And then there was one.

Something fishy is going on here.



We have had our 20-gallon fishtank for almost 3 years, and have had plenty of fish die here and there, but now suddenly we have lost six fish in the past couple of weeks and are down to just one left, and she isn't looking too good (no telling whether "she" is a she, but her name is Rosie). Apparently some kind of fishy plague has struck our tank because six perfectly healthy fish suddenly dying is not normal.

Fortunately our kids don't seem to be the least bit sentimental about it, even though a few of the recently deceased are fish we've had for almost three years. Once Rosie dies, which will presumably be soon, we're going to put the fishtank away in the garage for a while and possibly get it out in the future when we decide to have fish again. In the meantime, we're happy with our "real" pet (Juno the dog).

And so, let us observe a very brief moment of silence for Al-2, Al-3, Shadrack, Meshack, Glinda, and Bruce. Every child to visit our house loved looking at you and tapping on your glass.

In unrelated news, today is our 4th anniversary of living in this house! Time flies.

I'll say it again: Hubs rocks.

Look where we spent last night!

Hubs decided to be sneaky and surprise me by booking us a room here (and our room was identical to the picture), as a delayed celebration of our anniversary. My parents took the kids overnight, and we had such a nice time. We could see the pretty desert sunset over the mountains from our hotel room balcony, went out to eat (Mexican, per my request), and to a movie, and ice cream, and back to the hotel. This morning we enjoyed sleeping in and then had the breakfast buffet at the hotel restaurant, which included all the wonderful breakfast food imaginable including the most delicious waffles I've ever had. And then we returned to our room and allowed our huge breakfast to digest and enjoyed the relaxation and cushy bed pillows until we had to check out at noon.

♥ Thanks Hubs; you're the best! ♥

Six little peach pies.

I learned today that this recipe, when doubled, will yield six pot-pie-sized peach pies. And I thought you might like to know that too.

Four are to give away; one's for me and one's for Hubs. Sounds fair doesn't it?

Hand-me-down

I am SO excited about this. My mom has since upgraded and she generously passed her "old" (only about 8 years old) Bernina down to me. Oh, the possibilities! The kids & I spent the first afternoon just playing with stitch patterns (do you see that adorable owl in a tree?) and this is my first experience with a machine that tells you when your bobbin is running low. Hi-tech!

I am thinking about this for my first project on the new machine; is that cute or what? I love the idea of Halloween buckets that are not made of hard plastic and therefore don't take up so much room in storage when Halloween is over. I may even machine-embroider my kids' names on them.

Jo-Ann's here I come!

Sleepers

I love finding them asleep in funny poses.

And yeah, my girls apparently didn't get the memo that it may be fall but it's still in the 100's around here and there's most certainly no need for warm footed pj's.

I *might* be too obsessed with the appearance of fruit these days.

But come on, are these not just the prettiest?

The picture doesn't do them justice. They're the color of sunset. For some reason their color is more vibrant than last year's peaches and I think they may be just too pretty to eat.

Some things are just better together.

my favorite kinds of cereal to mix together. mmm good.

I can't have one without the other. so tasty.

awwww



us in Hawaii, 2007


Happy Annivesary babe!
It's been an awesome 12 years; here's to lotsa dozen more!

I love you.

I got a new bedspread.

Isn't it pretty?

I love the simple, clean white, and I love the white & brown together. When I learn how, I'm going to make a brown & white quilt to fold up at the foot of the bed. Our sheets are brown, and our sleeping pillows are all brown or white (we sleep with lots of extra pillows). Do you have any ideas of where I could get a headboard?

In case you wondered, our previous bedding looked like this. I liked it just fine when I bought it, two years ago when we first got our king-sized bed, but it was very cheap and the bedspread started falling apart in no time. This new stuff was inexpensive, but it looks like it will hold up better than the last stuff did. And, when I get tired of the brown, I can get new sheets and throw pillows and create an entire new look with my white.

More pretty fruit

This was my first year doing pears; I think they will look so nice on the shelf in my closet next to the homemade applesauce and canned peaches. Because it's all about aesthetics, you know. And yes, I keep all of my home-canned goods in my master bedroom closet.

