I was very sad, but now I'm not so much!

Our hard drive crashed a few months back. Of course I hadn't blogged in months...or backed up any of my pictures, so I thought all was lost. I was super bummed. Kallen managed to bite his tongue and I didn't even hear one "I told you so." But lesson learned- I"ll now and forever back up my pictures....and try to blog more so at least if I lose them again, I'll have at least some of them documented online. But all is not lost- Kallen worked on it for hours and somehow none of my pictures were permanently gone. Woo hoo! So here goes a big long group of posts.... And since my OCD brain needs it to be chronological, we will start with AUGUST 2011. That is right folks- August. I know I suck.

Miss Madison came out of her room one afternoon and announced, "OK, I'm ready to go!" Not quite sure where she was going on that get up, but she blew kisses and ran towards the door. This girl loves to GO! She's always up for any new adventure...and usually very well accessorized to boot. 



We did a lot of hanging out and playing, and of course a ton of SWIMMING!  This girl loves the water and especially the diving board!  We did one session of swim lessons and had so much fun, and then spent the rest of the summer hanging out at our neighbor's pool where I was able to teach a few lessons. 

I tried my hand at gardening this summer.  It was a very small garden, but it was fun to be able to grow our own food!

I also tried making jelly for the first time.  I don't recommend starting with jalapenos to anyone!  But since we grew a ton and I didn't know what to do with them.....

So far so good as long as I wore all the silly protective gear.

It was when the pan boiled over that things got pretty dicey.  Picture black billowy toxic death smoke filling the room and my lungs.  Kallen grabbed Madison and they got outside to some fresh air while I tried to save the jelly.  My stove top will never quite be the same, although the gelatinous burned on goo did eventually come up with a razor blade and a lot of scrubbing.  All that for 5 jars of jalapeno jelly....which it turns out no one in our house eats.  Haha!  At least my Dad likes it.