James had a birthday, shout "Hooray!"

Monday was James birthday. He is now 35. Unfortunately, that means the crashing down of a life-long dream to retire by age 35. But we love him all the same. :) We had a great dinner of his world-famous ribs and lots of good presents. He couldn't decide on a birthday cake, so I made him one that he wanted to try - a hummingbird cake. But it calls for nuts. And the rest of us hate nuts. So I divided the recipe into 2 and made 2 cakes -- one with nuts and one without. It's a pretty good cake -- tastes kinda like banana bread, but more cake-y.

And this is what a handsome 35-yr old looks like. In bad lighting. With a bad camera. But handsome, nevertheless.

And this is what the world's cutest baby looks like on his dad's 35th birthday. With bad lighting. And a bad camera. But still the cutest, nevertheless.

Other happenings: We bottled pears finally. We got them for $.29/lb at Belltown Hill Orchards. Great deal! We bottled 35 jars with plenty of pears leftover for eating. Unfortunately, the froze in our refrigerator. But they still made a pretty good pie!

And here's my last picture: Zachary enjoying some Rice Krispies treats. A bit sticky, maybe?

Zachary's growing

Mr. Zachary is growing by leaps and bounds. Or rather, his teeth are growing by leaps and bounds. 4 of his top teeth came in within the past two weeks. I tried to get a picture of them, but it's hard to get picture of the top teeth. But doesn't he look so handsome in his new Sunday suit? I just pulled out all the 12 month clothes for him and found it. I love finding old clothes my kids have worn and remembering when they were little.

He's crawling like crazy now, too. At Karen's house last week, he figured out how to crawl up one step from the living room to dining room. He'll crawl over pillows and over my legs.

We've been having some electrical problems at our house. First, it started with the kitchen light switch. Our kitchen light has two switches, and one of the switches, (which I'm sure is 60 years old, just like the house), broke. So we got a new switch. But it didn't quite work right. Only if one switch was in one position, would the new switch work. And you had to click it down for on and up for off. Whatever.

Then a few days ago, I was working on the computer and I heard a buzzing noise, and then my computer switched off. Power failure. But then I noticed some lights in our house were still on. So I went downstairs to check the circuit breaker. But the circuit wasn't broken. When I came upstairs, I noticed that some of the lights on that circuit were working, just not the plugs on one wall, our kitchen light, and the dining room light. After a few days of investigating the wiring, James brought down some insulation in the attic. It was slightly charred. Apparently, this is why you should obey the light fixture when it says to only use 60 watt bulbs. The insulation had been going through a slow burn. We're feel very lucky that this was the worst that had happened. James took down the light fixture, and the insulation around the wires was charred. It rained ashes on our floor as James took out the old wires.

Well, the reason we had 100-watt bulbs instead of 60-watt bulbs is because the lighting in our kitchen is so horribly dim. So, since we had to replace the light, we got a new, large, bright, florescent light fixture. Ta da!

Did you know it's hard to take a decent picture of a light fixture? But it's so bright and cheerful in my kitchen now! And that's saying a lot. There were more burnt spots over Erica's light fixture, and James guesses there is also one over Eldon's light fixture and another light in our kitchen. So they'll be getting new lights too. Right now they have florescent bulbs, so we're not too worried about it. But Eldon broke his light a few years ago, so he's needed a new one for a while. We got him a ceiling fan for his room since he doesn't have a window A/C. And, so conveniently, his room fan broke that day.

Oh, and by the way, the kitchen light switch still doesn't work properly. But that's another problem for another day.

Labor Day Weekend

We went to Virginia for Labor Day weekend to visit with my sister Karen and her family and to see my niece, Kimi, get baptized. The drive is about 8 hours from here, and the kids were *wonderful*. Even Zachary only fussed a little bit, and that was mostly when he was tired, and then he went to sleep. What a good baby I have!

While we were there, Karen made me an awesome ice cream cake. Unfortunately, my camera's battery died, so I didn't get a picture of it. Joe took one on his cell phone, but can't figure out how to get it to me. But we got a picture of Zachary eating it.

We also were able to go to the Washington D.C. temple and perform some sealings for our family and the Yarrington family.

On Sunday, Kimi was baptized. It was a wonderful experience.

Since it was fast Sunday that day, Kimi chose "Fast Sunday Pancakes" for her dinner. They're huge pancakes -- only two fit on the griddle. The one in the picture here is an extra-large one that Joe asked for.

Eldon spent the days following Joshua around and using his bow and arrows. He *loved* it! He had the greatest time shooting the arrows off the deck into the backyard. We had so much fun on our trip. I'm so glad that my sister lives closer!

And he's off!

Zachary started crawling this week. We had a feeling he'd be crawling before the month was over, and we were right. He's so curious about everything. This is one of his first attempts. He will crawl farther now, always for the littlest speck of something. But he won't really crawl to anyone. If he has your attention, he'll just fuss until you come get him.