Seriously - What's going on?

I was outside weeding in the side yard this afternoon. Nora was with me. I'm minding my own business, pulling weeds, wishing I had watered the ground this morning so I could actually get the roots out and I hear a rustling. I look up, expecting to see Nora doing something near me. Nope. It was a snake slithering away from me with something in its mouth. I F.R.EAKED out! I yelled to Nora to get inside the fence and ran in there myself. The fence is only waist height so we stood on the other side and watched as it slithered to the opposite side of the air conditioner. I could see its tail and I threw a rock at it to see if it would move. Nope. So I carefully stepped outside of the gate and tip toed over to a better viewing area and saw that it was eating a frog. I had thoughts of sitting there watching it eat the frog, but I was a bit too panicked to do that - and Nora was inching her way out of the backyard, too, to see what was going on. As brilliant as I am, I realized that we could probably see it from the dining room window. Nora and I ran into the house and perched on the window sill and watched for 45 minutes as this thing inhaled the frog. I was fascinated. Nora - not so much:)

This is the snake eating the frog. You may have to click on the picture to get a closer view. The head and the frog blend in with the rocks.

Here is the snake after eating the frog. You can see a big bulge right after its head.

It was pretty fascinating to watch. The frog was still alive when we first got to the window. I didn't think the snake would be able to swallow the big, fat belly of the frog because the snakes head was so small, but obviously I don't know anything.

So I'm a bit worried about this snake business. First, I need to announce that I'm really sick of all of these animals coming to our house uninvited. Dog - okay. Fish - okay. Tadpoles - okay. Racoons - not so much. Snakes - definitely not so much. Second, I'm worried about letting the girls play outside. I don't know where this snake lives, don't know if it is poisonous (anyone I talk to says that we don't have poisonous snakes in Chicago, but this one was black with some red/orange on it - I thought red was a danger sign in nature). Even if it doesn't live in our backyard, it still traveled through the backyard to get to the side yard. What if it lives in the side yard? We have so many weeds that need to be pulled, now I can't do it. I don't think I can even walk through the grass on that side of the yard anymore (you know it will only be on THAT side of the yard, the other side of the yard is completely safe;). What if the girls are minding their own businesses and walk through some leaves that the snake is hiding in and it bites one of them?

We're having a barbecue on Memorial Day and I'm trying to get the backyard looking somewhat presentable. Oh and how about that? What if our new pet bites one of our guests? Oh I needed this situation like a hole in the head.

Our New House

Since our friendly critters came to visit, we have had to make some changes. We were intending to delay some of these things for 6 -18 months, however, our racoon friends changed those plans for us.

Background: Click http://spaces.msn.com/onsecondthot/blog/cns!3467FF50E246E710!1210.entry AND
http://spaces.msn.com/onsecondthot/blog/cns!3467FF50E246E710!1211.entry (sorry, I don't know how to do these link things where you say click here and it takes you where you want to go... anyone want to give me some hints on that?)

We had a few estimates done on our roof, which was in desperate need of replacing (we were going to wait until this fall). One of the roofers told me that the reason the animals were getting at the siding was because the shingles and the siding were rotting away where they meet at the corner of the roof and side of the house. So we could repair the hole, but without a new roof they would get at it again. Now I realize that this may be a roofer selling me a roof, however, we needed to do all of this work anyway - 6 months from now or now. We chose now so that we didn't have to worry about animals anymore.

We had estimates done on repairing the hole and repainting vs. replacing all of the siding. Cheaper to repair and repaint. In addition, if we repainted then we could rid ourselves of the nasty orange trim that Dave hated so much. Presenting:

Before:

After:

Before: *Whats in the window?

After: *check out the window - he's there again:)

I know these photos don't truly show the difference, so I'll try to explain a bit.

Before: The roof was a brownish orange color. The siding was an off white/cream with a yellow tone to it. The trim was burnt orange. The gutters were brown. The brick was very obviously orange.

After: The roof now has a brownish gray color. The siding is a brownish/beige. The trim is a brownish gray (smokey). the gutters match the trim. The brick now looks more brownish than orangish.

We are THRILLED! We feel like we live in a whole new house and are so happy with the results.

2

Our Monkey turned 2 today. Wow! *Cliche alert* It seems like just yesterday that I was pregnant with her and tearing paneling off of my family room walls and painting the ceiling at 36 weeks in an effort to start my labor. It seems like just yesterday that we celebrated her 1st birthday playing at the mall and eating cookies. She's such a big girl:)

Here's some of the things she did on her 2nd birthday:


Ate breakfast with Daddy and Nora and Baby Elmo (who was in Georgia's high chair when I came downstairs)


Colored on PAPER (not the walls) with a pen.


Played nicely with her sis.





Had a blue sucker for a treat.


Got upset when I tried to get a picture of her blue tongue.




Had birthday cupcakes after dinner


















26 obscure facts about our newest 2 year old monkey (thanks for the idea, Missy:):
1. She likes to draw with a pen on paper (as of last week... before paper it was walls - she's so advanced now that she's 2)
2. She just started sleeping in a toddler bed rather than a crib.
3. She takes a nap from 1:30-5:00pm every day that we are home (I know some of you are jealous)
4. She likes to draw on her own body with ink pen.
5. She likes to take baths with her big sis.
6. The way she says "Yea Georgia" is so adorable - she is sincerely proud of her sister every time Georgia rolls over.
7. She is progressing very quickly in terms of her speech therapy.
8. She will attempt to say almost any word I ask - unless it has the vowel sound e in it (long e).
9. She adores her daddy.
10. She prefers her mom to anyone else.
11. When we pull into the church parking lot she starts yelling, "Doug! Doug! Doug!"
12. She says Bye by saying, "maaah maaah" so I always have to stop and figure out if she's calling me or saying goodbye to the house as we pull out of the driveway
13. She rarely cries because she is hurt.
14. She rarely gets hurt.
15. She just started to get spanked.
16. She is destined to be spanked a lot:)
17. She climbs up the swingset and slides down the slide on her own.
18. She hated her baby swing as a baby.
19. NOW she climbs into the baby swing all the time and just swings and smiles.
20. She looooves to swing on the swing set and giggles the entire time.
21. She loves Elmo and the teletubbies.
22. When we're looking for her around the house we yell out, "LaLa" and her response is "Po" (the 2/4 of the teletubbies that she will name - the other two, Dipsy and Tinky Winky have that e sound in their names).
23. She loves speech therapy and her therapist, Miss Sue.
24. She eats the flesh of a pickle spear, but leaves the skin.
25. When she eats apples, she takes a bite and spits out the skin on the floor (lovely, eh?)
26. She just loves to go away. Every morning when she gets dressed she starts saying, "Go? Go?!" and brings her shoes to me and signs and says "Shoes" over and over. Every morning she ends up crying because we're not going away that very minute.

We didn't have a chance to really celebrate her birthday tonight because Dave had a meeting. We will be celebrating on Saturday night after church - more pictures to come, I'm sure:)