Denny Creek

A quick hike up to Denny Creek to play in the water:

 
 
 
 

Christmas Pines

 

And a slideshow of all the activity:

Counting

Rebecca, sitting at the breakfast table: "One, two, three, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven!"

Me: "You counted to eleven! That's so good!"

Rebecca goes for a repeat performance: "One, two, three, ten, eleven, POW!"

Grandma Caughey's Chocolate Applesauce Cake

1/2 C butter
1 1/2 C sugar
1/2 t cinnamon
2 eggs
1 1/2 t soda
2T cocoa
2 C flour
1/2 t salt
2 C applesauce

Beat butter, sugar...

Cook in a greased & floured pan. Pat on top:

1/2 C nuts (pecans)
1 C chocolate chips
Bake at 350 for 30-40 min.

Difficulty: Strenuous

Needs vs. Wants

Grandma, need a cookie.
Need more lemonade.

Sick and Tired

 

I'm sick. She's tired.

Shooting Red Currants

Alex and Katherine came up with a new pasttime today: holding red currants from Grandma's garden in front of the hose, then squirting them high into the air.

Both participants claim to have invented the idea. "I thought of it myself," Alex says. "I got the idea from the fireworks. This is like fireworks--but with water!"

Gravity Problems

"Mom," Alex complains after being ordered to go to sleep, or else, "I can't stay on the bed."

Issuing helpless groans, he slides off the bed and onto the floor, where he promptly hits his head on the dump truck.

Bedtime's a killer, isn't it?

Evening Visitor

 

The girl who can open bottles

has, this week,

• slathered gobs of sunscreen all over herself
• dumped nail polish down her shirt
• fixed her own hair with a fortune's worth of Grandma's Loreal face cream

And then there's Alex

who I found in the bathroom rubbing his belly. "Toothpaste is just like sunscreen!"

What has gotten into my children?

90 degrees

Glacier Basin

Yes, I'm sure that it's not dust on the lens. Erik and Bruce really are the two small dots on the right.

Bang

 
 
 
 

Happy 4th of July. Alex and Katherine thought that the fireworks were very much in the spirit of the Star Spangled Banner--bombs bursting in air--and enjoyed going to beach park in their pajamas--until, that is, the teenagers at the end of the dock started lighting fireworks.

Dessert

 
 
 
 

We had the family over for dessert. This is what it looks like.

Things that make your tummy growl on Fast Sunday

• miming "eating" in the "Do as I'm Doing" song because a usually recalcitrant 11-year-old boy chose it
• stirring "Moose Goose" pudding
• reading about spinach salad, cherry pie, and banana bread in Cook's Illustrated

Canoeing