Blogwatchers

We will give you some more treats soon. But for now, here are a couple that begin to describe our very busy weekend.

The cousins have met... and bathed... and won us all!

Grandpa and Louie taking a tractor ride. Grandpa's poll ratings are going through the roof.


Inge said hi to Great Grandpa and Grandma this weekend at the wedding rehearsal dinner. Obviously the Great Grandparents enjoy these little ones too.

Bird and Bean

Here's the bean. She seems to like the walker-- it is a change of pace, anyhow.


Please allow me to explain. The humming-bird in flight picture is cropped, it was also taken with one hand, it was also taken with a wiggling bean on my other arm. My primary advantage was the endless supply of digital film. I did manage to get one decent shot-- the one you see below.

Curiosities

Believe it or not this is me. I was trying on a suit to get the hem-line marked, and was stuck in the living room trying to stand still. So, naturally, I took some pictures of myself. With a little artistic editing and playing around I came up with this. I'm pleasantly surprised with the results.


A dragonfly we rescued from the "cool" almost a week ago.

Luigi

Two More Park Pictures

Outing in the Park

Yesterday I took Lewis and Inge to the park. Here are a couple of pictures of the outing.

Lewis striking a nice pose at the top of the slide here.


Brave Ingrid who really likes the curly slide--after initial misgivings.

Lewis still mostly likes driving the giant front end loader, or the dump truck--depending on the moment. He also likes to swing, although he fell off yesterday.

Inge made friends, or was made friends with, by another little girl at the park and they were sliding down the slide together, and climbing the ladders together, and were pretty much real pals. The other little girl was quite vocal about "her friend" and made sure Inge was with her in line, etc.

Mitchy Snootch in Yellow

As Lewis would say "She soo cyuute!" Thanks to Grammy and Grandpa for the outfit.

Windy Picnic

Notice the hair. Have a blessed Lord's Day!

The pitter-patter of little feet...

...takes on wholly negative associations when you hear it approaching a little before 6:00 a.m., after an already unsatisfactory night of sleep.

Naturally, I hit the floor running, lest the smallest one--who cannot pitter-patter, but makes up for it in other ways--should be awakened. An odd sight met my eyes. Lewis, who seemed beset by that temporary mania which afflicts all those awakened ungently from their sleep ("Fire?! What fire?? Where?!") was jogging in place by the door, with the evident desire of entering the hallway. Inge, obviously more awake, was preventing him sheepdog style. The presence of a clearly irate parent, moving like a freight train, prompted the poor fellow to break into a flood of weeping, sure he was going to be in trouble somehow. I ruled quickly: Back to bed, back to bed now. Whereat Inge burst into tears, thus identifying herself as the mastermind behind this whole early morning escapade; and Lewis, chuckling with relief, ran back to his bed and pulled the blankets up to his chin.

Kids.

Hand, Moon, Kids

What ties these together? Beauty, perhaps? They seem like they should be together, anyhow.

Walks and Cherries

We've been taking some nice long walks in the evenings. On one of them we met a man who gave us any of the pie cherries on his tree that we wanted. Claire made an excellent cherry pie. I think we're going to get some more-- at least I hope so.

Snootching

The internet was down most of the afternoon and evening out here. So, here's a Snootch to tide all ye grandparents over until a new day (although I can see that the Colorado Roises are doing some serious competition for grandparent attention on that side of the family).

Odd disease...

If you look at my dad's blog you'll see that there seems to be something going round... even though this picture is blogged later than specimens on his blog it was taken many moons ago. This is the first case. It has spread from this source.

Excerpt from an Incident

Scene 1: Inge is dressed for festivities; a wedding is in the offing. A plaid fleece blanket is draped bridally over her head. Another fleece blanket is tucked around her waist, creating the fleeting impression of a skirt. She looks very demure, as befits the bride-to-be, and she carries already under her shirt the child, we assume, she will later produce as the first offspring. She doesn't understand the chronology of these things. Lewis is playing with modeling clay. He is to be the groom, yet he is not dressed for the occasion, and he preserves an impermeable silence regardless of what Inge says to him. This is the response he has found to be his best defense against micromanagement, and so he often employs it--in unconscious imitation, one can hardly help thinking, of husbands both larger and wiser than he (though of course, not of mine).

Inge: Lewis! Come to the wedding! Lewis!! Come to the wedding! Lewis! It's time for the wedding, and I miss you! (Softly) Yes, I do. LEWIS! It's pretty bad to be making cakes before a wedding.

Frustration ensues, and is probably the underlying cause, a few moments later, of the bride biting the groom on the cheek for his lack of cooperation, both past and present.

