Max and Georgia

Meet Maxfield.

He goes by Max. Max has been staying at our house for almost four weeks. His mom and dad are in Italy. I can tell that Max misses them.

Meet Georgia.

Georgia is Max's sister (adopted, not biological). She's staying with us too. Please don't say anything to Georgia about her pudgy waistline. She knows.

Georgia and PD have a rivalry going on over almost everything. Max seldom gets involved. If PD has a toy, Georgia must have it. If Georgia has a toy, PD wants it.

I won't even mention PD's jealousy when Max or Georgia get attention from me.

I'll just say that PD has issues.

Big issues.

Every once in a while, Max decides to join in the fray. Good thing I stocked up on stuffed animals at some garage sales.

Used to be Secret Sweet Treats

Last year my daughter found out that there are some little things her dad and I don't share with her.

She was surprised.

Perhaps even shocked..

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But since the cat is out of the bag, I have no qualms about sharing the secret here.

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My husband and I have, over the years, made homemade ice cream sandwich cookies, put them in freezer and not shared them with our kids. We had a few reasons we kept them for ourselves. We used expensive, what I refer to as "much to good for children ice cream", and knew they wouldn't appreciate it; we also knew that if the kids knew about these, they'd be gone in one day; finally, it was something we did as a couple and it was fun to keep it a secret from the kids!

In fact, if I hadn't been caught red-handed with chocolate cookie coffee ice cream sandwich in hand last summer, it would still be our little secret.

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Normally, I use a premium coffee ice cream but I was experimenting, so I used a regular ice cream.

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You could make the cookies from scratch but I love these brownie cookies from the grocery store.

They are super yummy. Obviously, you can use whatever flavor of cookie or ice cream you like.

If you buy a box of ice cream, it's easy to slice the ice cream up after it is a bit soft. This is peanut butter ice cream. Coffee ice cream is my favorite.

I cut out the ice cream with the top of a glass so it would fit nicely on the cookie. If you get ice cream in a pint container, cut open the container and slice it. It will already be in round shapes so you don't need to cut it into rounds.

Top the cookie with the ice cream and top it with another cookie.They taste great right away or if you prefer the cookies frozen, wrap them in plastic wrap and put them in the freezer. If you are hiding them from your kids, put the wrapped cookies in a non-see-through plastic container labeled "leftovers"

Be vewy vewy quiet, I'm hunting wabbits

A few days after planting my herbs and greens, I walked out to my garden and found this.....

A rabbit had been to my newly planted salad bar and had all he could eat. He ate my parsley and cilantro down to the ground.

I. WAS. NOT. HAPPY.

I sprayed some rabbit deterrent spray around my garden. I've heard that you can make your own rabbit deterrent spray with water, cayenne pepper and dishwashing liquid. I don't think this spray is made with peppers; the bottle says it is all organic. I don't want to know what's in it.

I came home to find that my neighbors had joined me in my quest to rid my garden of rabbits. They put this sign in my garden.

I am happy to report that either the rabbit spray or the Elmer Fudd sign have successfully rid my herbs and greens garden from rabbits.

Unfortunately, the rabbits decided to move to my big vegetable garden and eat all of my peas and beans.... a fence is now in place around that garden.

This garden is looking pretty good now. We've had a couple of great salads. Thanks Elmer.