Ten. Whole. Years.

On July 31, 1999, I was here:


Wow. Ten years of marriage. It's been a great decade: three kids, four moves, and lots of adventures.

And to Gary: You owe me at least 50 more.
xoxo

The Final Approach.

Summer (as I know it) is over in 18 days.

We're quickly approaching carpools at 8:30 am and homework every evening...boo.

Soccer practice begins next week.

Hour long practices, four nights a week, right at dinner time...double boo.

Excuse me while I go look at more pictures of the lake.

Stamped.

I don't know if it's like this at your house, but there's an hour (or two) 'round these here parts that I call the Witching Hour.

It's usually right when I'm cooking dinner when everyone is at the apex of their crankiness.

This afternoon when I was cooking dinner I was successful in thwarting the full effect of the Witching Hour.

I brought out my stamps.


These are just the old, cheap stamps I used when I was teaching. Definitely nothing fancy or expensive. (Case in point: the Darth Vader stamp.)


The kids stamped till their hearts were content. And I had an hour of non-Witching Hour behavior.

The boys made pictures and cards.


Avery was a bit more unconventional in her stamping.


She went with more of a body-stamping approach. (And needed a post-stamping/pre-dinner bath as a result.)


The fact that I made dinner without the Witching Hour Effect was totally worth any mess the stamps made.

And Avery only chewed up two stamps. Success.

The Color of Dirt.

If you follow me on Twitter, you probably know that we were gone this week. We went camping for four days at Fallen Leaf Lake, right by Lake Tahoe.

I can't write much tonight, since I have approximately 289 loads of camping-dirt covered laundry to complete.

But I will tell you that we had a great time, and I'll tell you about it someday soon.

And I'll leave you with a short guessing game. Here's your question:

Which Pooh bear accompanied us to Lake Tahoe?


It's true...camping might have changed Pooh's life forever. We're not sure he'll ever be the same.

The Next Wave of BFF's.

Aren't old friends truly a priceless thing?

(And by 'old' I mean still very, very young.)

A couple of weeks ago my oldest friends and their broods came to play.


We ate.
We swang. (Swinged? Swung?)
We played.
We blew bubbles.

And we laughed.

This was us in 1994 (or so).

And this is us now.


I've known these girls since 1986. And I'm pretty sure we'll be old ladies playing bridge together one day.

Thank you Francesca, Kacey, and Wendy for the visit. I wish it could happen more often!

Cobbler.

There is nothing you can say to me -- nothing -- that will convince me that cobbler is not the perfect dessert. Especially in summer. (And especially with a side of chocolate, but that's another discussion.)

I'm usually a peach cobbler girl. Or blackberry. But last week after our trip to the produce stand I had an abundance of strawberries.

So strawberry cobbler it was.


And it worked.

The boys ate it and liked it, but wished it was all cobbler and no strawberry.
I wasn't too offended.


They didn't want seconds, so it was more for me!

By the way, it was nothing fancy. Just a plain ole' cobbler recipe.

Good stuff.

How 'Bout Them Apples.

I hope the boys aren't getting jealous, but I made another shirt for Avery.


The pattern was easy, but I still managed to make plenty of mistakes.
(As I said when I made her other shirt, don't look too closely at the construction. Especially the lining inside the top. Sheesh.)

But no matter ... it still looks cute on her.

Next up? Working on my quilt. I mean it. I'm going to finish it. I swear.
Because, as Julie put it, I'm a quilter not a quitter.

A *Shining* Winner.

Thanks to all of you for the nice comments and for entering the giveaway!

The winner is...

**#55 - Carolynn at Willow Tree**

Congrats, Carolynn! Email me!

I wish I had something to give every one of you. But since I don't...

How about a laugh?

Watch this trailer for the feel good movie of the year. Ha!

Progress / Regress.

I have been so productive today I can hardly believe myself:

All of the laundry done. And I mean DONE. Miraculous.
Bathrooms cleaned.
Kids' rooms cleaned.
Showered before noon. Again, minor miracle.
Dinner made by 4:00. (Quinoa. Yum.)

