Are you ever afraid of becoming your parents?

I think I feel that way more than ever now. Whenever I see my brother and sister, like this past weekend, I secretly wonder if they think some of my attributes are like my mom.

I try very hard not to be like my parents. But sometimes, especially when my brother or sister is in the room, I feel like I have mannerisms that are my parents' and not my own. I hate it!

How does one shake that?

Ambidextrous? When does a child show a preference?

I've been watching Evan and he works with boths hands very easily. When will he show whether he's a righty or a lefty? He also relies heavily on his feet.

I think I showed a preference early on. Scott & I are both right-handed. Hmmm......

Curious George lives in my house

I have my very own Curious George! Evan investigates the workings of pretty much everything in the house nowadays. He used to be content with just pulling the silverware out of the dishwasher, but not anymore. Now he's got to take on the entire appliance! He's too cute!

Fern's new baby

Fern gave birth yesterday! Here's a pic of her with her new baby!

Flower and Felix don't appear to mind the new addition.

Happy Father's Day!

Evan decided to climb into his chair all by himself this morning. He is such a little PERSON nowadays. As per Scott's request, we are going to take it easy and grill out today.

As I sit here typing, Evan has crawled into his chair again and is lounging, looking extremely relaxed. Uh oh, now he's climbing onto the ottoman--not so good. He discovered the toilet yesterday, too. Again, not so good. We'll be putting safety latches on the toilets today.

My Rooster and Me

He is the sweetest rooster, I have to say. I think he is the best chicken! I still need a name, though.

Red-spotted Purple Butterfly

Today I got a picture of a red-spotted purple butterfly. It's a very pretty butterfly. The top of his wings are black and blue and the undersides have red spots, hence the name. I also saw a monarch and took a picture of him.

My sister, brother and new sister-in-law are coming over tomorrow. I am going to make them some homemade agnolotti. I'm looking forward to it.

Evan took a few real steps yesterday. At one point, he took 8 steps without holding onto anything. I'm so excited for him.

Tornado dream

I have had dreams about tornados developing near my house for 2 nights in a row. What does that mean? Oh, I should also mention that my mother-in-law and my grandmother-in-law have been visiting since Thursday.

Giant Swallowtail

I saw a beautiful Giant Swallowtail butterfly in the hummingbird garden today. I still want to get a photo of a Black Swallowtail that's been hanging around, too.

My rooster wandered into the front garden yesterday. I snapped a pic of him crowing. It looks like it takes a lot of energy to crow. His little neck has to contort into an elongated position that does not look comfortable. I'm continuing to feed the chickens sweet corn puffs as a treat. Evan still won't eat them but he does enjoy the strawberry apple flavor puffs.

He and Scott are on the swing holding the chickens' can of puffs.

Netflix

I don't have any sort of cable or satellite, so if I want to watch anything that does not come on the major networks or PBS, I turn to netflix. I used to love them. I say used to b/c now I can't really watch them much anymore. Evan demands a lot of attention and it gets to be frustrating to have to keep rewinded over and over again to catch a missed phrase or plot point. An hour long HBO show can take a couple of days to get through.

Despite that, I have been trying to get through the latest season of Entourage on dvd. So far, I've finished disc 2, and I think there might be only one disc left--woohoo. Thank God I can keep these dvd's for as long as it takes for me to get through them.

I am really enjoying Entourage. It kind of makes up for not having other shows like Arrested Development, Six Feet Under and Sex and the City on anymore.

I think my all-time favorite show will always be Arrested Development. I miss it so much.

I had to run outside right quick b/c Buddy, one of my steer, was munching on one of my roses. I ran him off, came in, sat down and saw him munching on my newly planted grape vine! So, I took a picture of him and then ran him off, again.

Homemade Pasta - yum!

I just finished a bowl of pasta I made all by myself! I took a pasta making class at Whole Foods over the weekend and it was WONDERFUL! I highly recommend their classes. It was a day-long class. We started out int he morning, learning a basic pasta dough and some sauces. Then we broke for lunch and ate what we had made that morning, then spent the afternoon making ravioli and agnolotti. We made regular pasta, tomato, spinach, whole wheat, black pepper and herb pastas. Some of the sauces we made included: red pepper cream sauce, a tomato sauce w/basil, capers & olives and arugula pesto. Some of the ravioli fillings included: eggplant & goat cheese, spinach & walnut, and a 4 cheese filling.

My favorite was the arugula pesto so I made that again at home for Scott and myself.

My pasta machine worked beautifully! Just like the ones we used at cooking class.

Pasta making is a little labor intensive but it's certainly not hard. It's a lot of fun and it's cool to be able to add whatever you want to the dough, creating your own "signature" pasta.

I think I'd like to take a pastry class at some point, too.

Good Rains Bring Out the Wildlife

We had a great thunderstorm last night, so that made for an interesting morning. After I fed Evan I was washing dishes and saw something catch my eye out the kitchen window. There she was, a feral pig rooting around near the barn. I got my camera and went out to take a few shots. There were 7 pigs of various sizes out there. Unfortunately, they're quick and I couldn't get a shot of them all together. The one picture I was hoping to get didn't turn out--it's all fuzzy, but I'll put it up anyway b/c a momma pig is looking right at me and she looks kinda spooky with those little glowing eyes.

I came inside and went back to the dishes when I saw Mr. Turkey hanging around with the cows and donkeys. So, I grabbed my camera and went back outside and took a few pictures of him. We usually start out with about a dozen baby turkeys and then we have just one or two that hang around toward the end of the season.

I love our wildlife.

I also got a couple of pictures of the cows. Anabelle had her first calf about a week ago and she's really cute. She's the little brown and white one. In one of the pictures, she's checking out one of the older calves. Primetime, our bull, is in the foreground.