A few more

Slideshow

Click here to see a slide show of a bunch of past photos. My new Google Picasa Web Album automatically grabbed these pictures from our blog, so I'm not sure I understand the organization, but it's kind of nice to see them all in one place. Also, the slide show will automatically resize to fit your screen (nice touch, eh).

Some of the Saddest Words

"Oh, I got a lot of that stuff out of there already."

Spoken by your daughter in re: the off-limits room where you collected the yardsale stuff, the door of which is now ominously swinging open.

A real up-and-down week

Mona the Great, I mean, er... Sweet.

The best lightning shot yet. Still have a way to go, but hey, it's not like we have lightning storms here every day, or even every week.

Grumpy Lewis--his sister was trying to dance to his fighter jet music and it was getting in his way.

Some lavender on our kitchen window sill.

This is pretty typical. I'd like to say Claire is blogging here, but she is probably just checking her mail. Nevertheless, you get the picture--computer time is shared.

And Mona is distracting too.

She's electric.

Riding Around the Padlock

This morning, also at breakfast, my lovely wife was explaining to the children how her old friend Montemarie had horses and she used to ride them. "We would go trail-riding and riding out in the field and riding around the padlock" she said quite distinctly. So I guess we know where Inge gets it.

Maybe she saw a plimp while riding in the padlock?

Saturday Morning Breakfast

Lewis is forking giant scoops of yogurt, somewhat elaborately, into his mouth. Catching my eye, he says with a sheepish smile, "This is a backhoe"--meaning the fork. "Ah," I say. "But what are you?" "Well, I'm a dump truck," he replies. "But," I say, laying my finger upon the inconsistency, "you are closing your mouth around the fork and dump trucks can't do that." After a moment's thought he explained, "Well, it's a dump truck with a tailgate."

***

Two exchanges:

Peter: Nelly, eat your food.
Nelly, staring at her full plate: Where is it?
~
Peter: Nelly, what did I tell you to do?
Nelly, interested in the answer and leaning forward conspiratorially: What?

***

Nelly, looking through the joke book: Knock-knock, Mama.
Me: Who's there?
Nelly, changing her mind and turning the page: Never mind. [On a new page] Knock-knock, Mama.

Inge's Version

Ever heard of the Goodyear Plimp?

You might be a poet if...

If your mind quickly, smoothly, moving almost without your awareness, makes far-fetched and appropriate metaphorical associations. Poets do this a lot, which is what makes some people's poems so exact, so beautiful.

Mona has, in only four months, become a thoroughly integrated part of our family. She already has her own habits, routines, and preferences. One of her preferences, which was a bright idea of hers (not mine) about four weeks ago, is to wake up early--say 3:30 or 4:00, sometimes 4:30--and do some intensive sleep-nursing. It's sort of a game. With any luck I will fall back asleep and forget she's there, and then she gets to stay and that's considered a score. When this happens, all three of us co-sleepers (I think they call them) switch into sleep-nursing mode, which means we all roll over in unison about every half hour. I guess this is because it's a queen-sized bed and so not quite large enough to allow one mother-and-baby unit to roll over without disturbing the father unit. Hence, both units roll at once, and a roll is usually initiated by the hungry baby sub-unit...although sometimes by me, realizing that if I don't keep moving I'm about to lose the game, sort of like how if you go to sleep in the snow you freeze to death?

Anyway, it was during one of these group rolls in the early hours of this morning that Peter's poetry kicked in: "You know," he remarked sleepily, "I feel like we're a bunch of rotisserie hot-dogs."

Bingo.

Ooooookay.

So I gave Inge an assignment to draw a house with a path leading to it, some trees around it, flowers in front, blue sky, clouds, and a bird. "Okay," she says, "but I can't draw a bird." "Okay," I say, "so just draw everything else."

Half an hour later she brings me a picture of a house with windows and a door. There are butterflies, roses and violets, grass, and a blue sky, and a helicopter hovering over the roof. The helicopter is perfectly formed and has its own window, rotor blades drawn in perspective, a tail rotor, and landing gear.

"I drew the helicopter," says Inge, "in place of the bird."

As the Story Develops

A conversation from this morning~

Investigating a scream of dismay, I find Nelly trying to get on the toilet and Lewis standing nearby looking concerned.

Me: What's the matter?
Lewis: Nelly has bubblegum!
Nelly: [unintelligible noises of frustration]
Me: Where did she get the bubblegum?
Lewis: Off the floor.
Me: But, but where did she get it?
Lewis: It was mine from last night when we were reading Robinson Crusoe.
Me: You mean this bubblegum has already been chewed?
Lewis: Yes. Can I have some chocolate chips for helping Nelly get on the toilet? She punched me!
Me: Wait a second. You mean you took gum out of your mouth and put it on the floor?
Lewis: No, I took it out of my hair. It was stuck.
Me: You took it out of your hair and put it on the floor? Where was it?
Lewis: Oh, under the table where we eat.

The Haughty Housewife

I snatched an opportunity to take some photos of my beautiful wife yesterday when she was polishing silver. This was my favorite.

Nelly and the Corncobs

This is what Nelly looked like as we prepared to go to Spokane to see the speech therapist. The backup was extra but definitely inspired an idea.

Behold--Nelly and the Corncobs (also considering other names--suggestions welcome).

Yes, Inge came up with this head dress all on her own. I think she and Lewis were playing pirate. I just want you to know that she hasn't seen any pirate movies other than Swiss Family Robinson...

Ah yes, and another angle, plus Lewis's version of Pirate headress--which looks more like a rapper to me, but what do I know.

Adrian is a friend of ours from church. I like the contrast between Adrian and Mona in size, and color. They both look good natured though.

And here's the whole motley crew.

Elk River Falls

4th of July

Namma and Tappa's Visit

And a final shot of Tappa and Mona.
And of course we have the angelic baby--showing off her fat legs.

Inge actually got the joke. I think they look like they might be related--both goofy anyhow.

Namma was helping Inge learn to do some basic embroidery. Here Tappa is admiring Inge's work and helping her find a use for her new creation.

Namma gave Nelly a lip makeup item with gloss on one side and lip stick on the other. Nelly digs lipstick.

Same story different angle.

Tappa had to wash the old geezer sports car, so we all helped--and I washed our car.

This is what happens when you leave it on manual control for flash set to expose for your flash when you are taking pictures outside on a sunny day.