Surprise infestation and Peter's birthday

So last fall when Peter and I were hiking in the mountains, I found a really cool cocoon  It looked a little harder than most cocoons  but I thought, "they must need to be more tough out here in the desert." I brought it home and just set it on the window sill, thinking how fun it would be to have a butterfly in the spring.  Well, The first week of March I started noticing these tiny, little baby preying mantises around the kitchen  I had never seen a baby one and I kept thinking how strange that they were getting in the house.  By the 10th one, the light bulb was finally starting to fire on and I realized I better look up exactly y what type of "cocoon" I had brought home.  Well, you guessed it. It was not a cocoon at all but a preying mantis egg sac which contains up to 200 babies. Aye, yae, yae. I just hope all the rest left willing and are not waiting for months in the cupboards somewhere ..ready to attack when they're full grown.  

Lesson learned:  if you're going to bring home a "cocoon," at least keep it in a lidded jar.

The morning of Peter's birthday we decided to take home to see the waterfall the boys and I had discovered.  It was a beautiful day and fun to splash around in the water.

 The boys loved walking though and jumping over the stream.

 After the waterfall, we went to check out the campsites there for the next weekend. It is all open range, so there were lots of cows and cow pies on the sites

 Since Peter is not a "cake person," I have to be creative for his birthday.  These are rapberyy sweet rolls.  They were sooo good.

 Candy from the boys.