Jump!

I've had these photos queued up to post for the past few weeks, but I've been too busy (and lately, too addicted to Battlefield 1943) to get around to it.

Iria and I probably have one of the few beds that look worse before a night's sleep rather than after. Every afternoon the boys will tear off the covers and pillows and create this pseudo-cushion on the floor for them to jump onto in just about every way imaginable. Tonight Lennon actually went off backwards and landed squarely on his butt- perfect form, but as usual he scared the living daylights out of us.

Flashback: July 13, 2003

Our two growing babies: Katharine and the house.

7:30 PM

Every evening at 7:30 we gather up the kids and have reading time before putting them to bed. It used to be easy with just Katharine... we would bring her upstairs at bedtime and grab a book. When Lukas came along Iria and I would split off, but now (as you can see) we are hopelessly outnumbered.

We had a bit of a superhero theme going on last night, but in general the kids reading interests are as follows:

Katharine - Magic Treehouse and American Girl chapter books

Lukas - Pirate and Star Wars books

Lennon - Any book, anywhere, 24/7

Keira - Books that are thick and chewable

Hula Hoop

Katharine's newest skill is to hula hoop.

Always a smile for mommy.

Check out Vacation Bible School

http://campedge2009.blogspot.com/

Summervision

Who needs TV when you have a big screen that looks out into the backyard where your two silly brothers are playing?

Throw in a quick game of fetch, and you get the summer experience while your Dad avoids standing outside in 100 degree weather.

Very Berry Shortcake

The result looks delicious: Very Berry Shortcake with whipped cream.

On the way home from yet another morning of volunteering at CUMC, Katharine and I came up with the idea of making berry shortcake. We checked if we had all the ingredients and went to work after putting away all the empty lunch boxes and other containers, backpacks, diaper bags etc...

The berries are soaking in sugar and vanilla.

The shortcakes just came out of the oven. We substituted flaxseed and water for the egg and used applesauce instead of butter. AND added cinnamon. The kids love cinnamon on and in just about anything sweet!

Keira is willing to taste just about anything I put on her tray. Who doesn't like to mess with whipped cream?

Mmh-mmh-mmh! Her second and third courses after the shortcake were cheddar cheese followed by mixed vegetable spaghetti pie.

It took Katharine about 2 minutes to eat two shortcakes. I guess it hit the spot!

Lennon, always happy to smile (sorry this is out of focus). I didn't think of taking a picture of him when he licked the batter, one of his favorite things to do. Good thing I bake a lot of muffins, pancakes, waffles, chocolate chip brownies and the occasional made from scratch cake. He is a two handed batter licker!

Leisure time in crayon land

Katharine drew up some portraits of us yesterday.

The first picture is of Iria gardening, wearing purple high heel boots (naturally).

And here is Katharine and I taking a walk together. I like the pants- maybe it is time to introduce Katharine to the illustrations of John Held Jr.

High socks and underpants

Filed away for a future viewing in 12 years...

Keira Stats

Erik has posted such beautiful pictures of Keira. She had her 9 month well-baby check up this week. I can't believe how fast she is growing. She is doing very well. She has pretty much ditched all baby food and tries just about any kind of regular table food. At nine months Keira is 29 inches tall and in the 91st percentile for height. She weighs 18.13 pounds and falls into the 50th to 51st percentile. That said, she is still our smallest baby and can still fit comfortably in her infant car seat. Keira pulls up on just about anything, LOVES the water, tries to climb up the stairs, babbles a lot and with a very strong voice. She is pretty outgoing and is one of the favorites at the nursery at church.  

Photo op

I tried to get a shot of Keira's cow lick this morning, but just ended up with some cute pictures instead.

An after supper swim

It used to be that when I came through the front door my children would run down the stairs, scream "Daddy!", and give me lots of hugs.

Now it seems like they're in the pool every night. The hugs have gotten a lot wetter...

Dancing Doeschers

Here are some planned and spontaneous recitals that went down over the past week.

Tuesday Part II and Slip 'N Slide

A pool in a pool

frosting and eating cupcakes

The kids are quite accomplished at slipping and sliding.

Keira was more interested in the slip 'n slide than her little baby pool.

I'm back...

Well I've actually been back since last night, but I was too tired to post when I got home.

Anyways, Iria kept everyone pretty much up to date about how my trip to Europe was going. I was over there conducting research for a new project at Gearbox.

I saw lots of farms, chateaus, forests, medieval cities, and museums. I got chased out of backyards but also met some amazing new people. I was driven around everywhere, I ate out every night, I stayed in a beautiful hilltop hotel for the last half of the trip. I got sunburned, I got drenched, I got exercise and I got blisters :)

And I probably took over 4,000 pictures.

Here are two of them.

The first picture is me in Jacques Forest. The 506th were dug in here during the winter of 44, and today you can still find their foxholes. They took a brutal beating by both artillery and the elements- you might remember this scene from Band of Brothers:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9F1szmKOa8

The last picture is of our group, just outside of Bastogne. It was a great trip, but I'm glad to be home.

Tuesday with the Martels

Tuesday was a GREAT day. We spent all day with Liam, Aiden, Nolan and Meghan. At 10 am we met at Legacy Books for a little story time. Nolan was a delight to watch. He was so excited to see everybody! "Does this kid ever get to go out?" Listening to a story and then browsing books and buying books made us all hungry. So we all walked over to Taco Diner and had a wonderful lunch of tortillas, beans, rice, chips, dips, fish tacos and avocado salad. The brood of 7 children got fed. Next activity: walking back to the cars, packing everybody up and heading for our house to swim. We bought a new big inflatable pool that morning after finding out that the other one had a huge whole in it. Somehow, we ended up with a small slip 'n slide, too. So while I was busy inflating the pool, Meghan set up the slip 'n slide for the kids. FUN! Pool of air and water, Liam and Katharine, creative little people that they are, picked up the smaller pool and put that inside the big pool and had a raft! Even more fun! A little while later, they came in and were ready to make butterfly cupcakes. Meanwhile Aiden and Lukas had the pool to themselves. Cupcakes are done, snack time! And upstairs they all went, including Nolan and Lennon. The bunk bed got converted into something you can play safari on and the disappointment was big when they all got asked for dinner, during which we heard frequent begs of "can we please have a sleep over?" in many variations that could possibly get Meghan and me to say yes, which, unfortunately did not happen that night. We said our good-byes after dinner, I sent the kids off to take a bath and as soon as their heads hit the pillows that evening, they were asleep. Hope that was the case at the Martel house, too. Thank you Meghan and boys for an awesome day! We love you, frousins!

Oops, forgot...

Last night I took Katharine to see "The Wizard of Oz." It was a fabulous show.

We splurged and bought Toto.