Gardening

My dream come true:

My Gurney seed catalog came in the mail today. I also got 2 Baker Creek Heirloom seed catalogs and set them out in view of the children. They were drawn to those mouth watering melon pictures like flies to a picnic. Before I knew it the eight of them were crowded around those catalogs shouting, "AND CARROTS!" "NO RADISHES!", "Ohh... sugar snap peas, mmmm!"

Big Boss Elijah took charge, drew up a map of the garden, and divided it into sections labelled by family member. Each child gets to select what plants he wants to grow in his plot.

I love that they have learned to love to garden. I also think they may have forgotten that we weed by hand. : ) but that's ok.

Silas just shouted, "AND MORNING GLORIES ON MINE!!" and it goes on...

options

robin with a smirk: "matt, do you want coffee, or tea, or ..."

matt: "ooh, i'll take the third option"

luke: "wait, i only heard her say two options"

Silas gives GiddyBug a pony ride

older pics from the yellow house.

good question

silas said, "dad, if we met aliens and we had special technology and the aliens had pets and the pets breathed fire and had sharp and shiny teeth and the aliens had swords that had lasers that didn't just stab but they laser-blasted and our house was in the middle of all of that, then it would look like this." (old quote floating around from 11/13/11)

Field trip day

Here is Luke H. as the patient.

This was almost in real life last year when he lost feeling last year after getting hit in the back by our tire swing. This very helicopter was warming up to come get him when the doctors decided there was no permanent damage.

We learned on this field trip that anyone can call the helicopter, not just EMTS. One ride costs $30,000. And they can't fly in fog, but they can fly in pretty strong wind. So don't get hurt on a foggy day.

Luke and Natalie, the paramedic, had a bit of banter. Natalie finished him off with, "Hey you've got a big head buster!"

Look who's the pilot now!!

Silas took an UPCLOSE picture of the pilot.

Sil

Nice Helicopter - I hope this is as close as we ever need to get to it again!

 

And the Pilots shoes of course.

The pilot and mechanic

 

 

 

 

Does Matt have any other shirts?! - I love this picture

Sam's B-Day

Awww.

Oh my sweet Gid. What have you made?

Lego Collaboration

The blue square in the front yard is a swimming pool. The man standing up in front of the two trees in standing on the diving board. There is also an entire scene inside of the house that can only be seen through the windows.

AGGHHH! The Picture Monster!

Pretty in Pink

Mr. Goodlookin

My handsome

What a cutie! I'm talking about Matt of course.

Busted!

Did we expect him to be doing something else?

more from the girl

Abbey, "Dad will you help me unwind this?"

Dad, "No. Its not supposed to be unwound and I don't want YOU to unwind it either."

Abbey turns around and drops her head in sadness.

Dad, "Oh. Are you going to cry now because I won't help you?"

Abbey, "Yes."

"Go ahead and cry then." Dad responded.

Abbey, "not yet, first I'm going to pout."




Mom and Dad got caught giggling.

Superglued to a Jet fighter

Elijah superglues himself to a model airplane. When he pulled his finger off, he left a nice layer of skin.

Relaxing

Life is not going well for Abbey

Random pics of the family

Last picture of Uncle Perry

Digging Digging Digging... What's this?!

Abbey and Momma

Another Abbey gem: I'm so proud of Silas because I am so mad at him.

About 5 minutes later, there was more of the same. I could tell she was tired and told her, "ok Abbey you are tired and you need to go to bed." She said, "Oh not AGAIN! Waaaaaaa." uh huh mom's right. nap time.

Abbey in real life

This is a conversation Abbey and I had when she woke up from her nap in a sour mood:

Abbey,  "I was going to puke on my bed but I didn't want to. I kind of don't like anybody, but my heart is really really really hard. I will never go to church because there is puke in my life. And I need to go to the doctor because there is sickness in my life. And Nana is going to put me in the bathtub, or the hospit-dentist and I don't want to go to that place. The doctor is bad because he takes all my life out of my tummy. He pokes it in half. Mom, I got my thumb red because I bumped it on the table and bumped it and rolled it. Because of a roll of a God. Because God helps us not puke, because I'm gunna puke. He's not here because I'm going to puke on my leg because I don't have anything to do. I have nothing to do in my life. I don't have anything to do, momma. I have no heart because I cut my heart into half. I'm so impressive because I don't like anybody because I want to play purple palace. I'm so sorry."


BTW -

Abbey is not sick, has not been to the doctor in a very long time, colored her own thumb with red pen, I'm thinking this is just girl behavior.

Adventures in Parenting

 

Elijah wanted to go on a hike with his new backpack. He had an hour or so before dark and went on a 8 mile round trip hike to the reservoir. Well, darkness fell and Mom and Dad got scared and went looking for him. We found him 2 miles from home wondering why we were there.

At least he showered

In the attempt to teach children to pick up after themselves, we asked which child left their towel on the living room floor. As usual no one claimed it so we did some investigation and discovered Abbey had left it. However in the process of questioning children about their towel usage we found something else to teach to.

Mom asked, "Silas, what towel did you use and where did you put it?"

Silas honestly answered, "I used your bathroom rug and I left it behind the toilet."


I see.

Christmas Dart Gun

Ferocious!