Why him?

Dear virus that has attacked my family,

First of all, why such a long incubation period?  Do you need to wreck the entire first month of summer?

Secondly, why both the respiratory and the digestive systems?  Wouldn't one be sufficient to make a victim miserable,

Thirdly, why this child?  He least deserves it of any of my offspring!

Photo taken by Molly before was Jack struck down with these fevers, sore throat, vomiting, runny nose, diarhea, and dehydration.

How much sugar do we need?

What is the word for something you do every two years?  Anyway, yesterday was the great rotary strawberry drop off, so it was time to replenish the freezer jam supplies.

As she did last time, Alicia joined in for her share of the fun.

As always, I was not sure how much to buy of the sugar, certo, lemon juice, and jar lids.  How much jam does 30 lbs of berries make?

I vowed to put it down somewhere I could find it this time!

We filled
5 half-pints
38 pints
13 quarts.

We used 12 boxes of certo, and almost 50 lbs of sugar, and left off with several cups of strawberries left for eating.

Lillian told me a joke today:
"Knock, Knock'
"Who's there?
"It's a joke!"

But what if I do?

In the car today, on the way home from swimming lessons, Roland proceeded to pester me.

"When do you think you might move me out to the country?"

Roland really wants to live on some acreage. 

"I don't know, Roland"

"Before I'm ten?"

"Maybe."

"What If I earn the money myself?  What if I discover the cure for cancer, and also the thing that scientists maybe don't know about?"

(He thinks he has figured out the real need for the uvula)

"Before you're ten?"  I inquire.

"Yeah."

"Okay then."

Who brought the plague?

This little girl (and her family).

We had the wonderful thrill of seeing Jenna and family for graduation.  But since, nearly all of the extended family has been struck down by some kind of California supervirus.

Are you a duck mommy?

So today, Lillian was getting out of the tub, and I had her bundled against me in a towel.
She pointed at my black shirt with yellow writing that reads You don't need luck when you're a duck!
She asked:  "Are you a duck mommy?"
"Yes, I am."  I answered, wondering 'how does she know this shirt says duck?'
"Oh....Go Mommy!" She cries.

So, is she a genius, or just super attuned to all University of Oregon paraphernalia?  Either way, I'm very proud.

Is there anyone cuter?

Really, so sweet!  He is getting good at standing all over the place.  I am so sad about how fast it is going.  I'm not ready for another baby, and I want him to slow down.  And yet, I am so excited for him and all his accomplishments.  He is always making funny sounds, and we make them back, like tongue clicking and kissing sounds.  He cracks himself up.

Molly snapped this photo of him as he rode in his stroller.

Are you bundled up?

Yesterday I got a call from a good friend and visiting teachee.  Her family was hosting a outdoor movie showing, would we like to come?  I said yes with enthusiasm, planning to leave the little ones with Wesley.

At first it was way too bright to have the movie show up on the sheets suspended from their home.  That's the trouble with Drive-in theaters in June too!

Other friends brought their popcorn machine.  We all ate a lot, grateful for something warm.

When dark arrived, we screened Megamind, which I hadn't seen and very much enjoyed. 

I think I've never had an easier time getting my big kids out of a place full of their friends, they were pretty chilled.  We came home at eleven, happy to be warm again, and I am grateful for people who can host something without having the kind of breakdown that often engenders in me!

Is school over already?

The day came, the one that I've been mildly dreading, and the kids have been enthusiastically awaiting. I mean of course, the last day of school.

We took an afterschool walk with Roland's buddy Orion.

Lillian paused to examine a swarm of sugar ants.  She is both fascinated by and terrified of these little creatures.

I also kind of love the first day of summer chore charts.  The kids are so motivated and love to find more ways to earn their rewards!  I kind of felt like I should have saved the spring cleaning for when the kids were out, they were such dynamos.

Did you have fun at the carnival?

When I was newly a Salem mom, I took my tiny kids to the Salem library preschool carnival.  This event kicks off the summer reading program for the younger set.  I did this for years, then stopped.  No more preschoolers.  But now I have a prospective preschooler again, so I called my friend Jocelyn, she brought her daughters and assorted in-laws, and we did it.

Lillian was so pleased to play the games and win 'my prizes'.  She often 'cheated', simply walking the item to be thrown over to the target, and then knocking it down.  I think she's a problem solver.

When are we going to tell Patrick?

So this weekend we had my brother in law's graduation from college.  Which was terrific, but I have no pictures, though my sister in law, Jenna, took one on her camera to prove we were at graduation.  However, we had to leave early, as we had a mission!

(Note to Western Oregon University, I went to the graduation thinking 'I wouldn't mind if my children attended this school, I like Monmouth, it's a nice campus, etc.'  I left graduation thinking 'If you have 1000 or so graduates to graduate, and you still haven't started reading names 90 minutes in, you are all idiots.)  Also-why torture us at lunch time?  It started at 11.

