Cramming All The Fun We Can Into the End of Summer

I always fall off the blogwagon a little in the summertime. There is just too much to do outside. And I forget to bring the camera a lot (like for our entire trip to Utah.) Michael remembers, however. So if he's along there are usually pictures to show for it. Here are some shots from our hike last week.

These are Seth's new glasses. He's got the whole Clark Kent thing going on.
Alice asks multiple times a day "How many days until kindergarten?" At least now we are getting down to the single digits in terms of wait time.
Thomas is still trouble. He'd better chill out, because I fully intend to toilet train him as soon as the kids head back to school. I have big plans for that diaper money, people.

He's still too little for pre-school, so some friends and I are doing Joyschool this year. It is called Joyschool, because I will be joyful when it is not my turn to teach.
This is what 100 pounds of peaches looks like on my kitchen counter. I went a little overboard on the peach picking. I usually shoot for about 60 pounds . . . but they were so beautiful and smelled so good I couldn't stop picking. I am tired of canning.
We've been totally enjoying the bounty of our friend's gardens. Vixie showed up with tons of tomatoes, zucchini, squash and cucumbers. The result was amazing over pasta. (I threw in some onions, garbanzos and marinated artichoke hearts too, for fun.)
I know I have a lot of blog catch up to do. Next up: our tenth anniversary and trip to Seattle. I'm going to try to be better . . . but with three separate soccer schedules (mine plus two kids), piano lessons, cub scouts, and school coming up, I can't make any promises.

From the Archive: A Tasty True Tale and Tongue Twister

(I wrote this for my family blog last August. I'm reviving it in hopes of beating the winter blahs.)

Yesterday, I planned to pick a peck of peaches with my progeny.
A peck-plus of perfect peaches my precious progeny and I did pick.
If my precious progeny and I picked a peck-plus of perfect peaches,
How many pounds of prized peaches did my precious progeny and I pick?

Answer: 33 pounds.

I propose that we are peach-picking prodigies.

What, you may ask, is the purpose of picking 33 pounds of perfect peaches?

Allow me to further pontificate upon our produce. A portion of the perfect peaches I plan to preserve in the freezer. A percentage of the prize peaches I parceled out to family and friends. Part of the peaches we did partake of with ice cream while participating in a pot luck dinner party. The peaches have provided us with great pleasure.
The only problem is that my progeny perceived pestilence in rotten windfall peaches at the orchard. They now refuse to eat the perfect peaches. Pardon the pun, but that is the pits!