SNAKE!!!!!

Today while I was mowing the grass I looked and saw this skinny snake slithering through the grass. I must have stirred it up with the mower. It slithered under a rock to hide from me. Well, I kept going about my job thinking should I, or shouldn't I?? Well, I did!! I got Nathan's butterfly net and set to work to capture the snake. It was a fast little thing but I managed to catch it and put it in Nathan's bug habitat. it is sitting there and when the kids come home from school I will show it to Nathan and Kayla and I will be the coolest mom in town. After I captured it I decided to see if it was venomous or not. From what I have found, it is a Gulf Coast Ribbon Snake and it is not, but I am forever skeptical and will not take any chances. We will feed it a cricket and a grasshopper, that was captured from yesterday and watch to see if it is hungry.

We did feed it the grasshopper and cricket, but it did not eat them. After dinner we released it back where I had found it and watched it slither into the grass and disappear, try as they may the kids were unable to find it and it was gone.

JUMP!!!

Kayla and Emily like to jump off the end of the bed and look in the mirror as they do it. They usually do a little dance before they jump. Here are some fun pictures of them jumping.

Full Bloom

My bougainvillea's are doing GREAT!! They have lots of green leaves and even more pink flowers. I may try to plant some of them in the ground this Spring, that is if I can keep them alive through the winter!!

Where's your belly?

The other day I was taking pictures of the girls and this fortunate accident occured with Maddie.

Cicada's

This morning on my walk the pine trees had about 100 Cicada shells on them, they must have come out over night. When the kids came home from school we walked down to the tree to pick some shells. Plus I knew they, Nathan, would enjoy seeing all of the shells. They had fun running from tree to tree picking shells from the trees. there was one cicada that was unable to get out before it's body hardened and it died half out of the shell. Then there was one half hanging out of the shell that we all thought was dead, so I pulled it off the tree and went to put it into Nathan's container. As I went to drop it in it's legs were moving, we watched it fall out of the shell and then it proceeded to try to climb. It must be an instinct to keep climbing regardless. The poor thing came and lived with us for a day then we released it. They are ugly things when the emerge from their shell and soft. The air must harden their bodies and wings. It was fun for us all to see the life cycle of Cicada.

The newborn The one that didn't make it...

soccer season

Well it has begun. Nathan's fall soccer season has started. Nathan is very excited and he has a good time playing soccer. I am glad that he has found something that he enjoys and is good at. He runs all over the field and has fun. He has also started Boy Scouts, he is a Tiger this year and seems to be pretty excited about that as well. The only thing I am not excited about Boy Scouts is, is that it will be 3 times a month on Thursday, the same day he has soccer and at 7PM. This means that he does not get home until 8:30-9Pm. He will be fine and we will all survive. Nathan is busy with activities, now I just have to get Kayla into something, maybe dance??

Kayla

I was looking back at some of the older posts and was reminded of this...

http://pnkhellen.blogspot.com/2007/09/im-not-sweetie-im-kayla.html

Little Helper

Maddie was helping me with the wash today.....