Pumpkins and pumpkins

We dressed up our crop for its big day!

My kind of town

My friends and I had an amazing time in Chicago this weekend. Between the delicious food we ate and the numerous laughs we shared my belly could use a vacation too. Along with shopping the sales and lingering over lattes, we took in a lakefront Segway tour and a performance by the renowned Second City comedy group.

Thank you to all of the husbands who made this girls' trip possible, especially mine, and to the kids who drove us to flee them and whose smiling faces we couldn't wait to see again.

We heart Hartley

We checked out Hartley nature center last weekend in Duluth. We met up with Aunt Naomi and our camping friends, Rhett and Tate.

Big apple

Troy and I took a weekend to ourselves and visited NYC. We took surprisingly few pictures but here are a few.

Bundt cake bummer

Would you believe I will not eat a bite of this delicious-looking lemon pound cake?! I made it for the teachers appreciation dinner. They better appreciate my lemon-iced appreciation!

Carrot season

We harvested our carrots late last week, with the help of a couple neighborhood kids. It's been fun to see what our little 4x8 plot has produced this growing season, peas, pumpkins, carrots and raspberries. That's not a bad haul for a family who knows so little about gardening. Now what to plant next year? And can we talk the neighbors into sharecropping for the free labor?

One step at a time

Darby is working on writing his letters and numbers, which is proving challenging. Today he is tracing his letters with a dry erase marker, wiping them off and doing it again.