My house is *clean!
(*Of course by the time I have finished typing this there will undoubtedly be at least thirteen messes somewhere.)

So to reward myself I sat down to sew while Avery was napping.

And my productivity came to a screeching halt. See that fella in the foreground of this picture? It's my seam ripper. I got to know it quite well today. I misread the pattern, read it backwards, read it sideways - who knows what I did - and ended up having to rip out about an hour's worth of work.

I hate that.


I'm going to hide my seam ripper and give it another go tomorrow. And the messes will pile up again.

(By the way, in the title I almost typed 'Congress' as the opposite of 'progress'. Ha.)

To My Future Daughters-in-Law: You're Welcome.

Last week I finally did something that I have been talking about doing for a long time:


I made a chore chart for the boys.

Well, I guess it's more of a list than a chart (because I didn't feel like messing around with Excel) and it's now a bit crumpled (because it has been taken off the fridge and referred to A LOT).

But...we're doing it.

And I like it.

They like it too, for the most part. I'm not going to lie and say that all of the chores have been done without any complaints, but they're doing really well.

And they're enjoying the money. (A whopping 75 cents a day if they do all of their chores.)

And - dare I say - I think it's inspiring them to help more around the house in other areas?


Notice that nowhere on their chore list does it mention 'dishes'. Colin volunteered to do these on his own. (OK, so it didn't hurt that I got a new little nifty scrubber thing that he wanted to use, but that's beside the point.)

I want these boys to be very familiar with cleaning, scrubbing, cooking, and eventually the dreaded laundry. Their wives will thank me. I just know it.

Know what else I know? I know that today my floor got vacuumed and I didn't have to do it myself! Woo hoo!

(It did cost me 75 cents, however.)

July 4 Fun.

I really enjoy the 4th of July. Not only for what it represents and for how proud I feel to be able to call myself an American, but also for the fun we have.

Every year our little street holds a good old fashioned parade and block party.

Everybody loves it.

We meet at the end of the street, line up behind the two firetrucks that come every year, and start our parade.


The big kids ride their bikes and scooters and the little ones settle into the strollers for the ride.


There's candy being thrown, clapping from all of the people watching from the curb, and bubble wrap taped to the street for the bikes to ride over. (It sounds like firecrackers!)

After the parade we all fire up the grills and eat. And eat.

In fact, I was so busy eating I didn't even take pictures of the hotdogs, the shrimp, the fruit/potato/pasta salads, the cookies, the cream cheese-stuffed/bacon-wrapped jalepeños, the brownies, the cookies, the ice cream....

My stomach hurts.

Then after we eat and digest for a minute, the games begin.

There's the "Walk With a Marshmallow Between Your Knees" game, "Try to Eat the Powdered Donut Without Using Your Hands" game, a water balloon toss, and watermelon eating contest.

The contestants take those games VERY seriously.


And then, of course, there's a lot of catching up with old friends, and meeting new ones as well.


(Little Addison is one of out newest friends. She belongs to my friend Liz, but I plan on stealing her whenever I get the chance!)

Hope you enjoyed your Independence Day, as well.

And since there is never any independence from my laundry, that's where I'm headed.

Small Town Charm.

I think you're either a small town person or you're not.

I've always lived in relatively small towns (except during college). Growing up, I wasn't a huge fan of the small town "charms": everybody knows about everybody else's business, small town drama, etc.

But now, I really love our small-ish town. Especially on nights like this:


Our town's 3rd of July parade: it's about as all-American as it gets.


Cotton candy for dinner.


This man was dancing with his cane.


I think he might have been my favorite part of the parade.


And of course no parade would be complete without Mr. Deere:


(I saw a lot of men clapping for the tractors.)

We have more small town fun planned for tomorrow.


Happy Independence Day to you all!

My Fab Friend.

Today is my dear friend Kacey's birthday. She is 1/3 of the 3BayBChicks, and a friend of mine for *gulp* almost 25 years.


What can I say, Kace: you are one of the funniest, most stylish, sophisticated ladies I know! And I'm so lucky to call you a friend "in real life". I look forward to 25 more years and beyond.

Cheers to you, Kacey! Hope 34 is your best year yet.