Rat-> Mouse -> MICE HUNT!

I stand corrected. We are actually dealing with MICE here. How do we know? We keep seeing them!!! Our 1st attempt was this...


Failed. And we probably just invited more mice into the shed because I'm sure squeak got around that the Palmers have tasty peanut butter. So, on to another option.. poison! Apparently they nibble on it and get so dehydrated that they go out looking for water... and die there. Kind of sad, but good for us since they won't all die in our shed.
But there's just one problem. The mice are kind of cute... I hate to say it, but it's true. James even named 2 of them. I told him you can't name them and then poison them!
This is what we see when we open the shed...


This is Sam. We put 2 big bars of the poison in there, and they were gone the next day!! Do we have an army in there, or is Sam just that hungry? He does look kind of chunky...
We've since put in 2 more bars, and they've been munched on too. We just hope we don't have to see Sam and his friends dead in our yard next to the puddles. I'm sure it'll be any day now... So long, little rodents.

Rat Hunting

James went out to get the lawn mower from the shed last weekend only to find tons of pellets on the ground. That only meant one thing.... a RAT! James and I both HATE those things, but who really likes them? So, right away he went to Home Depot to get a mouse trap. The guy at the store said there's not a rat in the city that can get by this nasty trap. So James lathered it with peanut butter and set it in the shed. While he was out there, it was confirmed that there was a small rodent in there.... because it scurried away when he went in! Ahh!! Well, the next day rolled around and James went out there to inspect.... only to find that we've still got ourselves a very clever rat on our property! Every drop of that peanut butter was licked off the trap, but there was no rodent to be found.

To be continued...

Halloween!

Halloween never gets old. I love thinking of costumes, seeing everyone else's ideas, and eating lots of SWEETS! This year we were lucky enough to have 2 different excuses to dress up -- a party the week before Halloween and Halloween night. The only sad thing was not getting to dress up as a teacher at school this year.

So our first costume was from a children's book (James says it's famous) that I didn't know until he introduced me... If You Give a Mouse a Cookie. Every time James eats cookies, he always wants milk. And he always quotes, "Well, if you give a mouse a cookie..." which I didn't understand at first. He found the book in the store and proved to me it was a real book, so now it's one of our favorite little stories. I read it to him every night. Ok, no, but I did get it for our anniversary as a little joke. And it's not just any book; it has 4 of those If You Give a ____ a _____ stories in it with recipes and songs! What's not to like? Anyway, our costume idea bloomed into this...

So then on actual Halloween, we dressed up like this....

And when I was wrapping James up with sheet strips, I was reminded of one of my all-time favorite costumes...

Courtney and I were Egyptian mummies for a ward party, and everyone was probably jealous that they didn't think to wear gold face paint. ha I don't even look like myself. Oh, how I miss Courtney.

This year, we only had 1 round of trick-or-treaters, but that's probably because we turned our light off after they came, or word got around that we only gave out 1 piece of candy. Either way, we had a great time, and I'm happy I still have candy left over to eat for the next few weeks!