Let's Fly a Kite

Photos from Pacific Beach.

Sticky

Postpone dinner for an hour because you're FINALLY working on your book, and your hungry children spread MiniWheat crumbs all over the deck. The result? A sticky mess for bare feet.

Turning Up The Heat

Rebecca just figured out how to open the control panel on our thermostat. Wonder if she's reprogrammed it?

Rebecca Sings Follow the Prophet

"Jesus was a prophet,
He did something right!"

Swimming Milestones

Alex and Katherine:
--passed the Kirkland Pool swimming test so they could swim in the deep end and jump off the diving board (Alex has an especially neatly-tucked cannonball)

Mommy:
--cannonballed off the diving board

Rebecca:
--"I can touch the bottom of the pool!"

Summer 2011

The closest thing to summer in Kirkland for 2011 was August 20, 2011. Becca enjoyed it, at least.

Big Salmon Fishing Prize

It's a 5-inch-long bottom-feeding sculpin.

No, actually, the big prize was this:

Swiss Chocolate Cherry in a fresh-made waffle cone from Snow Goose Produce in the Skagit Valley--best ice cream ever!

Semantics

I bring the kids home from a long afternoon of swimming, gymnastics, and meeting friends unexpectedly at the park. Kids collapse onto chairs in the living room, but I know we have to do dinner and pajamas right away. "Kids," I tell them, "either you think of some way to help me or you go get your pajamas on right now." Then I rush off to get Rebecca into pajamas. When I come back, Alex is still sitting in the living room, legs curled under him. "Alex!" I say. "I told you to get your pajamas on or think of some way to help."

"Mom," he says. "I'm still thinking."

Chewing Gum

R: Chew, chew, chew.
Me: "What are you eating?"
R: "Bubble gum."
Me: pry open R's mouth. Empty. "Where's the gum?"
R: "I ate it! It's in my tummy!"

Not a Seamstress

Here's how you know that sewing is not my natural inclination: when my daughter needs a blackout curtain, I pile boxes on her windowsill instead of pulling out the sewing machine.

Rebecca Sings Dixie Chicks

She needs...Wide open spaces
Room to make the big moustache

On the Virtues of Riding Bikes on the Trail in the Park

By Rebecca and Loralee

This is not a road
There are no cars here
There's no sidewalk now
So you ride free and clear

Time

The time I'm most productive is any time I'm supposed to be doing something else.

On Reading the Book Of Mormon

The task of getting my kids to read Book of Mormon (it often takes a whole car ride before one of them will manage to finish one verse) has become much easier since Katherine purchased colored scripture marking pencils. Now, if the stars have all aligned and we sit down together to read with the pack of pencils, they often beg to read longer so they can find more to mark! (Indiscriminate marking has been known to occur.)

So much for generosity

I was so focused on magnamimously sharing out bits of my post-Seattle-Art-Museum waffle cone with my children that I didn't realize ice cream was dripping out the bottom of the cone all over my pant leg. Lucky I was wearing washable travel pants!

Mystery of Childhood

Why, when one sibling is whaling on another, does the victim just sit there and yell instead of MOVING AWAY?

A Great Souvenir

Sweet memories of Leavenworth: the exotic flavors of taffy my husband bought in sets of 5. The only problem? You can't sneak one when the kids are asleep because you'll break up the set. Unless you eat all 5...hm...

Noun or Verb?

Becca says: "I want to watch the merry go around."

Rebecca Sings Yankee Doodle

Yankee Doodle went to town
Riding on a bumblebee
...

Behind the music and the steps...


Father and I went down to camp
Along with Captain Goodin
And there we saw the men and girls
As thick as Harry Potter

A New Definition of Awkward

Dragging around a three year old AND a double inflated innertube

On Sleep Schedules

Look at it this way--we're early risers by Hawaii time.