Our wonderful friend Jane invited us for a date night - 4 couples, the wives each made part of the dinner, we plated the food and felt all fancy, and Jane even let us have her daughter for a babysitter. It was so fun! Adult conversation! Interesting and fun people! And a new grand piano in the home of our host just topped it all off - a little after-dinner music was definitely in order. :) I made the menus we stuck at each place setting.

J-boy stayed home from school w/ a sore throat/cold and is having fun w/ this little entourage.

Entropy Point #4 - every snack and meal seems to end the same: a new stain on the carpet (what horrible person thought it was a good idea to carpet every eating area?!)

Entropy Point #3 - cleaning up outside always seems to result in more messes inside - usually deposited right in the front entry. Is it so hard to actually PUT IT AWAY?!

That would be a cowboy hat on top of the fall floral arrangement. At least it matches the color scheme, right?

The next few pictures on the blog are part of a series. I've decided that if I were to name our 'estate' (you know, a'la Anne of Green Gables, Elinor and Marianne of Barton Cottage, Mr. Rochester of Thornfield Hall, Heathcliff of Wuthering Heights), it would be Entropy Point (where things fall apart). I was kind of enthralled with the idea, so here you have it - 4 days of Entropy Point in all its glory.

We decided to sleep in, which meant everyone joined in for Kenpo-X - my favorite workout of the week! :)

The trip that didn't happen - we packed up, (she was wearing pants at one point), loaded the car, reserved a hotel, and were two blocks from home when I heard the recording on the temple voice mail - closed for maintenance for two weeks. I guess we should have made THAT reservation FIRST. We ended up with movie-and-pizza night at home.

I love this sweet dirty little face.

She's big into 'reading' books these days - there are a lot of things to love about 2 years old.

My new favorite tool!!!!!!! (it may be old, but it has a sweet blade on it - HUGE improvement over my $10 mitre-box-and-saw from home depot!)

I love my dad - thanks to mom's suggestion, he threw his 'little' table saw in the back of the truck (underneath the huge double pillowtop mattress), brought along a few older tools for me to inherit (older as in older than me, but still working great - yay!), and helped me build some new custom shelves for a closet. In this picture he's adjusting his darling little router so I could put those finishing touches on a few other projects. I think everyone needs a dad like this.

So clean!  (She didn't have to be ordered to smile for this shot - I took this one w/ my no-flash camera.)

"Come on, K-lady - I want a picture by the sign" "Not ANOTHER picture!" "Yes, another picture - and you're going to smile like you mean it."

Are they not so cute? (Heidi brought her camera - all of these were taken by her - just look at that gorgeous skin! That gorgeous light! I WANT Heidi's camera!)

Birthday party time!  (See that hole in her smile?  She lost that tooth about a week ago - two days before we did our little baptism dress photo shoot.  Her transition-smile makes me smile.)

Dad & Baby A got a turn when the party guests were busy elsewhere...

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).