Fall Fish Fry, Scavenger Hunt, and Baby's 1st Pedicure

What better way to welcome fall that with some Jezebel toenails!

Now she matches her ladybug costume`

About the only picture of her actually smiling in the outfit. She HATED it.

Bella and Trudy buzzing around

Trudy was in some serious need of pixie dust. Andrea to the rescue!

Bzzzz

Club blonde. Trudy hopes to remain a member for life, but it's not likely.

Oh let's get a cute picture on the hay. Yeah right!

Toes...hehe

Daddy, these people are crazy! Come save me!

And of course he did.

Katy makes the most delicious fish tacos and was kind enough to fix enough for all of us. I brought some homemade jalapeno poppers to complement them.

Just when we thought Richard couldn't get weirder, he piles his plate full of fish then proceeds to dump ketchup all over it. Yuck!

On to the scavenger hunt. It was adults against the youth and the adults split into two car loads. The girls handled the photo portion of the hunt while the guys did the dirty work.

First on the list...a cheesy church sign. No worries there!

A yellow light

A yield sign

Dad's chickens

An out-of-state license plate

The keypad system at the nursing home where we minister once per month.

Team "Minivan Maniacs"

Team F.A.L.L

Trudy was actually being snuggly for a couple minutes. She's probably going to be unaffectionate like me. The older generation is glad for me to get some payback, but since I'm unaffectionate too, I'm not awfully bothered. I understand her!

Bring on the Four Square competition! I'm thinking our squares should have been larger to make it more challenging, but it sure was fun playing in close quarters since you have the opportunity to be really mean.

You know it's fall when you're sitting around a fire toasting marshmallows.

Katy and Gilbert roasted all the hotdogs for us.Trudy switched from ladybug to pumpkin for the chilly evening. Notice Moe is never far. He's going to become like Waldo. Where's Moe?

Ahhhh....

Woodburning Stove

We've had plans for a woodburning stove since we moved into this house. It's begging for one with the old-timey decor. I wanted a railroad style pot-bellied stove but they just put off too much heat for our little house. Dave found this one at Lowe's. $800 retail and we got it for $314! He was excited to say the least.

Here's the spot before anything was done.

This is the crappy linoleum underneath the carpet. Yikes!

After pictures with tile hearth. Can't wait to get a fire stoked up and make some hot chocolate! Anybody want to babysit so I can curl up with a book while I'm at it? :)

First trip to Lowe's, Naptime with Moe, and a Little Penguin

Not much going on in Gervensland. The most excitement we've had is the happy dance we do at 11:00pm when Trudy goes down for the night. Still, as long as there's a cutie patootie in the house, there will be something to blog.

Sleep training is going really well. We feel like we have our lives back! Trudy sleeps through the night consistently and with naps is getting about 14 hours of sleep every 24 hours. She is either awake and happy or asleep. I'm now a believer in the cry-it-out method even though it is horrible to have to go through the first night. Totally worth it for us and her.

Gigi just happened to be in Baby Gap one afternoon....Isn't the penguin adorable!

And we felt like Trudy's first trip to the home improvement store was worth documenting. The first of many trips with her dad. He is installing a woodburning stove for the winter. I can't wait to enjoy our first cozy fire.

Crochet Food

I figure if I start now, Trudy will have a nice set of crochet food to play with when she's old enough. This is what I've made so far.

Fun with Photoshop

I love love love to digital scrapbook with Photoshop. It's cheaper and neater than traditional scrapbooking and I love having all my pages put into a compact album at the end of each year. In some ways it's also easier since I generally use other people's templates that they generously share so I don't even have to come up with a layout on my own. Photoshop is an amazing program that is somewhat wasted on me though since I have yet to tap into it's potential. Fixing red eye, faking the depth of field, adding eye makeup, and changing clothing colors are about the only ways I ever alter a photo. After using the program for a couple years I just discovered Photoshop actions this week. Actions are to photos what templates are to digital scrapbooking: the lazy way to go! Needless to say, I am enjoying my new "toy."

Mom took this picture of Bella last week and I ran a fake the depth of field action on it so I no longer have to do that manually. Yay!

This is with a DOF action and a retro action. Love this one with the farmer's market theme.

Vintage action

And a sepia action