The Quotes Just Keep Coming

On the way to swimming lessons today...

Grace:  Are we taking a shortcut?
Me:  No.
Benjamin:  Are we taking a haircut?

And on the way to the car after swimming lessons...

Jonathan:  I want to stay this age all the time.
He thinks that eight is the best age and asked me if it was as much fun to be a grownup.  I, of course, evaded his question and encouraged him to enjoy this age because it's a special time and he only gets to enjoy his childhood one time, but he can make memories and take those with him to enjoy, no matter his age.  He seemed to be satisfied with that.  And then...

J:  What are you allowed to bring to college?
So we talked about that, how the college provides your bed and dresser, etc., that you live with a roommate and bring your own special things.  And what he really wanted to know was...
J:  So, you can bring your own books to read in the evenings.
Me:  Yes.

And then...

J:  I think I know what I want to do with my life.
Me:  What do you want to do with your life?
J:  Build Legos.
Me, laughing:  Sounds like a good plan to me.
J:  I want to be a Lego Master Builder...

And so the conversation went.  I told him what I usually tell him, and what I hope will be true, that if he works hard in college, he'll be able to choose the job he wants.  I really hope he'll be able to.

From the Kids Who Are Usually Arguing...

At the end of lunchtime...

Gracie, to Benjamin:  I don't like the grapes, so you can have them.  I love you, so I gave them to you.

Benjamin:  I love you so much!

Oh, my!  Just had to write this one down, because they are at odds so often these days!

Tomato Love

You Just Never Know...

What he's going to be up to!

Often, I'll set the kids up with lunch and run into the kitchen to get something - or load the dishwasher - or whatever.  When I came back a few days ago, this is what I saw.  I have no idea where Benjamin found Grace's sock.  

The pic above is my favorite of the bunch, but the rest of these are worth mentioning, too.

 He found his sister's shoes and was very proud to be able to put them on by himself.  (Boy shoes are a whole lot harder to put on!)

And, here he is, waiting for a diaper change, and somehow he found Grace's old BabyLegs that I made and put them on while he was waiting.  (He doesn't really have a changing table at this house, just a changing pad on top of the toy box.  I plan to potty train him sometime soon, so I didn't want to put up an official dresser or table for just a few months.  Occasionally he'll just climb up and wait for me to change him.  Yes, he's ready to train, but I am not ready to devote the time to potty training yet, so I'm still changing diapers.  We BOTH have to be ready!)

 Benjamin, with you (and your siblings,) there's never a dull moment!

Just a Couple of Swimming Pics

These kids are pretty silly with their rings.  I'll include Jonathan next time!

At the Fair

The kids and I got to go on a kids-only, behind-the-scenes tour of our local fair this week.  We went in the morning when the fair was not actually open to the public.  The weather was cool and beautiful, and we all had such a good time!  We got to tour four stations, but there are a few others that I would have enjoyed seeing, too.  Maybe if we go to the fair one evening when it's really open, we can see what we missed.

Anyway, here is our first station, a kids' play area that was like a mini science museum with a medieval theme.

The good ol' Bernoulli principle

Bubbles!  You can see who loved these.

My favorite picture.  Just look at his face.

A balancing game.  The lights turned on when you balanced correctly.

The wall of nails, which were plastic pegs.  A big hit.

More bubbles!

Of course, certain people thought the soapy water was for playing IN.

I don't know what this one was called, but the kids were fascinated.

The idea with these was to guide the loop over the wire without actually touching the wire.  If you touched the wire and the loop, an alarm sounded.  Of course, my younger kids thought the idea was to make the alarm sound on purpose.

Learning about horses.  Huge horses!

We walked past the animal showing areas, and I wish we could have stopped and watched the 4-H kids doing their thing, but it wasn't part of our tour.

Big tractors!

And a small one.  Jonathan was proud to find this one because it also appears in a painting in his room.

I think this was his first taste of chocolate milk.  I drank most of it for him so he wasn't on sugar overload.  Yum!

Jonathan didn't want me to share the picture of him drinking his chocolate milk because he thought it made him look too young and like he wanted to drink all his milk at once.  I respected his wishes.

This lady was spinning yarn from alpaca fur.  J was totally fascinated by the little machine.  He watched her for a long time while we enjoyed the petting zoo.  I don't have many pictures of the petting zoo because both my hands were helping and corralling Benjamin, but it was really fun!

Watching chicks hatch

Benjamin and Grace loved petting these piglets and were content here for a long time.

Grace was so gentle to this little guinea pig!

We all really enjoyed our behind-the-scenes tour of the fair, and I think we'd love to do it again next year, as well as go to the real fair with our family.  Maybe we'll get the chance!

"Love, Gracie"

I told a couple of people today that Grace is like the little girl with the curl in the middle of her forehead.  "When she was good, she was very, very good.  But when she was bad, she was horrid."

I have (had) a couple of curtains hung in front of Grace's closet instead of using closet doors.  They were cute.  And functional.  And, for some reason, she yanked them down.  And by "down," I mean that hook thingies (the word escapes me) that hold up the curtain rods are no longer mounted to the wall.  She cried for a long time afterwards and told me she didn't know why she did it.  I was greatly displeased.

But when I went to bed tonight, I found this on my nightstand.  A kitty with a bow in her hair and hearts down below saying, "Love, Gracie."  Interestingly, this kitty was drawn with the same ballpoint pen that scribbled on my tablecloth earlier today.

Love that girl - good, horrid, or in between, I love her.

A Visit from Matt

The last weekend in June, just after Jeff got back from a trip, we enjoyed a visit from an old friend of ours.  He happened to be sort of in our area, so we were happy that he made the drive to see us and stay for a couple of nights.

Jeff and Matt got to go on a long hike while I spent some quality time with the kids.  Here are a couple of pictures from their day.

