DeLappenings: Our WILD Casa

Well, peeps.

Lemme tell ya about my dream last night.

Basically, the lower level of our backyard was chock full of animals. And I’m talking exotic ones. Zebras, a lion, and the kicker—a hippo. But this hippo friend decided our newly restored pool was a fun place to hang and ended up cracking the plaster again. And then munching on it.

Now.

This dream tells me a few things:

First, that I’m a bit crazy. Even in my sleep.

Second, that I’m massively paranoid about future damage to the house and property—sustained through any number of unimaginable and improbable ways (like backyard pool swimming hippos). Though, in this Money Pit, perhaps these things aren’t that improbable.

And third, that we’ve been watching a lot of our beloved Crikey! show lately, so we have wildlife on the brain. And we’ve also had a decent number of real animal sightings on our property.

Which makes it super appropriate that Chicklet came home with this art class drawing a few days ago, because we’d just seen a real, live armadillo in our backyard.

He was a lot less terrifying this round than about a year ago when we frightened him and he ran shrieking in our direction and then past us, ha.

This time, he was just ambling along in the early morning hours, foraging for food. I found him right after I’d dropped the girlies off for school. And his heiny was so cute, wiggling back and forth as he wandered away from me.

At least now I know one animal that’s causing some of these divots in our yard:

We’ve also had a couple of deer sightings—the best of which was last night. Just before shower time, the hubby was out back, brushing the pool plaster (still part of the restoration process), when he texted us to tell us to look out back. And sure enough, a pretty white tailed friend was back there.

The deer quietly watched the hubby work his way around the pool. And when he sensed the hubby wasn’t a threat, he just went back to grazing in the grass. We got to watch him for a good, long while. :)

And speaking of other crazy creatures...Little Man and I were sequestered in his bedroom most of the morning, due to mass chaos and loud power tools downstairs. And the bonus intrusion of men on super tall ladders completing exterior trim painting. I sort of felt like WE were animals in a zoo.

So to keep our sanity, we just holed up and did some doodling. This scary king cobra, thanks to Little Man’s selection for the day.

And, once again, he slayed me in the coloring department. :)

And a few days ago, he also slayed me with his interpretation of his beloved hammerhead shark.

At least I bested him on this cute little raccoon. But only because his hand got tired and he bailed on his coloring, ha.

And this one has nothing to do with animals, but we had fun with our Sith troopers last week, as well.

Now. Last but not least, for this animalistic post: please observe my adorable babies after church yesterday, when we headed out to lunch (because, hello, no kitchen)...

They INHALED their brunch. Like, barely took any breaths, and acted like they’d been eating a single cube of cheese a day and we’d suddenly set them loose with the best and largest meal on planet earth (eggs benedict, waffles and bacon, if you must know).

If anyone has seen the freaking fantastic movie, Croods 2, where the family of Neanderthals stumbles upon this glorious haven of beauty and safety and food and messily gorges themselves until they can’t move, you’ve got a pretty good idea of what they were like: