really. When I opened the door he sat right up in bed, eyes open and started looking around and said 'ball... ball... ball...' like he was looking for his ball. Then I told him to lay back down and go back to sleep and he did. but then he raised his head back up and smiled and said 'da-deee, da-deee!' (thats how he says daddy) and then layed back down and went back to sleep! I'm pretty sure he was asleep the whole time and was kind of talking in his sleep but it was really funny! He is hilarious when he's tired! I"m just glad he can entertain himself!

Garden update

Peyton is enamoured with Nemo right now so I'll take another minute to update about the garden. When last I wrote Brandon had come out and said it 'wasn't cutting it'. Well since then it has been thriving. I actually found a watermelon vine! I know, you're thinking, 'how could you lose it?' Well, I'm not sure, really. I thought they all had died but this one was growing along the grass line and I couldnt see it until I almost pulled it up as a weed. It's doing great now! The corn is almost as tall as me but, of course, just the one stalk! We are about to have more jalapenos than we know what to do with! We don't actually eat jalapenos... I think Brandon just wanted to see how much stuff we could grow. So I dont know what we're going to do with them all but I"m sure we'll find some takers! The cayenne peppers are right behind the jalapenos just growing and growing. we'll have a bunch of those too but at least we'll eat those. I planted some new onions and the little babies are doing well. The one is getting pretty big. The lettuce plants are still growing. They seem to take forever! But as long as they don't get eaten by something I"ll be happy. The tomato plants are just huge! I have a bunch of little green romas all over. SOO happy about those!! And then my sweet peppers are taking their sweet time. Still no little buds on them. But they were also the last to sprout so we'll see what they do. I think it will be winter before I get a whole bell pepper!

The lawn guy was just here so I think we probably better fill up the baby pool and get to some garden maintenance before the weeds start to take.

Our tax dollars hard at work!

I forgot to tell you the story of how the giant tree branch pile got picked up by the city. I've been neglecting all of my blogging lately. Sounds like tonight I better spend some quality time writing! (Really, it's called work for me!)

But about the debris pile. It was kind of a funny day... We diligently moved our enormous pile of branches from the backyard (where it had been for about two weeks) out to the curb. While we were at it brandon cut down some more from the front tree. (A whole other funny story) So the pile on the sidewalk ended up higher than the mail box and longer than the Yukon. That was Sunday afternoon. Big trash day is on Monday. So Monday rolled around and no trash truck came which is pretty typical. The only day they've ever come on Monday is the one month I forgot to put my stuff out until Monday night. So I figured they'd just come on Tuesday. And they did! I excitedly watched them pick up a refrigerator, old bicycles, chairs and other large items. And then I watched them drive right by my house... I thought they must have needed to come at our house at a different angle so they were going around the block or something to come back. (our house is at a funny angle to the rest of the street) But they never came back. I was so sad!!! Our huge pile of branches was just sitting there on the side of the road! They couldn't have possibly missed it! AND a storm was coming so the wind was blowing small branches all over the place. Then I was mad! I pulled up the number for the city and was all ready to call them and demand that they come back but it was lunch time and Peyton was more demanding at the time. So I decided I'd call after lunch. Well then Brandon came home and when I told him what happened he was madder than me! So we were sitting at the table steaming and eating lunch and he looked up (and out the window), smiled and said 'they're here!'. And were they ever! They hadn't neglected us! They had to go back for reinforcements! Just for us, they came back with a second truck that had a huge retrieving arm and stabilizers for the truck itself! I wish I had taken a picture! The one with the arm pulled up next to the pile and these stabilizing feet came out of the side. Then the regular trash truck pulled up next to that one. The crane arm picked up the branches and deposited them into the regular truck. I think it took three scoops to get it all. Then the legs retracted back into the truck, the guys hopped back in and they were off! The whole thing probably took three minutes. It was hilarious! Mostly because we were in disbelief that all of that was just for our pile of branches!

Really, I wish I had a picture or a video or something. It was very comical. But it was even better because we were so sure our lazy trash men had seen our big pile and said 'nah, we'll get it next month.' (Or something to that effect!) (and no, I don't REALLY think they are lazy. I'm very glad they are willing to pick up our disgusting trash!)

Baby peppers

So Blogger is just another outlet for my procrastinating... I have a million things I need to get done tonight but I'm just sitting here eating popcorn and reading other people's blogs. And now I'm going to brag about my little peppers!

I found 3 (I think) teeny little jalapenos today and one itty bitty cayenne pepper!! I'm so excited! I just love it when I raise little plants! I kept forgetting to take the camera out so pictures will have to come later. They had better not get eaten by rodents tonight! (or any other night)

AND I think I found a living watermelon plant! I thought they all had died but I found a long vine hiding on the side of the garden when I was pulling weeds today. Woo hoo!

I have to brag on my garden because Brandon came out and inspected it yesterday and said that it wasn't cutting it!!! ... I know!!! I was offended!! Pretty much all that lived were peppers and tomatoes. We'll have one lonely onion and two lettuce plants but that's it. The one corn stalk is just growing and growing but it's by itself so it won't produce anything. He said that a local grow shop sells vegetable plants for a dollar when they get to be a foot high. So I guess I"m going to go by once a week and see if I can replace some of the ones we lost.

Not cutting it.... I think it's doing pretty awesome!