So much to do, so little time [free of needy children]

These last few weeks have gone by in such a blurr and I feel like we've hardly made a dent in our unpacking, but we are making progress and will some day be able to find everything again.

Matthew and Jenny blessed Michaela last week (and I forgot my camera, darn it! So I didn't get any pictures of her all dressed up so cute, but believe me, she looked pretty cute!), then afterwards people made their way west to our place for the afternoon, and someone took this pic of us while we were visiting. If you look closely, you'll see that both kids are sucking their thumbs, it was so nap time!
On Wednesday, I got together with Rachele and Heather to can pears (a first for me!). We worked for about 2 1/2 hours after the kids were asleep and bottled 8 quarts. It seemed like so much work for so little to show, especially since we split up the pears between us, but it was still fun. You'll notice we're holding bowls of colorful goodness. Well, canning pears is very messy, and a girl's gotta have her chocolate fix while gossiping and being a domestic sensation, so we put our M&M's in bowls so we could "sip" on them with our gooey hands. Fabulous!
The "fruit" of our labors... get it? Fruit? Canning? Uh.... yeah.
Last Saturday we had to get our car inspected (it was actually due at the end of August, but with the move, that just didn't happen), and the inspection place is in the same parking lot as the aquarium, so while they were working on our car, we took the kids to the aquarium. Isaac dashed through at his usual whirlwind pace, and Emilie liked seeing the colorful fish swimming around. She's noticing so much these days!
And here is the personification of guilt and stress... my garage. Some day, I keep thinking to myself, we may actually get to park inside of it and have it be organized and beautiful... a girl can dream.