Do you know where your jelly bellys come from? Southern Wisconsin of course.

In my wildest day dream I pictured all those brightly colored bits of flavorful plastic looking pieces of candy might be created in the fairy realms, or at least by the magics of Harry Potter,

No, a large chunk of those delectable little candies find their way into boxes shipped from a distribution plant in Pleasant Prairie, WI.

Between my 4 year old and my best friend’s love for sour jelly bellys who could say no?

Admittedly the history and production of jelly belly candy did not fascinate my 4 year old.

It did provide an interesting look into making taffy instead. Did you know taffy is hand layered together producing a roll of sugar sweetness weighing close to 200 pounds? Then it is put into a machine that stretches and cuts that huge roll into little tiny pieces. I don’t like taffy, but was truly amazed by its production.

The best part, free tour. Until after the tour when faced with the candy store!

Hosted by Cecily and Amy

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This week we all got challenged with the self portrait. So many photographers dread pictures of themselves. I have toyed with the thought photographers take up the trade in order to avoid having themselves photographed.

Yes my antiquated camera has a timer on and yes I do own a tripod. Trapped on the floor with W.W. teetering on the edge of his toy box begging for attention on one side and E.C. crawling up my toes headed straight for my face, 10 seconds might be too long.

Forget the tripod. Take the discarded toy box lid and stack it on the couch cushion. Tilt my head back and smile for the blinking red light.

All the while attempting to ignore the little hand happily latched on to the center of my bra in a hurry to pull himself up into my lap. Needless to say I cropped that out of the picture!

Hosted by Megan and Hip Momma

PS – Marty sent me a black and white shot this morning. For fun I applied the same look to her shot and put them together this way too.

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We attended a house warming party Saturday.

Boys ranging from 3 to 12 ran rampant, wrestled in the dirt and pounded a soccer ball at each other. They made up games to play in the truck bed.

You know you’re a bit of hick when a truck bed replaces the playground.

Which reminds me of my brother and stories parents never learn until their children see adulthood. Mine learned about caterpillar racing.

Southwest Virginia hosts lots of caterpillars. Their nests infest trees creating a sticky cocoon that needs to be cut out and burned to save the tree. Gathering a handful of these fuzzy little critters provided hours of fun for us.

Lining them up in the grooves of the bed liner in our Datsun Kingcab, we laid on our stomachs and urged those creep crawlers toward victory. Staring with rapt fascination at the lines of inching caterpillars on hard plastic. Who knew kids could play such endless games in truck beds.

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