Monday night football - and the house is a mess!

Andy invited our neighbors over for Monday night football - something about him being a Packers' fan and they are too - well, it sounds great. Except - our house is a mess. Hello, we have been outside working on the yard all summer and our house only gets minor touchups here and there. So, today has been a busy day of catch up - seriously, we canned peaches and the peaches, in their nice new jars were all over the counter in the kitchen still. We had a picture on the wall come off weeks ago and it just got repositioned today. Our desk has not been pretty for a very long time. It looks great now, but still. And - it will be fun to have the "neighbs" over tomorrow.

The girls have been outside with the other "neighbs" so much this weekend that we hardly see them. It's a little weird for us since they never knew another kiddo in our old neighborhood but it's great - they play together so great (the boys are five and eight) and the girls were so hungry last night. That was the best part yesterday - Emma ate five carrots, all of her chicken, a bunch of blueberries, three bowls of cereal, about five or six clementines, and a small bowl of pink ice cream with sprinkles. That's our girl! That is just not a normal meal for her at all. We bought a five pound bag of clementines yesterday and there are about 2 pounds left.

Andy is cleaning the fence this weekend. He is going to seal it, the back deck and front porch too. Just, not today.

What else? Oh, here are a couple pictures from our vacation. Sophie still tells me that Papa Tom's cabin has lots of fish. The girls both loved the fishing... And Emma seemed to love picking up anything slimy - frogs, fish, worms - it's nice that my princess can be a little tomboy too.

PS - Black and white images will have to suffice for now. I had switched these for the collage I am putting together and they are the only images in jpeg format right now. This stuff takes time, and there just isn't much of that around here - at least not the spare kind. Not to mention that we took about 1000 pictures during that ten days. Wow!

Day 4

Emma got an early pick up from preschool today - so that we could join a friend for the Rose Festival Junior Parade here in Portland. It is always so much fun to watch the groups do their thing - but my concern - what happened to the lawnchair band? There used to be this great group of middle school age kids that performed tricks with their old-school style lawn chairs. They were so entertaining, and when the parade ended and we realized they weren't there - well, it was a bit of a letdown. But, these guys are always nice and colorful and have some great "homestyle" instruments and lots of energy. Fun, fun. See you tomorrow.

Date Night?

My husband and I have two children, both girls, both wonderful and amazing. Since the birth of our first child, we have not had a date night!!! She's three! Ouch! I recently connected with someone that I am imagining to be a fabulous baby sitter (she's here right now, so I expect there to be NO spelling errors) and I am already planning our first night out. I can't wait - dinner in a "nice" restaurant, "adult" conversation with my best friend, no trips to the "potty", and just maybe we will have a complete meal without the phone ringing! I can hardly wait.
It's not that we have not wanted to do this, it just seems so hard and we are often so tired by the time evening comes around. Sometimes it is just easier, and much more relaxing to put our feet up on the couch together and watch some bad tv.
We've moved on and we are ready!