Today, on my way home from town, I was driving on a gravel road with long grass on both sides.   I noticed something that looked like an animal in the road, and I started slowing down. When I got closer, I realized it was a family of brown field rats!   Now, I know the word "rat" generally conjures up some negative feelings, but they were soooo cute!  The mother rat was in the middle of the road, with at least 10 baby rats following around behind her.... following just like baby ducks!

I stopped the car completely and watched them as they found something in the middle of the road and started nibbling on it. I grabbed my camera quickly, hoping to get a picture of them all together, but unfortunately, the mother started running and all the tiny baby mice ran back into the field as I was walking towards them.  I expected as much, but sometimes I have gotten lucky!

There was one tiny rat who decided to stay out though, and I was able to take a photo of him.  He just looked at me and let me get within inches so I could take a nice picture.   The kids were thrilled to see what the baby rat looked like up close. lol

I have passed this area by the highway filled with beautiful Wild Daisies every day for the last week, and was determined that one day I would stop and take pictures of them . I finally pulled over at the side of the road today to capture them while they're still pretty.   There were so many!

This is going to be a very long post (LOTS of pictures!), so you'll have to click the link that says "MORE" to get to the rest of the post.     
 
I wanted to make some homemade pasta the other day, and found some recipes on the internet.
I made a couple of recipes a few times, and loved the noodles.  The only thing I would like to be a little different is to be able to get the noodles a little thinner....I  don't have a pasta roller (but I do plan on getting one soon), so the noodles are a bit thicker than the kind you'd buy at the store. But they're so good, it really doesn't matter to me, as long as you get that nice, homemade flavor in them!      Here is how you can make homemade noodles from scratch, without a pasta roller:

First, pour two cups of flour on a cutting board or other flat surface:



Make a well in the center of the flour pile:
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This morning, I was walking around outside, when I realized how many tiny little spiderwebs were on the ground. You know those little spiderwebs that you barely notice, cause they're so small? maybe about 1-2 inches long?   These were just covered with perfect little tiny dewdrops....

This is why I love the macro option on my digital camera.  I love being able to get really close to something and take a really nice, clear picture of it.    I had so much fun with these spiderwebs...

I think they are absolutely beautiful!!!








 
Doesn't this one look just like a bunch of bubbles??


And this one looks like a splash of water.

We had some intense storms yesterday!   There were tornado warnings all over, and we had to go into the storm shelter again (we have to do that often this time of year).    

While we were in the storm shelter, we heard a loud cracking noise and a crash, and we looked right across through the door of the shelter, and a big tree had been blown over.    

I always liked that tree too -I'm going to miss it.   About a year or two ago, I took a picture of the same tree here- I see this field every time I go to the mailbox:



And here is what the tree looks like today- so sad.


This morning, I drove around our road and saw some of the other damage that was done yesterday.  I was only able to take this shot from the car window, but it is a huge tree that fell over:


Here's another one, from down the road....


You could really smell the cedar:


Here is next door's tree that fell over (at the grandma and grandpas' house):



There are trees all over the place like this, and there are telephone lines down and all kinds of stuff.
We're fortunate nothing but a couple of trees came down around us.

On a good note, while we were in the storm shelter, I realized that the lighting there is just perfect for picture taking.  I took this picture of Bonnie...I just LOVE the way it turned out!!   She was watching the storm and was oblivious to the fact that I was taking her picture.  



Then I had to take one of Noah, of course:


And I tried to take one of Caleb, but he wanted to just make silly faces so I decided not to. lol
 
Our power was out for a few hours after the storm hit, and then our cable was out until this morning.   It is a beautiful day today.

I haven't written about it here for a while, but I am still working on the book about miscarriage, which I started on several months ago.  I have been trying to juggle many things at once lately, so the progress on the book has been slow, but I am definitely still working on it and hope to have many more sections added to it in the next few months.

I have a few more questions for those of you who have experienced miscarriage, if any of you might be willing to share:

• What questions did you have during/after your miscarriage? We all seek for many answers, but what kind of questions perplexed you the most?

• If you had a funeral/memorial service for your unborn baby, can you possibly share some of the details of your story? (if not through the comments, you can send a private or anonymou email)  Everyone's experience will be a little different, and some women have asked me about in what ways they can have a memorial service for their babies, despite some obstacles they have in their way (for example, many women have the D & C, and sadly, are not allowed to take their baby home, so they are not able to have a physical funeral, and some women do not live in an area where they could have a burial outside their home, etc.)  I would really like to include in the book, many different examples of ways that they can memorialize their child and have a memorial service for them, despite whatever obstacles come their way.
  

• What advice would you give a woman who is afraid to try again after miscarriage?
  

Thanks in advance for any help you can give. 

It is just so pretty outside! 

I love taking macro shots of little bitty flowers.




Our apples are growing:



And look at how nice our blueberries are getting:


We have 6 bushes which are totally covered in them!


Pretty wildflowers:

This sandwich was to die for!    I had some leftover homemade Italian Bread, and made some sandwiches with it.   The only ingredients are bread, mayo, mustard, (deli) barbeque glazed chicken, and (deli) sliced pepper jack cheese,a sliced tomato, and about 1-2 tbsp butter.

I melted 1-2 tbsp butter on a cookie sheet, and then placed the slices of bread on the butter. Then I added the cheese and chicken, each on their own slices of bread...toasted for a few minutes (till it was browned slightly), and then put the mayo, mustard, and one slice of tomato on it.   Yummy!



Notice the ooey gooey cheese oozing out in this picture.

Friday, I was looking for ideas for games, and found a bunch online. 

My favorite was one game idea where you you line your kids up on one side of a room, give them a basket full of clothes, have them put on each item of clothing in the basket, then run to the end of the room, take the item of clothing off, and then run back to their original position where they try to put on another item of clothing. The first one to have all of the clothes transferred from one side of the room to the other in this fashion wins!  

I decided this was worthy of being videotaped.  My kids LOVED this game (although I had to really encourage Bonnie, so that she would stay in- you'll notice I'm cheering Bonnie on throughout the first part of the movie).  It was a lot of fun for all of us.   In the second part of the movie, Noah wants to play, so he ends up using Bonnie's stack of clothes. I thought it was so funny seeing him in one of my shirts (looked like he was wearing a dress). He didn't care.    



So much fun.