road games

In addition to our old standby (I Spy) Jonah is finally getting the hang of 20 Questions and the ABC game (a childhood favorite of mine). Caroline is pretty good at I Spy these days and isn't too bad at 20 Questions herself. Although if you're playing 20 Questions with Caroline, she's pretty likely to choose her room, a bobcat, or wherever you're driving at the moment. She's also very happy to give huge hints. Case in point, a conversation we had earlier:

Me: Is it alive?
C: Yep!
Me: Is it an animal?
C: Yes! And it likes to swim.
Me: Is it a kind of fish?
C: It is a fish! Good job, Mommy!

The only game Miriam likes to play in the car is I Spy. She has a very adorable version of, "I spy with my little eye," but she can't really be trusted to answer questions about what she sees. For example, she told us it was something black and ended up proclaiming the answer was grass. Ah, well. It's still cute to listen to her yeps and nopes. Heaven help you if you forget her turn, though. She wants in on the family rotation, thank you very much.

summer reading

This summer has been full of books and reading now that Jonah is a pretty confident reader. He spends a good part of every day reading, either to himself or to the girls. 

Just this morning I found them all huddled quietly around a book in his room while he explained the finer points of Star Wars lore. I love the extra minutes of peace and quiet, and the girls just love anything to do with their big brother. 

On Caroline's next birthday

Whenever Caroline wants something, she asks if we can do/have/buy it on her next birthday. For her next birthday, she wants to eat pizza, salmon, Oreos, ice cream sandwiches, watermelon, Ring Pops, Pringles, pickles, olives, and Cheez-its. (For starters.) She wants to go miniature golfing, swimming, ice skating, roll down the hill, learn to roller skate, paint, play with clay, and go to Arizona. Just the other day she told me that she wants to go hiking on her next birthday. On her hike, she plans to take 2 bags of fruit snacks, a bag of cantaloupe, 1 orange, and 2 suckers. (Jonah chimed in from the other room that he would take 2 oranges, a breakfast burrito, and a full-to-the-top water bottle.)

Well just this month I had the chance to give an emphatic "yes" to the question, "Can we do this on my next birthday?"

On the 4th of July, Rob and Shanté (and kids) came over to light off some fireworks. Caroline loved them. All she could talk about for days was how wonderful and beautiful the fireworks were. When she asked if we could do these again on her birthday, I tried explaining to her that yes, she could, but no one else in the family could do that; that she had the perfect birthday for fireworks. Happy to please, darling. I hope you always feel so excited about your late December birthday.

(I know, she looks scared. You'll just have to trust me when I say that this is her enthralled look.)

I was going through some old pictures for a project and noticed that there were quite a few great pictures of the kids that didn't get the blog posts they deserve. Please consider this my apology. To the grandmas: I'm sorry I kept these pictures of the children from you. For everyone else: I'm sorry for rehashing old news. By way of a current update: It's hot. I've been canning (spicy carrots and beans so far). Josh's lawnmower is on the fritz, so we're living in a jungle of waist-high grass. (Not quite, but it feels like it sometimes.)

Now on to the first of I'm not sure how many old pictures. This past spring (oops), we went to check out a new-to-us park on Goat Island. (I have a ton of not really significant pictures of people I love walking across bridges, maybe because I'm always impressed by large bodies of water. I am a desert rat, after all.)

On the way back to the car, we stopped for some rolling down the hill:

I couldn't get a picture of Caroline's smile until she stopped rolling, but I did get a few decent shots of her in motion:

And then there was Miriam. She did try, but she couldn't quite figure out how to get rolling, so she settled for scooting:

Dear Dad,

When I got to church yesterday, I suddenly couldn't stop wishing you were there with me. Sometimes, I miss the memories and conversations we had years ago. I couldn't get those back if you were still here anyway. Sometimes I miss the ability to call you up when the lawnmower won't start or I'm reading a particularly confusing bit of news or scripture and want your insight. This time, I missed you. I missed sitting next to you at church and hearing you sing the hymn and your Sunday shirt and your briefcase and stacks of papers and clipboards and everything that was you.

I blame it all on the man siting behind us, even though he looked and acted nothing like you. I just really wished that he was you instead. A few hours later, when I debated how to respond to a particularly out-of-place comment during a lesson, I thought of you again. This was more along the lines of "How would Dad handle this?" thinking, so it was more along what I usually get and less visceral, so things seemed to have settle down again.

Missing you,
little k

my mini bookworms

I've been spending a bit of time working on my book blog recently, and the kids have definitely noticed. Jonah often gives me book reviews and thoughts and suggests I write down what he says for my blog. Miriam and Caroline have both separately asked me to take pictures of the books they're reading.

Part of me worries that they see me use my phone and computer more than actually reading to them (and more than I'd like). Another part of me is ridiculously proud. Books are worth celebrating!

"no one likes a post without pictures," he says

What about a post with no words?

poor middle children

Caroline is outside drawing on the sidewalk with some chalk. She just finished drawing a rainbow and a dragon and started work on our family. I noticed from my vantage point on the porch that her family only has three people in it.

Me: Caroline, is that our family?
C: Yep!
Me: Where is everyone?
C: That's me and Mommy and Daddy. Everyone else is sick.

Well okay, then.