Ode to My Comfort Object

A Kaloo bear
Is a kind of bear
That eats colors
And is hot and cold.

(A spontaneous poetical declaration given by Ben this evening.)

Trumpet Boy

The transmission of Daryl's performing genes is not in question, as demonstrated the other night when the members of one of Sarah's classes came over for dinner, providing an audience for Alex, who had just learned to make sounds on a trumpet. You can hear Ben in the background supportively shouting "Yay!"



(I've heard that "Happy Birthday" is the world's most-recognized song, but I'm not sure in this case.) Earlier, Alex practiced the trumpet in his police hat, which is simply cute.

Stairway Firefighting

An accurate reenactment of the plot of all children's books about firefighting, in which the firefighters are woken from sleep by a bell, climb a ladder, squirt water out of a hose, and go back to bed (sometimes making pork chops and mashed potatoes first, not shown). Artistic deviations from real firefighting are allowed, as when Alex exclaims, "The tongue squirted out water!"

Our first GQ cover

This picture makes me (Sarah) laugh. The provider of this context (boys relatively dressed up, pillows on floor) was our neighbor Adryán, whose violin recital (Suzuki Book 2) was held in Ohio Wesleyan's Peale Chapel last night. The boys (Ben in green) enjoyed dressing to "look like Daddy," as they put it:

Easter Egg Bonanza

Did we go to the city of Delaware Easter Egg hunt with hundreds of children? Or did we go to the Ohio Wesleyan Easter Egg hunt with about six? You can tell by our groaning baskets of eggs, and number of other children in the pictures....

Alphabet Soup (with fried fish on the side)

Right after breakfast, our industrious children set out to make supper. Ben's fish fry seemed a bit stalled so the camera followed Alex's letter soup story.

We Went to Alabama, But Not With Banjoes

Here are some fun things we did in Huntsville, Alabama for our Spring Break: played with a water-squirting frog at the Botanical Garden, walked around the Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge (though most of the wildlife stopped seeking refuge and headed north a couple weeks ago), looked cute in the backyard of our rental house, and climbed on trains and a fire truck-- and rode a trolley-- at the Huntsville Depot. It was hot, then cold; everything was blooming, and there were mockingbirds everywhere.