I am nuts.

About a month ago some of our friends invited us to go pecan picking at a nearby farm. I was so excited because my mom's birthday was coming up, and she absolutely loves pecans, so I figured we'd go pick some and surprise her with fresh ones. Janelle, Spencer, and I had a great time at the farm hunting for the fallen pecans underneath the huge trees (yes, I forgot my camera). Farmer Fisher warned us that the cows might grant us a social call, so after about 5 minutes of pecan picking Janelle was adamant about making enough noise to urge the cows over to our part of the woods. She'd been to the farm before and had met a beauty named Jasmine who she was determined to see again. Despite her cow calling, we didn't get to see the cow princess until our pecan expedition was over and we visited her in her royal pen. Spencer contentedly found pecans, sticks, rocks, and cow pies to contribute to our grocery bags full of nuts. (Don't worry, SuperMom was fast enough to catch the cow pie contributions before they hit our loot.) We left the farm with our bags overflowing with pecans.

Now I'm not a huge nut fan, so I haven't exactly done a lot of nut cracking in my life, I had no idea what was in store for me came crackin' time.

Thursday was the day. I pulled our huge box of pecans out and Janelle, Spencer, and I set to work cracking those suckers.

Spencer made a point to
each and every one before,
"Mommy, uhm (uhm = here?)," then hands me the nut he carefully hand selected.

After seeing me bust my moves with our trusty nut cracker Spencer was fascinated, and very determined to figure the contraption out for himself...

Janelle got the hang of it and with a little help cracked a few for me.

After a solid two hours of nut cracking, we ended up with a huge bowl of shells and a small jar of pecans.

We finally gave up after cracking probably 1/16th of our big box of nuts. Grandma will be getting one jar of shelled pecans, and a big bag of unshelled pecans marked, "For your shelling pleasure!" Was it worth it? Sure! Anything for Grandma! The picking was great fun. Will I do it again? Probably not, since I'm not a big nut fan. Spence, the picky eater of the family, surprised me and couldn't get enough of them. Janelle liked them too. But next time they want nuts, I'll head to Market Street for the pre-shelled kind.

One box of pecans up for grabs...any takers???