fall

i realized that, contrary to my usual m.o., this is the last picture that i had posted of my garden, and i really haven't talked about it much since then.

now it looks like this. it's quite the jungle. every year, we learn more and more about gardening. for instance, even though i really like tomatoes, sixteen plants was too much for the space and they ended up competing too much. only the front ones really produced like they were supposed to. don't get me wrong, we would have used the tomatoes from all sixteen plants if they had been productive (i'm aching for more tomatoes to can), but it was too ambitious for such a small plot. i feel like a hunter, wading through the jungle, every time i go out to pick.

also, no matter how much i like the idea of zucchini, i get sick of it by the end of the season. and with a small freezer, even two plants was too much this year.

and cucumbers don't vine well. they need their space to run. sad.

but, we've still had lots of tomatoes. we've eaten plenty, i've canned 20 jars of marinara sauce so far, hope to do more this weekend, and i've dried a ton of yellow pear tomatoes.

one of the awesome things about the house we are renting is that it has a nice little peach tree in the yard. not too big that it is overwhelming, but enough that we are going to be able to can, freeze, and eat the peaches from it. they have just started to ripen in the last week, so today madeleine and i went out and picked all of the fruit. in a couple days, we will be up to our ears in ripe peaches.

the tree is small enough that even madeleine could reach some of the peaches.

after picking the peaches, diane woke up from her nap and joined us outside to play.

still waking up...

not really sure...

good to go.

have i mentioned that i love fall? i love the harvest and the rush to preserve all of the food that is suddenly upon us. it's the payoff for a season of labor in the heat.

i love the crisp mornings and warm afternoons. sweater season around the corner. i love the changing colors. i love looking out my window and seeing bursts of color on the mountain. can't wait to drive up the canyon. i love the change and the move towards the holidays.

it's a great season.

cave paintings

these are madeleine's first real drawings of people. she draws all the time, but it is usually squiggly lines that are mountains or snakes (see lines in the picture). and when she does want to draw people, she will do the circle for the head and then gets frustrated and makes me finish for her.

but yesterday, she decided that she wanted to draw our family. and this is what she came up with. all by herself. i'm pretty proud of her.

and glad that it wasn't on a wall somewhere.

fashion advice

after my shower this morning, i got dressed and came out of my room wearing a plain long sleeved shirt and some blue lounge-style pants.

madeleine: mom, i love your shirt and your pants.
me: thank you, madeleine.
madeleine: actually, i love your shirt, but i don't love your pants.
me: why don't you like my pants?
madeleine: they are blue and they are slippery.

now, granted, these are not my most flattering pants. they are solid royal blue, and they are not anything special. but they are comfortable, which is what i was going for. and i'm not sure where she got "slippery," because they are a basic, knit, 100% cotton. no sheen whatsoever.

good to know that my three year old is already protecting me from fashion disasters.

cute kids

salt flats half marathon

last saturday, my sister, audrey, ran the salt flats half marathon. she has been training for it for a long time now and i am so proud of her. she just happens to live out in wendover and so it was the perfect place to run.

audrey was not a runner before training for this. she didn't like running. which makes it all the more impressive.

this was an awesome venue for a race, too. there weren't tons of people, so the kids could run around and we could see them no matter where they were. the salt flats are pretty amazing to be on.

i forgot my camera, so these are all from my mom.

when we got there (about half way through the race), it was still a little chilly, so we ended up grabbing madeleine's pajamas and making a makeshift coat for her. but after sitting in the sun for a while, it warmed up. the weather was perfect, with a breeze coming through the whole time and keeping the temperature right around 70 degrees.

we woke up at 6:00 to get to wendover and all of us were looking our best. diane and i were sporting pretty fancy hair, in particular.

have i mentioned how much these two love each other? they will randomly start hugging at any given time. i love it.

here she comes!

diane spent most of her time crawling all over these gates at the finish line. like i said, not too many people, so this wasn't a big deal.

this is jeanette perry, who is from our stake back in kirkland and happened to be running as well. fun to see a familiar face.

audrey and joseph

audrey and my mom

audrey, my mom, me

these three had a blast running around together. ring around the rosies was a favorite.

all falling down.

this was what the start/finish gate looked like. pretty fun, eh? thanks for running and giving us an excuse to come visit, audrey.

inspired

i know this girl. she's family of family and we've probably only met in person a handful of times, but i bump into her online presence a lot. that's what happens when you have lots of people in common. and i have her blog on my RSS feed because i really like her writing and i find her inspiring. secretly, i kind of wish i could be so cool. we're friends on facebook.

all of this is to say that the other day, she posted a link on facebook to this post. i don't usually click over to links from facebook too often, but like i said, i find myself inspired by this girl and wondered if maybe i would be inspired by her inspiration.

and i was.

and my sister just ran a half marathon.

and i was.

and like the post said, it makes me wonder what else am I telling myself I can't do?

sometimes i blame my children for my not doing things. not like i get mad at them or anything. more like i use them as an excuse. time to stop doing that.

here we go.

summer on my phone

i finally got around to syncing my phone with my computer and found all of these fun pictures from the summer. it sure went by fast.