Last Days of Summer

I know it's been a while since the last post! It was really nice to have some phone calls from some of you asking where the posts were and why wasn't anything new getting put up :) I have to admit I think I got a little burnt out there for a second (which really stunk because last weekend was VERY blog-worthy, with family from Texas in for Bill's cousin's wedding, numerous family get-togethers....ugh....and I just didn't take any pictures or anything...) One of the reasons for the burn out was because I had had the intention ever since I started blogging to compile all of the entries in a really nice hard cover coffee table book that I would have made each year! I downloaded the software called Blurb to get started o what I thought was going to be pretty simple......I quickly realized that the illusion of having this gorgeous book made with only a few clicks of the mouse was disappearing as fast as fried chicken at a church pot luck. This was going to be hard! I was up to my ears in templates and text boxes! I was so frustrated, disappointed and depressed about it that I wanted to throw in the towel.....I touched base with a friend of mine, Rachel that was going through the exact same tug of war with the software. We commiserated together at our pity party and even contacted a professional designer to get a quote on her services....after recovering from the $1200 flat rate quote we decided to put our heads together and bang it out ourselves! So, hopefully by the end of the year we will have all of our blog entries, memories and photos in a coffee table book! Fingers crossed! If any of you have any experience with this sort of thing and would like to share some insight, by ears are always open :)

So, with that being said, and my pity party over, back to blogging! What a better time to jup back in than a Thursday Night dinner with friends?

Emily had set up the kids picnic table and they absolutely LOVED it! We didn't think that they would all sit down for very long together, but boy were we wrong! They thought they were all that and a bag of chips sitting there by themselves!

Ther was a lot of sharing of food at the kids table, some willingly and some a little less willingly :) We only had one meltdown by Sawyer's friend Jack, one drink spill by Nora, one table relocation, one hamburger in the grass followed by a serving of corn, and nearly one bag of BBQ chips eaten by Nolan! I'd call that a pretty successful mealtime!

Bill and John chowing down on burgers!

We all had quite a long discussion about bedtime routines! Who sleeps closest to the door, who likes the sheets at the end of the bed tucked in, who sleeps with one foot out of the covers, who is a blanket hog, who likes to cuddle for more than ten minutes, and most importantly-how often to wash your sheets! It came down to it that Ashton, Emily and I are the good wives that average one to two times a week for sheet changing.....and Arliss, Laney, and Melody need to read more Good House Keeping magazines.....