...YUM!

We got a breadmaker!!

It's a Black & Decker All-in-one horizontal bread machine. Wow, it's so easy to use! Uh oh, I think we are going to be eating a lot of fresh bread. It also makes jam and prepares dough for all kinds of delicious things like pizza dough and cinnamon rolls.

Here's a picture of the first loaf. You can see a little hole where the mixing paddles bake into the loaf. They're easy to pull out when it's done but they leave this mark.



Here's a close-up of the crust. See the sesame and flax seeds? Yummy!

...art around the house

An artist is born.

"Look, Mommy! I drew several pictures for you. You'll enjoy discovering them as you tour our hallway, kitchen, and dining room! Don't overlook the ones on each kitchen cabinet door - you'll notice that I paid special attention to my line work on those."


"You're laughing. Don't you like them? I'm feeling embarassed..."


"WASHING THEM OFF?! But I worked so hard on them!"

...checking in

Hey - nothing out of the ordinary to report. I've been sanding and priming all the trim in the house to prepare for our new paint colors. That's why I haven't posted any pictures of any rooms yet - I want to wait until they are done and I'm proud of them.

Darren installed motion sensor flood lights in the front and back of the house because we border on a questionable area and I get a little bit nervous about the people who come around to dig through our recycling. I feel more comfortable knowing that if they turn up at night we'll know about it.

Oh man, I just realized that about 1/2 hour ago I made myself a bowl of Special K and then promptly forgot to eat it. Better go throw it out and start over :-p

More when there's something to report.

...in the yard

Yesterday I finally got around to clearing up the storage shed in the back yard, but took a couple of breaks to catch Jackson on his swing. You can hear Darren noodling with his guitar in the backround.





And then Jackson wanted a turn with the camera, which I am always happy to give him since he has a unique eye and a very steady hand. I'd say he takes pretty excellent photographs for a 4 1/2 year old, but then I'm his mom. Here are a few of his best shots:

...dance dance dance

Frannie loves to dance! As soon as she hears a good beat, whether it's a computer game, a TV commercial, or on the stereo, her little knees start bouncing and her arm starts swinging. I don't ever want to forget her own special style:

...super swimmer

Here are some pictures from Jackson's swim lesson this morning. I also finally used the video feature on this camera of ours and it works great! Even has sound. I never bothered with it before because I've been using our super duper video camera, but I think I'll start doing more with the still camera since it's easier to upload from.

Jackson adjusting his goggles, getting ready to jump into the deep end. He worked on treading water today.

Then they moved back over to the shallow warm pool to work on back glides, front glides, and kicking. This teacher hasn't done any work on arm movements with the class like his previous teacher did. During the summer the classes are M-F for two week sessions and every session has had a different teacher.

This is 11 megs so it could take a few minutes to load.


This one is a little smaller.

...word?

Word.

My baby is doper than your baby: