She's 12

Kerrie turned 12 years old yesterday and we had a nice little party for her. We went to our local CiCi's pizza place and invaded! We counted up that we had 17 kids ages 15 down to 1 hrs old and 4 "adults". And that was three families plus a few grandkids minus a big kid or two. Fun was had by all as there was no shortage of food!

You can almost see everyone

The "adults" plus one of the littlest ones

Birthday girl

A monkey for our monkey

Making her beautimus

Cool craft kit

More monkeying around

Earrings of course

And the iPod shuffle she's been crazy to get!

After the party and some shopping to spend birthday money Lex and I dropped Mykhal and Kerrie off at home to watch movies of Kerrie's choice while we went for Ladie's night out. Kerrie says it was a wonderful birthday!

Birthday surprises

Kerrie is turning 12 this week! As part of her gift she is allowed to get her ears pierced. We were at Walmart last night and decided to surprise her with getting it done a few days early. So.......
One VERY happy girl

With adorable birthstone butterfly earrings filling two more holes in her head

* * * * * * * * *
In other news, the drum on the dryer quit turning on Saturday....the upside is that I was able to get a repairman to come out here tomorrow morning!
For today we are painting Lex's old room and beginning the process of turning it into a library/office. This process will overflow into a masterbedroom partial makeover as well as turning the side bedroom into a workout space. With workout equipment in the house I will then have a spot in the craft building for my herbal crafts.

I am continuing to work toward my goal of running a 5k. The process is slow but it's going. Kids are nearly done with this year's schooling. The kitten needs to be renamed Mischief. And my project list seems to be growing instead of shrinking.
Life continues to never be dull....wouldn't have it any other way!

My Very First Garden

I have not ever in my 20 years of marriage had a garden of my own until this year! And I almost waited too late to get things in, but it's doing nicely. It's a small container garden and I have learned TONS about spacing and such with this garden. I placed it in a semi protected area. Living in West Tx the wind never stops and the heat gets INTENSE! But our house is "C" shaped and so I have a small courtyard in front of my kitchen window on the East side. It's been the PERFECT spot! I took two old tractor tires, and some small plastic bins, a trash can for the potatoes, some rich soil from a friend's farm, a watering system, and some decent looking plants and TA-DA.......

The pvc tubing you see holds up the bird netting I placed over the garden. It stands 5 ft high.

Tomatoes

Cantaloupe after I pruned the dickens out of it! and we wills till have melons out our ears if all the blooms make!

Zucchini

Basil

I also planted potatoes that didn't make, strawberries that needed more shade and died, the greenbeans got choked out by the cantaloupe, the yellow squash didn't stand a chance against the zucchini, my cilantro was overwhelmed by my basil, I do have jalapenos planted, mexibells (hot bell peppers) are producing, other bell peppers and cucumber are at least still alive, and one of my blackberry plants got uprooted by a nosy dog. But we have already enjoyed several small roma grape tomatoes, and the zucchini is starting to come in. This is the first one we got and it's 29.1 oz! That's an inkpen next to it.

I'm already starting to plan for a larger garden next year!