moments

A few weeks ago the kids were all outside, and ended up all together sitting in the ditch we (meaning the missionaries) had just dug for our sprinkler line. They were playing happily together, no one crying or complaining about whatever another one was doing. It was a nice moment.
This must have been on mix-match day, since Alex's pants seem to be on backwards.

Another nice moment happened not long ago when I was in another room in the house and noticed things were unusually quiet. I came out to the kitchen to find this:
I try to be inconspicuous when I'm taking these pictures, but I always get caught.

And right now, I'm having a nice moment of my own. Ryan just left with the older kids for Fathers and Sons, Charlie is down for a nap, and while I could be folding laundry or cleaning bathrooms or preparing my lesson for Sunday, I'm just sitting here eating a bowl of ice cream.

Memorial Day

On Monday we headed down to Long Beach to meet up with the rest of the Haslam clan. Benjamin finally got over his fear of the inflatable bouncy castle:

We all went to a park to have lunch and play games. Here everyone is watching a riveting baseball game played by all the little ones. Most of the time they didn't know which way to run around the bases, or what the bases even were. Can you tell it was a little cold? Three legged races:

Charlie making a funny face:
We had talked about visiting our local cemetary on the way back home, but everyone zonked out in the car. Oh well. At least I thought to put the flag up.

Since I posted about those fun cards, I may as well share some other things I've been enjoying recently:

Something I don't enjoy is trying to live through 100+ degree heat without air conditioning. A friend felt sorry for us and brought us some of this (homemade, too!):

It might have been the best I've ever tasted.

And, one more Alex-ism for you. Yesterday as we were in the car (I guess he does most of his thinking/talking in the car) he said:

Mom, do you know what I'm fond of?

(long pause)

I'm fond of staying up late.

These are fun

I came across these today:

http://www.lineuponlinecards.com/

born in the wrong century

Today we were driving home from school and Alex says, "I'm just feeling a little glum about something." Then he told me about a kid in his class who fell off one of the tricycles and hurt his knee. He also refers to the kids in his class as his "schoolmates". If he's trying to convince Benjamin to do something his way, he'll say, "Suppose we do this . . ".
I get a kick out of his kind of old-fashioned vocabulary and I wonder if it comes from letting him watch too many Thomas the Tank Engine shows.

My favorite Mother's Day gift

Benjamin made a card for me at preschool that had his answers to questions about me. My favorite:
Q: What does your mother look like?
A: She is not green, she is white, her hair is straight down, she has big feet.

Several people have asked what "It's a big enough umbrella" means, so I guess I should explain. It's from the Police song "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic", although Sting uses it in a couple other songs as well. The whole phrase is "Do I have to tell the story of a thousand rainy days since we first met? It's a big enough umbrella but it's always me that ends up getting wet." That whole phrase is a little depressing, so I just took a bit from it and I think it changes the meaning to sort of "everyone's invited". I didn't really choose it as a title for any particular reason. I just had to choose something and it's one of those lyrics that is usually floating around in my head.

And I dare someone to get one of these:

So what? I'm four.

Do you know that joke about the prisoner who finally dug his way out of prison and when he came up out of the ground he started yelling, "I'm free! I'm free!" A kid nearby heard him and replied, "So what? I'm four."

Benjamin's fourth birthday was May 1st. We had an extended family celebration on the previous Sunday since three other cousins have birthdays around the same time. I didn't take any pictures, but Ryan's mom sent this one of the birthday cousins:

I don't remember why he was crying, but for him this is a normal occurence. He is our sensitive kid. The upside is that he laughs at everything, the downside is that he cries at everything. But is also the silly, huggy, ditzy, snuggly one in the family. His conversations are always entertaining.

We had a mellow celebration on Thursday. He wanted a pirate ship cake so we did that. I don't consider myself crafty or creative at all, but I've always had good luck with the Family Fun cakes.

A couple of the neighbor kids came over, too.

Later we drove down to meet Ryan and go out to dinner. California Pizza Kitchen was not a hit with the kids. We'll stick to Wendy's next time. Then we waited at Ryan's office while he was in an appointment. There was a huge fiasco involving two messy toilets, all three kids, and not a lot of soap left in the soap dispenser. It was gross and you'll thank me not to give all the details. But Benjamin still said he had a good birthday.

mix-match day

Today was mix-match (or mismatch?) day at Alex's school. He wore his pants backwards and two different shoes. We went to the library a couple of hours ago, and I forgot he was dressed weird. Think anyone noticed?