"Underneath this adorable face I'm plotting to steal my brother's favorite toy: the video game remote!" (Evil laugh)
"And I'm off to put my plan into action!"
"My scheme has been victorious! Now, how does this thing work? I know that they love to hold this thing all day long. "
"I really don't know what they see in it."
Mom: Joseph, you haven’t been outside all day today. Why don’t you go play?
Joseph (Gloomily): Because of the sun. I hate the sun.
This interesting and unique bird visited our backyard a few weeks ago, and he’s been showing up around our yard off and on ever since. I thought at first it might be a migrant since I had never seen it before, but then I found out it was called a Northern Flicker, and lives here all year round. It’s a member of the woodpecker family, but our trees are safe because it is the only woodpecker that uses its long beak to get insects out of the ground, which is what it is doing in these pictures.
I love the triangle on its chest.
As Alexander was eating a hard boiled egg a few days ago, he decided that his egg looked a little bit like Baby Jesus. He really wanted me to put it on my blog, so here you go:
I love looking at these beautiful board books that feature paintings by famous artists with Daniel. Aside from being a lesson in art from the impressionist era, the pictures are quiet and relaxing. They are a nice change from the vivid red, yellow, blue and green pictures found in many baby books.
My favorite is the book with paintings by Degas, who was an artist famous for his paintings of ballerinas. Our quiz bowl team wears matching shirts with a nickname for each person on the back, and my nickname is ‘DegasDancer.’
… to see widgets with a picture and the daily milestone reached for the newest little Frederes, coming May 2011!
Daniel enjoys an apple from our recent trip to the apple orchard
Alexander (noticing a crescent moon around noon): “Sarah, it’s night and day at the same time!”
Mom: Joseph, if you don’t get in bed, I’m going to make you change your jammies!
(They were his favorite Toy Story jammies and you could smell them from three feet away!)
In my carrot patch! I’ve wanted one of these guys for years, and I’ve planted several dill plants in the last few years hoping to catch one. (Dill is in the carrot family.) This year, Landon and Johnathan were digging up carrots and they found this beauty, which will turn into an impressive black swallowtail butterfly next spring. (He’ll overwinter in the fridge.)
He has a pair of orange-ish horns that he sticks out when he’s mad. They make a pretty disgusting smell as a defense mechanism.
“Oh, no, little teeny tiny caterpillar, I will not eat you. You are so scary with your eency-weency horns that smell bad. Even though I am a many, many times bigger than you are, you are very, very scary!”
Joseph(proudly holding up a pull-up): I kept my pull-up dry last night.
Maria: You did? Good boy! You get a gummy bear!
Joseph: (with a rather mischievous smile) I wore two pull-ups, see? This one’s wet, and this one’s dry !
The temperature high for today was 66, and as it was very breezy you couldn’t stay outside long without wanting a jacket. Tips of trees all around town are turning yellow, and one of our trees is starting to drop some leaves. It is sad to see the days of watermelon, swimming, and hot weather fade, but I do look forward to crisp weather, aromatic pies and apple cider.
J+M+J
Thursday night, Landon and I stepped outside, hoping to see a meteorite. Faint flashes of lightening from a far off storm played on the eastern horizon. It was after 12:00 on the peak night of the Perseids, one of the best meteor showers of the year, also known as St. Lawrence’s tears as it falls on or around the feast of St. Lawrence on August 10. After only a few minutes, we had seen one really good one. Mom and Maria joined us, and we stood out for almost forty minutes, and we saw over a dozen nice bright shooting stars, which is really good for being in the city with street lights all around.
Finally, it was nearing time to go in, and we all tried to tear ourselves away from the sky. There was a terrible feeling that just as you turned your back, another fascinating pinhead of light would dance across the dark night, and we would miss that triumphant feeling of having witnessed it. We did eventually make it inside, but I just couldn’t take it any longer and I stepped outside until I saw just one more. Then I went to bed, knowing that outside my window the light show was still playing.
A+M+D+G
