Random Baking...

Yesterday I must have been channeling in on my inner Betty Crocker, it was at least 95 degrees out and yet I felt totally compelled to bake a pineapple upside down cake. I have not eaten this kind of cake in at least 15 years and have never actually made one but for some strange reason I thought that it was a fantastic activity for the afternoon. I plopped the little one in her high chair with some Cheerios and we got our bake on! I used the recipe that came on the box of Duncan Hines pineapple supreme cake mix.

It was a super easy recipe to follow. I did however use the juice out of the pineapple can in place of some of the water (which in reading several recipes you aren't suppose to do that) but fortunately it worked out great.

Here is the fresh out of the oven photo.

Less than 24 hours later, here is what remains...

Sad but true we have just left the knife on the plate for nibbling purposes. In our defense, I did give a big piece to our next door neighbor last night. I think she almost hesitated to take it because of the horror stories she has heard from hubby about some of my new and fantastic recipes disasters, but her love of sweets won out and she took the slice. I think she will be pleasantly surprised!

Hubby was definitely surprised, he turned me down the first 6 times I asked if he wanted to try it. I had already eaten a quarter of the cake by then so when he finally relented it was for "a SMALL piece". He ended up going back for much larger 2nds and 3rds! This is not great for the bathing suit season but so YUMMY!

The Guilty Party...

I think the pictures pretty much speak for themselves. I discovered the little culprit last night while out watering the rest of the garden. I had suspected the larger than life crickets that live in our area but I now know that it was this creepy crawly and his two friends!

They are tough to spot until there were no leaves to hide behind. Not only did they eat every leaf off the plant but they ate through the first of my tomatoes. I am so mad!!!

These guys are impossible to pry off the plant they are holding onto. I ended up breaking off limbs to remove them because poking them with a stick didn't work! I threw two over the fence but I still have one still attached to a piece of plant sitting on the back steps. I am so tempted to torture him with a magnifying glass in the hot South Carolina sun!

I just don't think I was meant to grow my own produce!

Here is a random picture of the kid from my cel phone

just for fun!

Surprisingly for a cheap phone it takes pretty good photos.

Happy Wednesday!

Just to catch ya'll up...

I have been totally slacking in the blogging department lately. No excuse other than pure laziness! Now that the weather has warmed to sweltering we have been spending a lot of time outside in the baby pool! The little one loves to play in it and it eats up a big chunk of time that we would ordinarily be bored finding an indoor activity!

In other news the garden is still doing fairly well, I haven't managed to kill all of the plants yet! However, every squash and zucchini that has grown has been eaten by our mystery garden pest! I suspect that it is the rat that was living behind our storage building but am not completely positive. The little bastard has not however touched the jalapenos that I now have coming out my eyeballs! Of course the 3 outdoor kitties have obviously not helped fend off the garden pest either...

Pictured above is the laziest of the all, Humpty, sunning himself on the back fireplace, about 6 feet away from where the suspected garden thief is most likely residing! Oh well, I guess my little old lady neighbor was right when she said that I needed to plant enough for both the critters and for us!

Happy Wednesday!

Hump Day...

Cute picture of our mean cat Roxy Moron, not a lot of excitment around here lately!

Happy Hump Day!

Garden Update, etc...

After many days of waiting the garden has almost ripened enough vegetables to actually cook something! As of today I have 2 yellow squashes and 1 zucchini squash that are almost ready to be picked! I also have 3 jalapenos and about a dozen tomato's that will be ready soon. I am so excited that the garden is actually doing fairly well, I have not had great success in the past with my gardening endeavors.

This morning's big excitement was that I took the little one to get her first pair of shoes! We have never really tried to keep shoes on her. About 2 months ago we bought a pair of soft leather bottomed slipper type shoes but did not have much success with those and gave up after the first few times of her pulling them right off.

Her first pair of little sneakers!

Rockin' the new sneaks!

We will see if the new shoes help her walk or make it harder, the test run around the living room before lunch went really well. We will try again outside after nap time!

:)