Hello? Hello? Is this thing on??

I don't know why I've been in such a blogging slump lately. I sit down at the computer to write and....I got nuthin'. I keep thinking I need to post something, but I just draw a blank. It's not that I've been too busy. I'm no busier than anyone else. I have a nice quiet break every afternoon when Wyatt's at school and Hadley's napping when I could blog, but I choose to check my email, surf Facebook, bake, get a jumpstart on dinner or fold some laundry while fast forwarding through a Tivo'd episode of Oprah.

In an effort to catch you up on things, I'm going for the down and dirty, discombobulated paragraph format with no real flow. Here are the highlights...

We've been enjoying a fabulous mini Indian Summer (is that still P.C. to say? probably not). It's not exactly a heat wave, but it did get to 22 this weekend (72 F). We've been out walking, admiring what's left of the leaves and playing on the playground.

 

 

I finished up a 3 week photography course. Wow. I know realize how much I DON'T know. Aperatures, ISO settings, shutter speeds, metering, exposures and the awful Sunny 16 Rule. Who knew photography involved so much math? I thought I was rid of the dreadful subject once and for all when I graduated, only to find out my teacher was right, you really DO need math in life - cooking, sewing and now photography. I am also reminded of why I will never go back to school. The course was taught at a local high school, complete with rock hard desks, flourescent lighting, instructor droning on and quizzes. Yes, quizzes! Still, I'm glad I took the course and I've got a lot swirling in my head that I hope to start putting to use. I'm now going to attempt to take my camera off the automatic settings and actually adjust my own settings. I have already had a couple of unsuccessful photo shoots, but I'm not giving up. My pictures will probably get worse before they get better....

We've been living through some minor renovations our landlord has been promising since we moved in. Our master bath and the kids' bathroom now have nice new tile. Dayven ripped out the baseboards and the old stuff and I helped him install the subfloor to help prepare it for the tiler. The landlord joked about buying Dayven a bottle of scotch as a thank you, but I told him I want a new refrigerator. Hey, a girl can dream. Next is the kitchen. YEAH!! It is going to be incredibly inconvenient to live through, but will be so nice when it's done. Then he'll move on to the powder room, then laundry room.

Every Sunday, I am the only one in my family not proudly wearing orange and blue. Ok, sparkly pink for Hadley but she's still showing her team spirit. It's not that I don't like the Broncos, it's just that I don't watch (or understand) football so I feel it's a misrepresentation for me to wear a jersey. They all cheer the team on, win or lose. Well, actually Dayven made everyone take their jerseys off after the lost, but they'll be back on next Sunday.

I'm back at bootcamp and loving every quad quivering, bicep burning class. I've been working out with a friend, which is so much more fun. I am "training" Hadley to move to one nap a day so I can enjoy this little social outing. Sometimes it works out well, other times it doesn't. We just head to the gym each morning and hope for the best.

The kids are doing great. Wyatt continues to develop his charming, quirky personality and makes us laugh every day with the silly things he says. We don't know where he comes up with some of this stuff! He loves school. I know this because he begs to go every day. He wakes up each morning and announces "OK! It's time for school!" I remind him that he goes to school in the afternoon and we have a bunch of other things to do first. When we finally get there, he tears down the hall and races into the classroom, without even saying goodbye. On our way home from school, I try to ask him about his day and I get one word answers, only after some serious prying. Finally, he says "Mommy. I just DON'T want to talk about it!!" His teacher reassures me he loves school and he's doing good. Just wait until he is a teenager. He really won't want to talk about his day. I guess it starts young. Hadley is an absolute monkey and continues to amaze us with her fearlessness and determination. She does not understand that she can't do everything that Wyatt does and she just goes for it with unbridled confidence. She drags her little blue stool from room to room and climbs right up in an effort to be taller. I go to the fridge to grab something and turn around to find her standing on the tray of her high chair, squawking and pointing at something out of reach. I peeked in the window of the gym daycare the other day and saw her climbing the bookshelf. She was about halfway up before one of the workers swooped her up. She's obsessed with our hats and shoes and trys them on and trips her way through the house, smiling the biggest, proudest smile. She is quite charming and loves to flirt with strangers. People always comment on how cute she is and she lowers her head coyly, bats her eyelashes at them and smiles her little flirty smile, like yeah, I know.