 The kids had a lot of fun swimming and goofing around with Matt, but I didn't get pictures of that.  He grew up in Japan as a missionary kid, and he ran across a little Japanese dollar-store type place while he was in the City, so he brought the kids some little toys that he enjoyed as a kid in Japan.  Of course, they were thrilled.  Benjamin continues to love to wear this headband that Matt gave to him.  I tried to get a picture of Matt and the kids, but as you can see, I was not very successful.

He was a good sport, and they loved their chopsticks, erasers, and more.  Thanks for the visit, Matt!

A Visit from Sarah and the Boys

My longtime friend, Sarah, came to visit with her boys today.  It's so good to have friends that I have known for more than 20 years.  We don't live in the same town, but we can pick up where we left off.  We got to host her boys for some playtime and show them around our new house.  They are getting ready to move, too - they live on one side of our town and are going to move to another side of our town, but they won't be getting any farther away.  They'll actually be slightly closer.  So, we're excited to see their new place when they get settled.

I didn't take many pictures of the kids playing because we spent a lot of time teaching the two-year-olds to take turns.  Benjamin had a lot of trouble trying not to scream when Adam wanted to try working on his toys.  (Time for some sharing lessons, Benjamin!)  We'll work on that.  But, when it was time to go and the kids were tired and ready for naps, we gathered them on the stairs for some pictures.  I wasn't sure which one was the best, so included a few.

Grace was a little unhappy to be the only girl, but I told her she could be one of the girls with Sarah and me.  Grace will get her turn to be with girls and outnumber the boys when Ella and Delia visit.

Sarah and I didn't manage to have each of our first two kiddos at the same time, but our third kiddos are the same age, so I think they'll be great buddies when they're older and Benjamin learns to share a little better.  Ahem.  But, even though Paul and Jonathan are about a year and a half apart in age, they have a  shared love for Legos...and also all things mechanical, I think.  (It's fun that Levi is old enough to join in on the tiny Lego fun now, too.)  They spent the entire visit building with or talking about Legos, except when we interrupted them to make them eat.  Here they are squeezing in one last technical conversation before it was time to go.  I think we could have left Paul and Jonathan and Levi alone with the Legos for the entire day, and they wouldn't have noticed whether we were around or not.

"Mommy, will you take a picture of my surprised face?"

"Will you put the pictures in a frame?"

Um, no, I will not be putting them in a frame.  The blog will have to suffice.  And you can thank my sister for the "Girls Rule" sweatshirt.  Grace loves it because it sparkles and is cozy.

Family Camp - A Zillion Pictures, Part Three

Most of these pictures are from the final 24 hours of camp.  There are just so many fun and special details that a camera can't capture, so I hope you can imagine those!  (One that comes to mind is Jeff and Jonathan's second-annual sleep-out.  Our little cabin, which is very rickety, and which we hear is the oldest cabin at camp, has a deck.  J and J have slept out on the deck once each summer that we've been in that cabin.  I'm sure Jonathan won't let Jeff forget about it next year if we have our choice and get that cabin again.)

On the last night, there's a program with the conclusion to the week's skit as well as a song from each of the kids' classes.  Jack also sings a bit.  He's a huge favorite of all the kids, so I had to include a picture of him.  I so appreciate how he makes each of the kids feel special.  We love his goofy songs, too.

Grace and Benjamin's classes did their songs together.  As you can see, structure for this age is a little...less than structured.

Grace didn't follow along exactly, but she participated, which is pretty good for any of our kids.

Benjamin was a little bewildered.

Grace warmed up to being in front of the audience.  She is midair in this picture.  See?

There aren't any pictures of Jonathan's grade and their song.  When he and his classmates were up on stage, he mysteriously had an untied shoelace that had to be fixed during the entire song, which hid him behind the other kids, so we couldn't see him at all and of course he couldn't sing.  I was irritated but wasn't too hard on him.  As I walked him back to our seat, though, I found that he was actually very emotional.  He was starting to cry because he was so distressed that camp was over, and he said that he loved everything about camp.  I tried to comfort him, but it's tricky to comfort someone who likes space when they're sad.  He was pretty upset for most of the evening.  He doesn't always let on, but he has a very tender heart.

On a happier note, Jack spent some time singing to the camp kids after the program was over.  Grace had made a point to go ask him if he'd sing his "cat song" ("Just Don't Kick the Cat," I'm not kidding,) and here he is singing it to the younger kids.  They were so thrilled.

Sorry for the otherworldly look on Jack's face.  It was dark and he was singing silly songs, remember.  I just wanted to show how happy Benjamin and Grace were at this point.

Benjamin was fascinated by Jack's instruments.  I don't have a picture of them here, but Ella and Delia were enamored by Jack, too, and introduced my kids to his music.

Jonathan cheered up once he could play the jaw harp with the music.  Jack taught him how to do it last year, and now he's really good at it.

My sweet boy!

The next morning at breakfast, Jonathan found some other jaw harp players.  It's funny when you meet some buddies on the last morning instead of the first.

My dear pack-horse husband, hauling our stuff up the trail to the van.

Clowning around on the steps down to our cabin while Jeff loaded the van.  (Who had the trickier job, the van loader or the kid corraller?  We'll never tell!)

Another picture of Grace in midair.

Up the trail for the last time this year.

On the way home, we stopped and watched Monsters, Inc.  It was the first theater-movie for the younger two kids.  Jonathan didn't want to see it and even brought a book into the theater so that he didn't have to watch it.  However, the book sat, unread, and we all loved the movie.  The kids slept just a bit on the way home, but only two at a time, at the most.

Both boys were asking to go back to family camp today.  I told them we could go back in June...but I didn't emphasize the small problem that June is eleven months away!