We're watching Endless Summer right now

I told the kids it was a "funny" movie. 30 minutes into it, and no complaints so far.

Daddy, this is my evil smile.

Ooh. Can you do it again for the camera?

Chapstick

I sat down for breakfast this morning...

...and on the table in front of me was the Audubon Field Guide to Reptiles, open to a full page photo of baby snakes hatching from their eggs. Awesome.

Second graders shouldn't have homework on weekends

Or at all, for that matter. But especially not on weekends.

See kids, manual labor can be fun!

The fruit of Ethan's labor.

Emma, our proletarian Punky Brewster. She likes her new knee-high socks so much she's "going to wear them every day forever."

Sophie continued to work for her keep while Emma stopped to pose.

Andrew picked raspberries unabashedly in his pajama shirt.

About halfway through our adventure, Sophie realized raspberries are for EATING and that they taste GOOD. So she started stealing: one for the basket, one for the mouth, one for the basket, one for the mouth... See the evidence on her finger and face? She loves the nummy.

Those lips. Oh, those lips.
If you click to enlarge you can see the beads of sweat on Sophie's little nose.
It was in the low 90s and humid.

Martha Stewart is weak-sauce.

We ended up taking home almost 4 pounds of raspberries. I think we'll make some of this and some of that. Andrew wants some raspberry ice cream with chocolate too, so maybe we'll have to attempt this. Let us know when you're coming by and we'll have some ready for you. :-)

Our outing to the berry farm ended with ice cream, the purchase of some fancy root beer and lollipops for later, and a trip to the car wash, where the kids cheered when we emerged from the bowels of the machinery unharmed.

On another note, Ginger and I need to merge blogs so we can post family outings like this in one place. I'm thinking "paisley larms" would be a good title for a merged blog. Any better suggestions?

Rhythmic gymnastics

Almost forgot

Ginger went to "meet the teacher night" at school the other day, and Ethan's teacher came up to her after and said, "There's something I need to ask you. Did Ethan really kill a black bear in Utah with his grandpa this summer?"

That's what he wrote in his first day "What I did this summer" essay.

Ethan's source for inspiration (for his essay, and for much of his communication with his family these days) was Napoleon Dynamite:

Don: Hey Napoleon, what did you do last summer again?
Napoleon: I told you! I spent it with my uncle in Alaska hunting wolverines!
Don: Did you shoot any?
Napoleon: Yes, like 50 of them! They kept trying to attack my cousins. What the heck would you do in a situation like that?
Don: What kind of gun did you use?
Napoleon: A freakin' 12-gauge, what do you think?

On another note, Ethan lost another tooth this week. Now he has three holes in the front of his mouth.

(h)ug!

I was cleaning out the photos on my hard drive tonight when I saw this from our trip to Disneyland a few weeks ago. I decided it deserved a post.

We tried to get a photo of Sophie and Emma with Tigger, but Sophie would not turn around and smile. She only wanted to "UG!". Or make Tigger eat pavement. It's tough to tell from this photo.

Sophie likes to live in the moment.

UPDATE: Sophie just saw this picture on the blog and said "UGGIE!!"

more fun with the new lens

It's a Canon 50MM 1.8II--the cheapest lens Canon makes, but it's great for portraits.

Overheard

ANDREW: Mom, why did you marry dad again? Was it because he had a lot of money?
GINGER: Ha! No.

Overheard

RADIO: "...A mining town in Queensland, Australia, has five blokes for every girl..."
EMMA: That means they have one of those for me!
ME: One of what?
EMMA: One of those things they said on the radio that they have for every girl.

A good mail day

My new lens came in the mail today, much to the kids' dismay.

(Ethan ran and hid when I got the camera out, so no photo of him.)

Back to the salt mines

ME: Are you nervous or excited? Do you have butterflies in your stomach?
ANDREW: No. I have a whirlpool of acid in my stomach.

Overheard

This happened today during a ride on Space Mountain at Disneyland...

EMMA: DAD!
ME: What?
EMMA: ARE WE REALLY IN OUTER SPACE RIGHT NOW?
ME: No.