Ketchup.

Ballet

Under Miss Kim's gentle and graceful tutelage, Sydney was introduced to the world of ballet last school year.   Her language is now adorned with such elegant terms as "arabesque."  She was giddy about her recital costume (now crumbled in the dress-up basket) and enjoyed performing at June's end-of-class she-bang.


Next up:  Annual All-Comer's Track Meet. 

Looks like the sporty lady in white is gearing up to run the 3000m, having sufficiently carbo-loaded.
BTW: Clara only has one more week left before her followup visit with the eye guy -- we ran out of patches last week and don't want to buy another box for just 7 days worth of eye patches.  I bet there's a tutorial out there on how to sew your own eye patches, though.  Betcha.

Recovering from a run?

Talmage and his friend, James.

 Gardening.

The potato experiment.  First year growing potatoes.  Potatoes are fun.  Very fun.  When it's time to harvest (which time is a good guess as far as I could tell), it's like digging for gold.  Yukon GOLD.

 All that gold in a row.  Some potatoes were the size of ping pong balls.  And some were regular size.  Like the kind you'd see in a grocery store.  Next year we'll harvest twice as many -- maybe get TWO meals out of the potatoes.

 Assessing the tomoatoes.  Talmage goes out to the garden most mornings to see how his plants are coming along and pick what he can find.   This is the first year he's taken a long-term interest in the garden.

 In the spring, I had let him and Sydney plant all the leftover seeds willy-nilly (mostly to keep them busy, i.e. out of my hair, so I could play in the garden without interruption ... "Don't make me have a productive, educational, bonding, garden experience with you, kids!").   There were mixtures of seeds spread all over the garden path and buried haphazardly in inches of soil in different box lids and shoe boxes.  I didn't expect their unorthodox methods would produce anything -- and also thought they'd just forget about their seeds and then I'd toss the boxes/lids, etc.  But lo and behold, the seeds germinated, grew, and are now producing -- thanks to just a bit of transplanting and coaxing from grandma.  So let that be a lesson to all of you pessimistic parents.

Make-Work Projects:  or -- Teach a Kid to Dumpster Dive, you Feed him for a Lifetime

Grandma, although okay with my character going to pot, is keen on improving the character of her grandchildren.  Here you see one of her plots in action.  She gives the kids one dollar for scrubbing out the yard debris bin and garbage cans each week.   Talmage is told that he can practice on our garbage cans for a year and then when he's 7, he can charge people money to clean out their garbage cans.  We'll see what happens.  Meanwhile, our garbage cans have never been so clean.

 Sydney is also given a dollar for her work.  But after one time, she wizened up, er, the novelty wore off, and she couldn't be persuaded to add to her resume.

Father and Kid Campout

Our ward has it figured out.  Do a Father n' Sons campout and a Father n' Daughter campout.  But combine them into one campout.   So basically it's a ward campout without the moms or any babies.  They had fun.  We had fun.  Win-Win. 

 Relaxing after a bike-ride.

Pending:
This weekend Briton is running Cascade Lakes Relay and hopes he will not come home to find he has a newborn son.  We're holding out for 8-10-12.  Looking forward to meeting the little guy and getting to know and love 'im.

4:19 a.m.

R:  [awake, tossing and turning]
B: [chuckles in his sleep]
R: What's so funny?
B:  [mumbling]  The polymorphism of the node ... its behavior can [can't?] be explained... mrphmb mprhmb...
R: [Blog gold!]

What did you dream about last night?

Two more.

We borrowed an industrial snow-cone machine from friends for a mutual activity last week.  We haven't returned it yet for good reason.  Want to know a way to keep five kids content and busy for an hour?

It's hard to tell from this picture -- what fer the evidence of successful spring gardening (see that humungo zucchini????  That's on account of the "greenhouse" we built this year) and taking the picture through a window screen -- anyway, I digress with my com-brag --- but Clara is watering the garden and I thought it was very industrious of her. 

Hmm. Well, this crummy picture actually has another story to tell:  Note the graduation tassels Briton used to string peas.  Reminds me of the anecdote about Hugh Nibley praying for forgiveness in an opening prayer at one BYU graduation, because of something along the lines of being assembled, dressed "in the robes of the apostate priesthood."  Here, the honors of man, have found a more useful purpose.

June is for Strawberries

My, how the seasons roll 'round. Seems like these same pictures get posted every year. Tho' berry picking is a tradition worth keeping, eh?

 Clara looks hard at work ...

 ... but don't be fooled.

"Hmmm ... this one looks juicy."

"Yep.  Juicy."

"Ah! Caught red handed/mouth-ed ... quick ... get rid of the evidence!"

Grandma filled three buckets to every one that Clara ate.

The berries are always redder on the other side of the furrow.

Compare and Contrast.

 Clara's favorite part, besides eating the berries, was moving the yellow flags so people won't know which length of the row has been picked or not.

May and June Stuff

Cardboard is cool.

Memorial Day Weekend

We camped at Nehalem.

Clara.

The cuz's at the Rose Parade

Last game of the season at Alpenrose.  Pretty slick diamond.

Last day of kindergarten.

We love Mrs. Weber.

On Angry Birds and Turning Six

Talmage narrowed down his ultimate birthday party theme to .... Angry Birds (said the video-game-less, app-less son).  Angry Birds?  Why are they angry?  ... Which reminds me of a cartoon:
Whereupon he schooled his mother on the Angry Bird Cast of Characters and how it all works.  I assume his knowledge is a by-product of the Public Education System -- more specifically, "riding the bus."

His wish was partly accommodated.  I made him an Angry Bird cake and he made a Pig pinata -- but the rest of the party was pure Classic.  In summary:

1.  Kids painted potatoes and made potato cars while waiting for everyone to arrive.
2.  Flannel-board, participatory rendition of Three Billy Goats Gruff and then they dressed up and practiced their parts for a ...
3.  Movie version.  They did that three times, to get the various needed cuts and opportunities to be other characters, per their request.  After edits,  this will serve as an heirloomic party favor.
4.  Treasure hunt
5.  Pig Pinata
6.  Lunch/cake/etc.

Figuring out the clues

Treasure!!!!  Love Talmage's expression.

Disemboweling the Pig Pinata: scrambling for the loot.

A Polite, Delightful Afternoon Luncheon Turns Ugly: "Hand over your wallet, er, .. hot dog."

Look what the Internet can teach you to do.  My favorite one is the king pig.

And how does it feel to be six?  That's what I asked the Man of the Hour.  He said, "I'm not six, yet."

A Little More Blue

Got Wheels.

Cirque du Soleil

The trampoline finale was jaw-dropping.   

Photo Op: Spring 2012

Jordan and Ethan passed through town en route to Hawaii.  Jordan offered to take our family picture.

Good Day, Sunshine!

After a week of dragging children hither and thither, we needed this day.  A day with no agenda.  A day where kids could throw rocks into the river as long as their little hearts desired.  A day where they could run free on the beach and eat kettle corn covered in sand.  A day where Sydney could prowl around as a puma, stalking the edges of her imagination.  A day where Clara could go napless, climb a fire tower all by herself, and crunch ice cubes.  A day where Talmage could run and race his cousins, design seashell castles, and laugh at Joshua Giraffe.   It was a great day.