Lala Says...

The other day Annika told me that a "bacation" is where you go far away and then drive home.

Oskar has been quantifying his love. He loves me more than Dwight but loves Hunter more than me. He told me that he doesn't love Annika. So I said, "Then why do you want to marry her when you grow up?" He said, "Oh, I'll love her when I'm grown up." He also told me that soon he's going to stop loving me because he doesn't like to love people. Alrighty then!

Kiki says...

Today my friend Jina was at our house with her son Joshua. Kiersten got mixed up and thought her name was Joshua...actually I think she thought they were both named Joshua. She wanted my friend to watch her on her bike so she kept saying, "Joshua, watch me! Look at me!"

Okker Says...

The other day Oskar came running upstairs asking for "Daddy" and teared up when I told him Daddy had already gone to work. He said that he needed help with his computer. So I told him that I would try to help him. He said, "You're not great at that thing. I know you're not." Alrighty then. For the record, I did solve his problem.

Today was cleaning day so I change all the sheets as part of the process (which is perhaps not really necessary since most of the time the kids sleep in their sleeping bags on their floors, but I digress). Annika happened to be hanging around while I was putting on her new sheets so I asked if she wanted to help me. She did. She said, "They're hot!" They had just come out of the dryer so indeed, they were hot. She said, "Why did you wash my sheets, Mom? Did I pee?"

Kiki says...

Kiersten says her name 'Hierten Tyler".

Overheard at breakfast

Oskar to Annika: "Congratulations!"
Annika: "Why did you say grad-u-lations?"
Oskar: "Because that's what you say when someone does something great."

Keep on Rollin'

I've been forgetting to mention that Kard is rolling like a fiend this week. I put her on her back and immediately she's flipped onto her tummy. She can cover small distances that way.

Scrapbooking

I'm reading Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life and it really resonates with me. I think it helped me find my voice. Simple Scrapbooks gurus Stacy Julian and Cathy Zielske both recommended it so I picked it up and am enjoying it. Although I can see that it would not be everyone's cup of tea.

This evening we sat outside and watched the neighbors' fireworks. Oskar and Kardynn slept through it but the other two girls sat outside with us. I was snapping pictures and Dwight was recording with one of his numerous devices. He has some cute audio of the girls.

[sound of mortar explosion]
Annika: "Daddy, hold my hand!"
Kiersten: "Daddy, I not tared."

Dwight and I with our hobbies...it's so wild how you develop a passion for something and then get such enjoyment out of it. Right now I can hear Dwight down in the basement beating away on his drums. I've been sitting here playing around with a scrapbooking layout...tweaking it here and there throughout the day. We're both so into our things. We used to have a lot more overlapping interests but I think now that our free time is such a precious commodity, we both retreat to the hobbies we're most passionate about. So he's delving into his music and I immerse myself in my various "family historian" pursuits - captioning my photos, posting to my blog, et cetera.

Well, it's about two hours past the time when I should have gone to bed.

Oskar and I are looking at photos of Danny's wedding. He said, "Oh, there's Mommy and Uncle Jonny! I love that girl."

Aww...that made my day.

Oskar just told me, "Mommy, you and Daddy are smart but about different things. You're a little smart and he's a little smart. But put your smarts together and it's a big smart."

Now he's saying, "I'm good of es-plaining invisible. Are you good of es-plaining that Mommy?"

No. Not so much.

Annika's favorite food is macaroni & cheese. She *always* asks for mac & cheese, and is then upset with me when I don't deliver (which is obviously most of the time). Yesterday she asked for the usual and I replied, "Well, how about grilled cheese?" She responded with enthusiasm, "Oh sure, Mom! Not boy cheese!"

Oskar used to call AOE "Asian Empires" but now he's calling it "Age of Empirates".

Today we were looking at groundhogs and Kiersten was saying, "I don't see it hotdogs, I don't see it hotdogs".