A cool summer evening, and a busy morning

We are going through a wonderful stretch of cool weather, which coincides nicely with the first week of school. My head is filled with autumn leaves, wool hats, turkey dinners, and pumpkin cheesecake!

On the first cool night, we lit a fire in the chiminea on our deck.

Fozzie locates and picks the one ripe tomato on the vine.
Toasty warm!

"Fozzie, I keep trying to get a picture of you and the fire, but you keep looking away, and I'm starting to get frustrated. Just put your hands on my leg and look at the camera!" (Now why didn't I ask her to do that in the first place?)

Fozzie dances around with the tomato, which ends up being thrown off the deck and suffering various other abuses, and is eventually thrown in the trash.

Fozzie helps Mommy juice some "clementimes" for the pork chop marinade this morning.

Marching boldly from the big guy swings to the baby swings.

Swinging on the baby swing for a few minutes.

And then back to the big guy swings for some belly swinging.

Monthly visit to MD

Fozzie enjoying her lemon at breakfast.

I think we've already mentioned to everyone that Katy has re-named herself Fozzie. It started as an occasional role she liked to play, but now she insists on being called Fozzie all the time. Grandpa surprised her by giving her a Fozzie hand-puppet that used to belong to my brothers and me when we were little. She was in LOVE.

I met up with some old high school friends, Katie, Rob, and Jeddy. I hadn't seen Rob and Jeddy in at least a decade! We brought all our kids together for a playdate. I thought I had forgotten my camera, but I found it in my purse at McDonald's.

Here are Connor, Katy, Mabel, and Robbie.
Blaine slept through dinner. Luckily, he had already eaten.

Katy and Mabel looking gorgeous.

I love the look on Robbie's face in this picture.

Jeddy entertaining Ruby.

Rob and Katie, plus Mabel and Ruby.

Here they are again, posing for the camera this time.

Katy sits on Jed's lap for a french fry or two.

Katy and her cousin Jessica have matching shoes!

Katy and her cousin Nicolas mow the driveway with extremely gender-specific toy lawnmowers.

But they refused to be confined by traditional gender roles.

Fozzie in her cousins' playroom.

Jessica lookin' cute.

Jessica shows Katy her books.

All three kids eating dinner out on the deck.

It's Brayden (Nicolas and Jessica's cousin on their mama's side)!

Fozzie relaxing with her Uncle Brian.

Nicolas and Jessica play on the loveseat while Shelly supervises.

Nicolas is a mini-Brian!

Ladies and Gentlemen... Please direct your attention to the center ring...

Pool time, Please Touch Museum, and August mittens

What's up, Doc?

Filling up the pool.

Finally, she is starting to figure out what to do when we ask her to smile.

This morning we went to the Please Touch Museum in Philadelphia. It was AMAZING. Such a fun time for kids.

She loved the ducks - big surprise.

I guess she thought the canoe was a bathtub?

They had a Goldilocks and the Three Bears playhouse. This is Katy's favorite story!

Standing at the top of the slide. She rarely actually slides, but she loves to take up space at the top of the slide.

This is the same walking Piano from the movie Big!

Mesmerized by the spinning Alice falling down the rabbit hole.

Boobadibbos!!!

The boat for the Owl and the Pussycat story was NOT a pea green boat. How could they be so inaccurate?

Rumplestiltskin.

Having tea w/ the March Hare. This is the one area that she could have stayed at all day long.

Working in construction.

Looking haggard as she pushes the wheelbarrow.

Shopping at an awesome play-supermarket. This was Mommy's favorite part.

Sitting pretty while little boys played "mechanic" on her sweet ride.

This month, I just felt compelled to make Katy some mittens. I know it will be months before she'll need them, and they don't match her hat, but I just went with my gut on these.