Your input

I bought eight matching frames to put together a collage of photos. But now I can't decide which pics I want to use. Any thoughts?

Snowy mountains

Pilot Mountain

Tree Sunset

Kure Beach

Cottonwood Canyon

Grand Cayman

Florida palm trees

Ocean sunrise

City Lake

Daffodils

Sacred Grove

Bridal Veil Falls

Cacti

Mushroom thingies

Daisy

Bumble bee

A river runs through it

Mountain sunset

The Rockies

Flag sunset

Irises

Icy tree

Which ones look the most frame-able?

Unprepared Mom or Creative Genius?

We went to storytime the other day. We go to a library downtown. The drive takes about 20 minutes. And we carpool with a friend.

So we pulled into the parking garage right on time and I took Caroline out of her car seat to find that her diaper has leaked everywhere. Not the stinky, messy kinda leak. Just the soppy wet kind...but still. I told our friends to go on without us and we'd meet them in a minute.

I didn't have an extra outfit in the car. And her clothes were wet enough that we couldn't get away with wearing them in. What was a mom to do?

These were the options I considered.

1. Leave. Go home. Change her clothes. Forget about story time. Oh, wait. We brought our friends and have their car seat with us. Probably not so nice to leave them stranded.

2. Drive somewhere quickly and buy her a new outfit and come back for story time. I didn't know of any stores with baby clothes that were nearby.

3. Wait in the van until our friends were done with story time and then just go home with them. I thought long and hard about this one. It might not be so bad. Except the Brandon's and Wht's books were due, I already owed $5 in fines, and they love getting new ones every week. Was there anything else I could do?

So I resorted to option #4:

Invent a new outfit.
Do you like Caroline's colorful new skirt?

It's kinda cute, but what's the deal with the back?

Oh, I see.
It's a receiving blanket.
Tied around my daughter's waist.

Yes, this is what Caroline wore in public. Poor baby. Have I learned my lesson? I have yet to put a change of clothes in the car for her, so apparently not. Maybe I should go do that right now.

Backyard Entertainment

Before Andrew and I had kids, we were at his parents' home for a weekend. We took a softball and our gloves out in the yard and spent a good hour or so just playing catch. It was a blast. I remember his Mom saying, "All you have to do is give Andrew and Andi a ball and they are good to go!" It was true back then and after this weekend I found that it's still true. And we've apparently passed it on to our kids.

On Sunday, after a glorious afternoon nap for each of us,

Caroline and I went into the backyard to see
what the boys were up to.

Turns out B and Drew were in the middle
of a pretty intense kickball match.

It included some fast sprinting around the bases,

high jumps to avoid getting out,
(I was SO impressed with Old Man Sweat's vertical!)

some sweet catches,

and the loss of one old pair of sandals.
It was a fierce battle, but I think B-train
came back to win in the end.

After that, Caroline was up for a few rounds
of "Ring Around The Rosy."

She still doesn't get the "we all fall down" part.

But she thought it was funny to tackle me
when I was down.

Then Brandon proceeded to show us

some of his sweet scooter moves.
Yee haw.

And Andrew's back was feeling good enough

to practice dunking. Woot!

At this point, Whit finally woke up
from her extended nap and joined us

for some volleyball.

The kids giggled at my demonstration

of how to get down to receive the ball
Bend those long legs, girl!

Man, do I miss playing volleyball.

It felt so good to have sore forearms again.

Andrew rounded out the sports-fest with a

three-point shooting contest.
He predicted a run of 10 for 10.
You'll have to ask him how close he got.

Whit cheered for him.
Go, Dad!

Before we finally gave up and went in for dinner,

the kids and I put together a big ol' chalk masterpiece.
We called it the Haunted Halloween Party.

Andrew was drawing his own work of art,

"Don't Mess With Sweat."

Now that's my idea of a near-perfect Sunday afternoon/evening. (I guess it could've been better if dinner would have magically been waiting for me when I went in.) What's yours?

Heritage bulletin board

A few months ago, our friend Greg won an auction for some bulletin boards and chalk boards. They were more than he could handle, so he shared the wealth. I was the proud owner a 4 foot by 8 foot bulletin board. AND I happened to have a wall that was completely empty and screaming for some sort of decoration.

So the idea of a family heritage bulletin board was born. It took several months to complete. Not that I was working on it that whole time. Most of the time it was just sitting in the hall creating an eyesore. But with Andrew's help, I finally completed it. Or at least it's MOSTLY done. I would love to add a few more photos if I can find them.

And here it is:
Voila!

Our family tree in photos.

Andrew's maternal grandparents have
the most representation.
If my calculations are correct
(no guarantees there),
the oldest pics are about 200 years old.
It is so neat to put faces with the
names on our pedigree charts.

Parting shot

I took this pic today.
Fall is in the air!
Love this time of year.

Updates and tidbits

A collection of random things I've left off the blog.

*Our garden.
We put in a little veggie garden in the backyard this year.

We have LOVED it.
It started off looking so clean and manicured.
Now it's very unruly, but still producing.

Here's a sampling:

Pear tomatoes, cucumbers, tomatoes, jalapenos.
We also have a ton of cherry tomatoes.
We didn't even have to use pesticides on it
this year. Sweet!
Failure crops: watermelon and yellow squash.
Our zucchini plant gave us ONE veggie.

*Brandon started Cub Scouts!
It still seems weird that I have a kid this old.

He is excited and so is Andrew.

He already earned his Bobcat.
Way to go, B-train!

He's also keeping up his Jedi skills.

*Whit started tumbling class.
It is hard work!
She comes out sweating at the end of her hour.

But she has a lot of fun, too.
Her favorite part is jumping on trampolines at the end.

*She had a visit with her favorite eye doctor last month.
It made her day!

And we were happy, too, because he gave us more
good news on her eyes. They are maintaining vision,
so we're just going to keep monitoring. We go back
in six months. Yippee!

*She's also learning how to ride her bike...
without training wheels.
Of course it was on a Sunday after church.
I hear that dresses are the BEST for bike-riding.
She did pretty well, but still needs some practice.

*Caroline is just as cute as ever.
Here she is at joy school.
We studied circles.

I don't know how she pulled this off,
but she was pretty excited about her new look.

*Andrew's back is doing pretty well.
He still has bad days, but is able to get out

and play basketball in the backyard when he can
and at church one night a week.
No trips to the ER recently.
We celebrate small victories around here.

*I've been making a little bit of progress on
my persuasive writing class.
I've finished the rough draft on my first three
assignments. After Andrew proofreads them for
me, I have one more six page paper to do and
then I can turn them in. They are NOT good.
I'm kind of embarrassed.

Oh, and my debit card info got stolen.
I've spent hours on the phone getting
that resolved. Ugh. What a pain.

And that's what we've been up to.