A Picture Perfect Weekend

I finally did it! We have PICTURES people!! Don't get too excited, I did not find the charger; just got brave enough to transfer them to the computer. Being truly honest, I let go of my neurosis after a serious conversation with myself about the fact that the memory card was full. I am giving the battery lots of praise and encouragement to keep on going until the charger jumps out of it's box and plugs itself into the wall. I'll let you know how that goes. Mysteriously, no one has called to schedule a time and do my unpacking, re-packing, and setting up the school closet ...

*** inept blogger alert ***

For the life of me I can't

get pictures in order.

I finally figured out a while back that

you have to do it in reverse order

to get them in sequence.

I did that today and it was backward.

So I did it the 'right' way and

what do you know it flipped them on me

when I added the next set.

I gave up and just started sticking

pictures in. So hopefully you have enough

brain cells active at the moment to make

some sense out of this post.

***************************************************

Oh what do you do in the summer time, when all the world is green?

Ahh a Sunday afternoon snack of left over Brewer's

game peanuts in the front garden with the

most adorable cat ever. He's walking over to me

for a good belly scratch.

Assume the position. Hey why are you not scratching me? He loves it here.

What a happy place for a cat. I do get nervous with the coyotes, but he's

fast and has lots of fun places to hide in the barns and such. We love our Bobby cat.

Blow, blow, blow! "Mommy why does it take the apple pie so long

to cool down?" (Daddy) "Because it's 350 degrees sweetie." (Ellie) "Mommy,

why does it take the apple pie so long to cool down?" (Mommy) "Because there are

little fairies in it helping to keep it warm so it can be extra yummy when you get to

eat it." (Ellie) "Oh. Can I blow it to help?" Blow girls, blow!

The apple corer, peeler, slicer; every pie bakers best friend.

The pie baking club members :)

My sweet little baker. She has been so eager to bake a pie from the apples

in our trees. Every day I hear, at least once, "Are the apples ready for our pie

yet?" Tonight as we are eating the pie she says to me, "I am glad you finally stopped

forgetting to let us make the pie Mommy, thank you."

"I know Daddy, wait for me. Here I am with my apple basket

start picking apples for our pie Daddy!"

The pitch!

"Mom, come watch me practice pitching like John (cousin) showed me how

to do." Splat - Splatter! What a grand time he had :)

The wind up and ... (see above!)

"Look uh me Mommy. Addie up on top." And that's where she stayed

perched, barely holding on, the entire afternoon. Sam kept her

supplied with apples and she was content to just hangout. If only I could

take a ladder everywhere we go (like the dentist office this Tuesday for three

back to back appointments, yikes!) she'd perch and stay put, just think of it ... hmmm ...

Sweet and juicy right off the tree, now that's good eats! We have pears, choke cherries (the birds took care of all of those for us), crab apples, golden delicious apples, and another variety of apple that we aren't certain of. It's similar to a macintosh, but all I can really tell you is it's that taste that defines apple, oh so scrumptious, and what a pie it makes! 22 trees in all, yum.

"Daddy you are doing ballerina apple picking!"

Can you guess who might have said that?

"I can't wait until Christmas so I can get a dirt bike like that!"

Um, Help Santa Clause? He took to it like a duck to water to quote his

proud papa. I was bathing Addie and Bobby (our landlord's son, not our cat, hee hee)

came inside to get me exclaiming, "You have got to come see him. He rides wicked!"

Indeed it was wicked :)

The boys off with their friend, Bobby, into the wild woods. And our lovely,

freshly weeded, garden; carrots, peppers of all sorts, tomatoes big and small, corn,

yellow squash of two varieties, zucchini, and cucumbers (which are horribly bitter -

anyone know why?) Yummy, yummy! We haven't lost much to the critters that

share our yard either, yippee.

Zack has wanted a motorcycle (specifically a dirt bike) for years now. We even

went so far as to check a used one out in MI before we moved to LA. What's the

next best thing? Having a friend with one who says to your mom,

"Hey can Zack ride my bike?" Cool!

"It's a club Mom! Me and Hannah (our landlord's daughter) have a club! Even a girls club!"

Our little princess is so good about playing army, being the wicked witch, the

princess that needs to be rescued from danger, the nurse to the wounded soldiers,

the mommy to the animals, the 'not allowed' in the all boys club, and on and on. It's so

great to see her have so much fun with little girls who love clubs and princesses just

as much as she does.

What are those silly girls doing over there? (see above)