The Boys

Here are the boys watching soccer together online.

Crazies

B came home from the store with these rubber gloves for Princess Sparkley to clean toilets.

Immediately following the picture of B wearing pink gloves, I looked over to see Buddy looking like this.

I found Little Guy in the bathroom like this the other day.  He told me he was doing a science experiment.  It involved soap, Germ-X, water and the sink and had something to do with whirlpools. 

Señor Perro and Perrito

With help from B, these two dog puppets have been tucking our kids in at night and waking them up in the morning for the past couple of weeks.  The kids think they are hilarious.  Little Guy cracks up hysterically over them.

Sunday After Church

 

 Little Guy decided the other night he should read Buddy's Jack Russell Dog Detective chapter books.  B insisted they read them together.  He's doing great.

Grandma tickled Mystery Baby's lips with his toes trying to get smiles and giggles.

Tough Week

Last night B was complaining to me about how horrible his week is going to be.

1.  He has to watch a baby be born.
2.  He has to cut the umbilical cord which creeps him out.
3.  He has to be present for a circumcision (he already learned the lesson of not watching this one).

My response, "Yeah, YOUR week is going to be real rough."  It's not like I have to give birth or anything.

Then I had a laughing fit remembering a hike we took at Thomas Stone National Historic Site.  Little Guy was in the hiking backpack on B's back.  B ended up falling into a small creek almost up to his waist.  When he climbed up the other side of the creek, Little Guy was exclaiming how his boots *almost* got wet to B, who was wet from his upper thigh, down to his toes. 

Cub Scout Bird House

A few weekends ago, we made a trek to the Boy Scout store and Buddy picked out this bird house to build to complete one of his Wolf requirements.  Little did we know, in volved zero hammering and nailing and all gluing.  He picked out the paint colors and together, he and B sanded, painted and glued.  Then they came up with a system to bracket it to some wood pieces (Buddy got to use a drill) so that it will be easy to remove when we move so we can take it with us.

What's been going on...

6/1/12   Me at 30 weeks and 1 day.

6/3/12     We went on a family walk/bike ride to the park near our house and B got bitten by a giant Mastiff.  He thought it mean that I gave him a dog shaped ice pack.

6/5/12      Buddy got the flu which meant his nice Daddy moved our teeny tv and the Game Cube box up to his bed and Buddy spent about 6 or 7 hours playing Lego Star Wars.

Little Guy has been putting this USA magnet puzzle together once or twice a day for a few weeks now.  The other day I came across Buddy teaching him how to play Risk with is.  For those not in the family, Risk is the board game that all the brothers and brother-in-law play when the family gets together.

Nationals vs. Pirates Baseball

B is a Pirates fan.  The kids... they go back and forth with who they cheer for.  Since we went to a Cincinnati Reds game in Ohio last year, Buddy is apparently a Reds fan.  This is slightly infuriating.  I'm okay with him cheering for our local team (he's decked out in his Nationals apparel for this game) but I'm not okay with him cheering for random teams he has no connetion to.  Oh well.  My dad loves baseball and enjoys visiting different ballparks so we headed to Nationals Park Thursday night for the Pirates v. Nationals game.

And the Pirates WON!

Father/Son Campout

5/11-5/12

A man in our ward (but outside our ward boundaries) has the ward father/son campout in his yard each year.  Last May was B's graduation (Masters) so the boys missed it.  This year they made it and Princess Sparkley and I had a fun Girls Night Out and stayed up super late to pick Grandma and Grandpa L up from the airport at 11 PM.

Here's what B captured of the campout.  The bottom two pictures are our friends the Js.  He was super excited to find out that O was a boy so he could finally go on a father/son campout.  O was the youngest son there, just over two years old.

Angry Dad

by B

My kids have seen the episode of The Simpsons where Bart makes his "Angry Dad" comic (and I think they have seen the one where the comic gets optioned for a movie), so Princess Sparkley had that influence when she decided to offer her expertise to other tormented children.

The "mad dad" appears to be loosely based on me (it might be a coincidence that I own a t-shirt that reads "Watch Out: Mad Dad!").

