Neil turned 30 in October. Wahoo! I wanted to do a dinner party but there were just too many people to invite. So instead we made all of Neil's favorite desserts and had a backyard party. You can do that in October when you live in the desert.

 Neil always makes cool vents on his apple pies. And his apple pies are yummy. Yes, he made his own birthday pie. But I made all the rest.

 With the birthday cheesecake. Sadie was very happy about this.

 And all the food. We had homemade cookies and cream ice cream, chocolate chip cookies, and hot chocolate too.

 Here's the pie baked.

And a whole lot of kids on one swing. They had a good time. And so did Neil.

Random October Pictures

October 2011

enjoying new books

Madoc entertaining Charlotte

morning Charlotte

asleep again

the new suit that was his birthday/Christmas present

I'm just clearing out the picture queue. Here are some old ones.

August 2011

 A very young, dirty Charlotte face

Neil unhooking the fridge to clean underneath it

a very sleepy lunch

September 2011

 One of the many volunteer watermelons in our garden this year. It was huge and amazingly edible.

playing with the bells

My Boys Have Been Here

Neil cut out some dead bushes from our front yard on Saturday. But he can't just throw them away like a normal person. No, he has to stack them in the middle of my patio so he can burn them in the grill. Then Madoc commandeered them, added some grass clippings, and made a pretend fire.

It isn't always greener on the other side...

A few weeks ago my yard started out looking like this:

By day's end it looked like this:

Neil worked long and hard that Friday to get everything finished. I tried to help but I was pretty much useless as the sod was too heavy for me to move. We had already put in the irrigation last year and Neil's been working all winter to drop the grade below the level of the fieldstone so that the grass would be even with it in the end. So that morning he moved more dirt, added sand, peat moss, sulfur, phosphorus, and gypsum, then rototilled the whole yard. After he leveled it off and passed the lawn roller over it a few times, he started laying down the sod. I helped trim and cut pieces around the fieldstone, trees, etc. I became very good at sawing through sod! I also helped water down the 1000 sq ft of sod sitting on our driveway. At the end of the day Neil was exhausted and I think we practically fell into bed. But now our backyard is green!