Next up: peaches!

Lost a tooth!

Miss Zoe lost her first tooth last Thursday at school! Apparently it was quite exciting for the whole Kindergarten class. She left a very cute note for the Tooth Fairy that night, asking the following questions:

1. How do you get in the house?

2. How big are you?

3. What is it like? (I'm not sure what this means)

4. What do you look like?

I suggested at dinner time that the Tooth Fairy probably doesn't have time to answer so many questions when she has so many teeth to collect every night around the world (the other kids have left notes for her too, on several occasions), but Aaron said I was being bah-humbug.

Now that Zoe has lost her first tooth, we are finally getting SERIOUS about her thumb-sucking. Fortunately, this time she is serious about it too, and has remembered every night to put band-aids on her thumbs (the kind of band-aids that taste the yuckiest) to prevent night-time sucking. So far so good...

Here we are...

I can't figure out how to embed this video so here's a link.


My sisters & I made the news last night, for about 3.5 seconds... watch for us at :28 in the video!

Anti-climatic but still fun

Those of you who read my sister's blog may know that we did this today:

Yep! My two awesome sisters and I sang a three-part harmony arrangement of the Star-Spangled Banner this morning in front of several judges down at US Airways Center, to audition to sing at a Suns game this season. We talked about doing it last year but weren't prepared in time. So this year we were ready! We thought there'd be, oh I don't know, hundreds of people auditioning. But it was like a ghost town when we arrived at about 9:30 this morning: a huge stage, a long panel of judges, a sign-in table, and only two or three other auditioners milling around. I thought we'd be there at least an hour waiting for our turn, and maybe a few hours. Kate had Paige with her (who's almost 2) and Jamie had Keeton and Crew with her (who are 3 yrs, and 8 months) and my mom came too for moral support and to help with the kids. Plus, Kate & Jamie were well-armed with snacks, books, toys, and even a dvd player for the LONG wait.... which didn't happen! We were at US Airways Center for a total of about 15 minutes; we just filled out a paper with our names & info, waited about 2 minutes for our turn, sang the song, and packed up to leave. We had all blocked out our schedules for the rest of the day, made arrangements for our half-day Kindergarteners to go to friends' houses after school, etc. Well, better to be over-prepared than under-prepared I guess.

We have no idea how many people usually try out each year and what our chances are, but we were number 35, at 9:30am, when auditions started at 7am and go til 7pm. There are around 40 home games. So, I'll let you know when we find out! It was kind of fun to do but just went so quickly this morning; it's weird to have it over with already. So.... we'll see what happens!

And... it's not too late, if any of you in the Phoenix area want to try out :)

To Lucy's Kindergarten teacher:

For the record, we live in a four-bedroom house.

And we use all four bedrooms.

Just to clear up any confusion.

Berry Time

raspberry jam, blackberry jam, raspberry-blackberry syrup

Aren't the colors just so pretty?

Four thousand one hundred sixty five pages

... in the past three months or so.

Whew!

I recommend my method of NOT getting into a book series, TV series, etc. until AFTER the height of its popularity. This has served me well, several times. Being able to read the next book immediately, without having to wait a year or two for it to come out, was just lovely. And boy, the 6th Harry Potter book ended with so much unanswered; really a cliff-hanger; I don't know how people waited so long for the 7th!

This series was better than I expected. I kind of assumed that the popularity was more based on hype than good writing, so I was pleasantly surprised at the writing. It was pretty easy reading but not juvenile, and the story is very well-organized. I've always enjoyed books along sci-fi/fantasy lines, and if you don't mind learning a little wizard-speak then I would recommend these books! Now, I just need to watch all the movies. The first one's pretty good; I was disappointed in the 2nd one... but of course books are always better aren't they. My goal is to rent/borrow the rest of the movies while #6 is still in theaters, and then see #6 in the theater... then wait for the two movies they're making for #7. Good stuff.

P.S. I am so annoyed that I bought the first book at a different store than the rest of them and that it doesn't match. Would that bug you too? It's very irritating to me, looking at that stack...