Comics Drawn at Church

Princess Sparkley gets a Job

by B

      Every year on her birthday, I tell Princess it's high time she got a job. Well, she's finally listened.
     This all started the last time we visited our cousins. Evidently Girl Cousin (or maybe just Girl Cousin's friends, I'm not sure) works as a "mother's helper," which is sort of like an entry-level babysitter. It's for girls who are too young to be left alone with your kids, but who can watch your kids while you're elsewhere, getting your productivity on. When we came home, Princess Sparkley mentioned to my wife that she wants to be a mother's helper. My wife told her that might not work because we don't know any rich moms.
     PS was offended that my wife thought she was in it for the money. Apparently she just wants an excuse to play with younger children, and her brothers are busy shooting and cutting things. (Example: two days ago Little Guy acted out the Luke v. Darth lightsaber battle from the end of Return of the Jedi while narrating the entire thing for me. "Luke is looking out the window at a 'Tar Destroyer and his lightsaber is just a handle sitting next to the Emperor and then Luke turns and forces it into his hand and turns it on and they start battling, and the Emperor laughs, like this: 'Heh heh heh.'")
     A friend in our ward was interested in a mother's helper, so PS got her first customer. She started work yesterday.
     At dinner I asked her, "How was work?" (It's been a long time since there's been a need to ask anyone that question in our house.) She said it was good. My wife asked, "Did you have to carry [Baby]?" Princess Sparkley excitedly answered, "Yes!" My wife asked, "Did you have to carry [Toddler]?" PS answered, less excitedly, "Yes." My wife jokingly asked, "Did you have to carry [Four-Year-Old]?" PS answered, "Yes, she wanted me to carry her, too."
     Later, she casually mentioned that she would get paid later in the week. This was when it all made sense to Buddy, who is a capitalist pig at heart. He muttered to himself, "I need to get a job," and then was very embarrassed when he realized we'd all heard him.

The Kids

A few weeks ago, we came home from church and Little Guy didn't find any pants to put on, this is how he showed up for dinner.

Some friends had us over for a Valentine's party on Valentine's Day.  Buddy made this balloon.

PS made this balloon.

Little Guy drew his own storm troopers.

We got our 3D shapes out the other day for math and the kids built towers for fun.

Apparently B approved this, I just wandered upon it in their bathtub although from the picture they took here, it looks like it was once a tub of water on our toilet.

On the way home from the temple last weekend, B was a nice dad and stopped at the Tyson's Corner mall where there is a Lego Store and an American Girl store.  Last time I took them, PS posed with Kanani's shaved ice stand, so this time she did gymnastics with McKenna.

B and PS are currently doing a daddy/daughter book club (just the two of them).  B is reading Gilgamesh, by Stephen Mitchell, and PS's reading Gilgamesh the Hero by Geraldine McCaughrean.  Not sure if she likes it or if it's more like an assignment for her. He has to remind her to do her reading, but she used math manipulatives to build a model of Uruk. (Uruk is the city at the top of the picture. The triangular prism is Shamhat, hiding behind a bush next to a river, and across the river is Enkidu.)

B's birthday: take two

We celebrated B's birthday a second time with family in Richmond.

B's Birthday

B has a Chick Hicks themed birthday this year.  The first picture with a candle in a sandwich rather than a dessert is a breakfast sandwich we made him.  Then we decorated and invited our friends the Js over for brownies and ice cream with a peanut butter caramel sauce.  Mmmm. 

Snake

I was sitting inside yesterday afternoon when Princess Sparkley came running up from downstairs yelling that she needed the camera.  Why?  There was a snake outside.  What?  I looked out the window and was surprised to find B outside holding a tiny snake.  Yuck!  Afterwards he said he couldn't remember how many years it had been since he'd held a snake.  Me.  Never.  So we hurried out with the camera and snapped some pictures before he carried the snake to the grassy "alley" behind our house and let it go.  Hopefully he slithered into someone else's yard.  We think it's just a garter snake.  Correct us if we're wrong... or maybe don't, in case it was super poisonous or something.

Daddy Daughter Date to the Ballet

Some friends got tickets from work that he couldn't use to a ballet, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, so he gave the tickets to B and Princess Sparkley.  They got all dressed up and had a nice little date.

B's childhood home circa 1984-2006*

The new owners have landscaped the yard differently and added palm trees.

*His parents sold the house in 2006.  B moved out in 1997 
for a mission followed by college and then getting married.

Reading with Daddy

 I told Little Guy to look at his book, not at the camera and he gave me the stink eye.

So I told him he could smile and he broke out this million dollar smile.

 All my boys.