So we raced home to pick up a very particular suprise, only to arrive for the graduation barbecue at Wesley's parents' home to discover, we were locked out.  We do have a key for the house, but we'd borrowed my Dad's truck, and I always leave keys to my van if we borrow a vehicle, just in case.  So we waited in the back yard.

Jack is working and working on his standing.
We kept hearing my mother-in-law leave us messages on her home phone 'Wesley, pick up if you're there!'  But alas, we could not, we were outside!  I kept listening to her frantic calls, hoping she would yell out the garage door code. 

People started arriving, so we weren't locked out anymore.  And then the big moment arrived:

So she bought him a dirt bike for graduation.  What a wife!

We have been hiding it for her.  He was so surprised and thrilled, and we were so happy and proud for him.  Patrick and Staci just are so great to have in my life, and I really admire her for her patience and kindness, and him for his spirit and generosity.

What did she just say?

Lillian is playing this evening.  'Bye Mom, I'm going to a meeting!' (Her dad leaves for meetings regularly).

'Bye, Lillian'

She returns, says this a few more times, than adds a variation.
'Bye, Mom, I'm going to a board meeting'

Where she got that, I don't know.

Then Molly gets into the act.

They go to the 'meeting' (location: our stairwell), and Molly says 'We just sat around for ten minutes, and nothing happened, it was really boring'

I say to Wesley, 'Ah, a board meeting is a meeting you go to and it is boring'.

Also, earlier in the week, I was deep cleaning Roland and Lillian's bedroom.  Lillian was 'helping' me, and Wesley and Jack came to visit on the way to a morning nap.  Lillian had managed to lock us all in without us noticing it.  After a few fraught minutes, Wesley managed to unlock the door with a coat hanger, otherwise he would have had to jump for it!  (Or wait the 7 hours until Roland and Molly returned from school).

Why is this so dirty?

I have to say, spring cleaning is a double edged sword.  It's so nice to have a room very clean, but you see how dusty and grimy things are, and you can't un-know that.  I set a goal to have each room spring-cleaned by the end of the school year.  So far, I'm on track, but right now half of the house is nice, and half is extra yucky.  I've also been really putting off the two hardest rooms--the kitchen and the living room.  Now these rooms receive the lions' share of the day to day cleaning, but the living room is so big and full, and the kitchen is the kitchen. 

How about a few more wedding pictures?  Here is the lovely candy table.

Me and my sweet girl.  I really try to be in some pictures because I am shocked by how few pictures I have of my parents from my childhood.

Crystal, and her daughter.  She is my oldest friend, and her daughter kindly came to the temple to wrangle children for us.  She even did it as a service project!

I like this one of Melanie, my baby sister.

My sweet niece. 

The Cowan family.  Our neighbors for years.  It was so wonderful of them to come, and bring their new babies.

I really like this picture of my brother-in-law, and his son.  It is crazy, I just realized I have a new brother in law! 

Doesn't she just look so cute?

Okay, enough for today!

Can we go to the market?

When it is open, we go to the Saturday Market nearly every week. 

These are Molly's photos of us setting off Saturday morning.

Here's Grandma who comes with us.

Lindsay kindly joined us, and held Jack the whole time.  After lunch, the bigger kids climbed under our table, for reasons known only to them.

Then I drove home, and ran out of gas within a mile of the gas station (which I'd passed, intending to turn around after off-loading some children), and within a mile of our house.  Luckily my brother Brad rescued us, for which I was exceedingly grateful.  He was even nice about it, saying, 'that's what it's like living on the edge'. 

What happened at school today?

For many of us in the Willamette Valley, yesterday was an outstanding day.  Sun, glorious sun.  I truly love the place that I live, and I always think, isn't it great, when it gets sunny, how everyone goes outside.

Lillian and I went to the library, and since I'd taken a picture of her before on the sign, she wanted to repeat the performance.

After storytime (in which she did not hang out with me at all), she played in the children's area.

After school, Molly arrived home with her outstanding news.  She had a spelling bee in her reading class today, (which she had told me in advance about, and I had prayed that she would feel good about her result) and she had won the bee!

She got a certificate, medal, glasses, and a bee glowstick to mark her achievement.  Molly seems to be naturally good at spelling.  I am surprised and pleased.  I was all right at spelling, but she seems to be a superstar.  She came home just bubbling with excitement, and we were so happy that she got to win something.

Next came a walk.  It was actively hot to us, but I snapped a few pictures despite some less than happy walkers

Not pictured:  After dinner, the kids all hung out in our backyard.  It is a lovely place of refuge on summer evenings.  To me the real magic is, when the alternative is bedtime, they can stay out, argument free for hours by themselves out there.  Whenever we pop a head out to check if they are okay, they are always in miraculous harmony and childish fun.