Scene 2, the bathroom: Discipline has just been administered. Inge weepeth. So doth Lewis, who suffers from a semi-constant guilt complex and believes himself always to be on the very verge of receiving a spanking whether he has been misbehaving or not.

Mommy: Lewis, stop crying.
Lewis: I need a spanking. (woefully) I'sorry.
Mommy: No you don't. Stop crying. Inge, say you're sorry.
Both children, in unison: Iiiiiii'm soooorrry.
Mommy: No, no. Lewis, you don't need to say sorry. Inge's saying sorry to you.
Lewis: I need a spanking. (Then, reinforcing the idea, he leans over and shoves Inge in the stomach).
Mommy: Lewis! Inge, say you're sorry.
Both children: Iiiiii'm...
Mommy, increasingly at a loss: No, no, no!

Old Photos

This was taken around Thanksgiving time in 2003. Here are the men of the family at that time minus one. He still doesn't show up in our pictures, but he's not forgotten.


I found this old photo of the extended family in a book today. This was taken in 98.

Overheard

Conversation between Lewis and Lewis:

(Crash...howl...)

Lewis, in a shaken voice: "I'm all right. I'm all right."

Lewis: "You're fussing; you better stop fussing."

(and then, the schizophrenic sides of Lewis becoming united in their opinion)

Lewis to Mommy: "I need a spankin'. Can I have a spankin' for fussin', please?"

What Mishmelle Sees

We wondered... now we know.

John Deere

We found a tractor of the right color on our walk tonight. We borrowed the wheel. Please note: Lewis knew this was a "John Deere Tractor" as soon as he saw it.

Michelle

Here are three pictures of the cutest baby ever. Shipeth!

"Don't be saddish. Have a radish."

We had the first radishes of the season from our garden.

Celebrations of the 4th

Fireworks are fun.

Kids

And a sleeping Snootch in a dress and tights. I know, I know-- very, very cute!

Well, are these kids a hoot, or what?! Corn Cobs one and all!


The other kids before church this morning. I will tell you that getting them to stand by the window so that light would fall on their faces was no task for the weak of heart or short in patience. But I have to say, I think it was worth it.

An eating Snootch. This was the view from inside the car at McCroskey.



A screeching Snootch. We're calling her "Snootch" now.

Thank You!!

Thank you, one and all, for the birthday wishes. It's been a good birthday-- so wishes do come true. We started with a very savory steak dinner last night, followed by presents, followed by replacing the spigot on the front of the house for the third time in one day (thanks to my neighbor, Derek for tools, hands, and help). Today we had an early (9:00) joint service of Christ Church and Trinity-- we got out the door to church without major difficulty and more or less on time (thank the Lord). Then we had lunch and a nap-- which seemed doomed about 20 minutes into it, but Mitch went back to sleep (again, thank the Lord!!). Then we sat by the kiddie swimming "cool" (Lewis thinks "pool" is "cool") and I was able to absorb and try out a harmonica book Claire got me for my birthday. Then some dinner and then blogger pictures started working again. Now I think it's time for a walk.

Notice to Grandmas and Grandpas-- Grandkid Blog Pictures Coming SOON!

McCroskey State Park

On Friday we drove out to McCroskey State Park. Click the link to read the story behind the park (which is kind of interesting). We were checking it out for some friends who are planning to camp in the area late in the summer. Here's some of what we saw.

Louie found a giant front end loader.

The park crosses a number of "ecological zones." You see cedar and fir trees that need more rain and Ponderosa Pines like this one (I think), that don't need as much rain.



Michelle stayed in the car and ate-- what she does best. Luckily the park is a drive through park. So we just got out a few places and looked around.


I found some material for pictures, of course.


Inge was the flower keeper. And we found lots of wildflowers.

Tricks (Blog and Other)

The inclusion of four pictures in a post is a new thing. I don't know if they will all be clickable to get a bigger view of the images, but I'm trying out this new way to post pictures. My friend Ben Smith showed me that you could do this with blogger by posting multiple pictures of his recent trip to Switzerland in one post. Please go take a look at the beautiful pictures at his blog. In fact, I have been posting these pictures without the use of "Hello." I assume this is a blogger upgrade. Now you can post pictures from within the blogger "Create Post" and "Edit Post" pages. Good news for those who want to post pictures using a public computer somewhere. No special programs required now. Just an image file and a browser. So when you are on the road, travelling light-- just take your camera and cable into the internet cafe, plug in, and post pictures directly from the camera to the web with IE or Firefox, or whatever browser your particular internet cafe prefers.

The little speedster burns up the road. In vain do I try to freeze the action in this shot.

And in the air. ;)
And Inge jumps from the bottom step.
Here's r running Louie. The kids were doing tricks for me.