Dad's care-package-truck included a new bed for me!! WOO HOO!!! (That is one sweet night of sleep you're looking at!)

Finally got the remains of Fourth of July knick knacks put away and Fall stuff out, along w/ K-lady accents ;) just in time for a BIG weekend. Dad got into town that night (not that Dad or anyone who was coming to town cared about my fall decore, but it was still important to silly me).

My favorite spot in my 1/2-garage: I have a workbench!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! May not be much, but I love it.

waitin' on the train again.

We snuck off Sunday night to take pictures in her 'baptism dress.' She got so sick of me taking pictures, but I was having too much fun, and it was a beautiful evening. I love this girl! :)

fresh from the local farmers market, organic, and super good. I was getting tired of cutting, so I grabbed my small cookie scoop. I think little balls of cantaloupe are even tastier than little cubes.

Happy li'l sandwich (last roma tomato from Joseph's assistant's garden - oh, so good!)

Still in my workout clothes, on the computer, birthday bike in the background. I think Baby A took this one...

It's K-lady's year to have a party, but that wasn't scheduled till later in the month. So ON the big day (turning 8 on the 8th!), she asked for brownies instead of cake. J-boy insisted on the #8 candle (the employee at Walmart got a chuckle out of my ineffective attempts to convince him that the cool spirally candles would be more fun and harder to blow out, etc. Apparently I'm not very persuasive), and K-lady got to blow it out twice: once during breakfast-in-bed of pop tarts and lucky charms (ick!), and then again in her tower of brownie after the fancy dinner of hot dogs and blue jello. I think we're officially in the junk food stage of childhood. Good thing birthdays only happen once a year!

A picture to stick on the birthday party invitations

We woke up to this paradise Sunday morning, got dressed and headed off to our old ward for church (30-45 minute drive). We pulled off the freeway, and J-boy threw up in the back seat. We turned around, drove back to Jake/Jen's and waited to see if it was serious. It was - he threw up twice more, and we decided to pack up and head home a day early. We were all bummed, but Joseph was coming down with a bad cold, and we were all sleep deprived. It was for the best.

Labor Day Campout @ Jake/Jen's - the morning mist rising off the lake was gorgeous! The kids/Joseph fished and played, we had a huge breakfast. I mostly snuggled up under a blanket (nasty cold wiped me out the night before).

As always, the deadline begets progress -- we needed to get to our camping gear for a family campout on Friday, so I spent the week organizing and unpacking and building shelves for the 'garage' (the garage has been walled off half way through to make an extra room inside the house, so our 1/2-car-garage just has room for lots of moving boxes and junk!)

We pass this just about every day -- I see pictures all over of people posing on railroad tracks, all darling and cute, romantic and dreamy. But our railroad tracks are the real deal, trains up to 100+ cars, sometimes as often as every 15 minutes. Like so many things, not nearly so romantic in real life!

Our car collection is constantly having tea parties with the polly pockets. Party animals. :)

(pictures were a little scarce there for a while - blame it on my unpacking, my P90X exhaustion, my lack of flash, whatever!)

We went to the Ranch Rodeo at Beef Days (or something like that) and watched these cowboys rope a bunch of crazy cows. :) They did GREAT! Joseph left wanting to buy a pair of cowboy boots (he figures he can get away w/ that kind of thing here).

I'm not so good at taking pictures these day.... more of the flowers.

Happy Anniversary to us! 9 years! It was kind of a weird day - day 3 or 4 of P90X, and I was feeling it. Joseph came home for lunch, I had a complete break down ("I hate feeling sore and horrible all day every day (sob), I'm still trying to unpack (sniff), the house is a complete mess (whip nose), and I too sore to do anything and I can't stand it!") Lucky for him he had to go back to work. So I jumped on the computer to pay bills (sarcasm: cause that'll cheer me up) and realized it was August 18th. I still didn't have a calendar up, I thought was doing good just knowing it was a school day (and legs/back/chest day). I sent Joseph a very pathetic Happy Anniversary email, and he came home w/ these flowers and SUGAR FREE chocolates (kind of ick, but it's the thought, right??). Poor guy has a psycho for a wife! But after I dried my tears I really did feel much better for having had the outburst. Sometimes you just gotta cry.

Ahhh - life is getting better.  I love having my books on my shelf.:)

 

Ugh - but making progress.... At this point we'd moved every bed in the house twice, moved all the food storage twice (trying not to curse my husbands' diligence in providing for our family with every step :)...), switched every closet's contents, and nally unearthed the 2nd bookshelf in the back of the garage so I could unpack the books.

Getting ready for P90X

We watched this storm literally ROLL in - love those midwest storms!

This little guy sits in the front yard of our duplex-sharing-neighbor. He greets us every morning with a smile. Sometimes a moon, but usually a smile. Welcome home, right?? (no pic from road trip home on the 11th)

Joseph and Dad and Ryan had grand experiments this summer with bow-and-drill fire starting. :) Dad got it going! Joseph did not. :) (we actually ran out of time and had to make it to the late matinee showing of Inception (which I accidentally kept calling Conception - couldn't figure out why Joseph would want to go to a movie called Conception...). Crazy movie, by the way) Anyway, nothing a little Cafe Rio (and taco bell hot sauce) can't fix.

My cousin-in-law's neice took this one. :) We got to go to my cousin's baby's blessing, but I stole my brother's camera to take pictures (since we were inside and my flash is broken and he has a canon rebel and why WOULDN'T I steal his camera to take pictures?!) and then I didn't get copies of the pics of the sweet babe and her gorgeous momma. So this is what we've got.

Look who we found in Utah!!!

We got to meet up w/ my cousin down in Payson for a little catching up - so fun to be together and meet her darling baby!!

Grandma and I went to the temple for a session. What a wonderful place!

We crashed the Primary Quarterly Activity (grandchild-of-the-president-privledge). Bailey's 'safe' on 1st base in the water baseball game.

(This was the night the flash on my camera died.) Emily calls this Snacky Stuff. Pretty sure that name is not sufficient. It's yummy - picture-at-night-without-flash doesn't do it justice....

Sweet serenity of a mountain lake (sigh)

Happy Birthday, Grandma!!!

I love this tangle of leashes on our Sunday morning walk along the canal.

These two became instant friends - there's just something so easy to love about cousins.

More cousin lovin' - Bailey is such a sweet little wanna-be-a-momma!

After the big family picture Kendra taught us to make this lovely expression - "angry eyes - then SMILE!" We got some good laughs!

The whole fam damily! :) j/k - it's only about 3/4 of us (right?)

Trust Dad to provide his own recreation - he found rocks and carved out arrowheads - J-boy was fascinated!

Kendra was so sore the next day!

Are these not the cutest boys ever???!!! That's the baby I visited in March! CRAZY!