Tufted puffin

Malachi woke up with his hair like this the other day. He looked kind of like his stuffed birdie that he loves so much.

Flower children

image credit: http://wildpoppyhomeschooler.wordpress.com/2008/08/

Abe came home from school the other day and told me, "If we want to dress up for school tomorrow, we can."

"Dress up as what?" I said.

Abe couldn't quite remember. He tried to describe it to me: "It's some kind of animal, and I think they just had it a long time ago? They don't have it anymore? It has flowers in its hair and things like that. And what it reminds ME of, is something like a hen."

"A hen?"

"Well, it's not a hen, but just to me, it makes me think of a hen. Kind of fluttery like a hen."

"Are you sure it's an animal?" I asked.

"Yes, some kind of animal that they had a long time ago---or it might not be real, I'm not sure---and with flowers on its head or something like that."

I pondered it and pondered it but I could NOT for the life of me figure out what it was. Their school mascot is the dragon, so I thought maybe it was something like that---or unicorns? (Do they have wreaths of flowers---or is that the virgins who catch them? Anyway, a long shot.) But Abe said it wasn't either of those. After several unfruitful lines of questioning, I determined that he didn't seem to care that much about dressing up anyway, so we just let it go.

The next day when Abe got home I asked him how his day was. "Only one person in my class remembered to dress up today anyway," he told me. "But I remembered what the animal was called: a hippie!"


****BONUS****
Sebby told me, after marching around the house singing for several minutes, "Mommy, that song was called 'Rejoice to the Dirt, Monkey; Rejoice!' "

Matching elephants

I like Ky's curly tongue (also, note the milk jug lid that he is holding---a permanent fixture in his hand)

I like this picture; Abe just hugging Honey and ignoring all the elephantine chaos around him

Seems like just a few months ago that Abe and Seb were wearing these matching elephant shirts. *sigh* :)

Sebby and Ky were playing a game where Ky* would put his fingers in his mouth and Seb would pull them out and Ky would put them back in. They found it quite hilarious.


*Do you think we should have spelled it "Chi," as in "Malachi"? But no one would know how to pronounce it.

More outdoor hilarity

Malachi is such a confident walker now that he feels like he can move on to harder challenges: walking on uneven surfaces, for example, or up hills.

(the tongue out, in concentration)

Walking up (pleased with himself)

He also really, really wanted to ride Seb's trike, so Sam finally gave him a ride on it.

(the rightful owner)

Fields of purple

(and more flowers across the street---click to enlarge)

Near our house there's a park where they planted crocus bulbs and grass seed in the same spaces. I love it, because the flower buds come up before the grass really gets going, and make whole fields of purple and white. By the time the grass turns green and needs mowing, the blooms are gone, and they can mow the leaves down with everything else so it just looks like regular grass again. It's so pretty! (I'm trying to figure out if there's a place we can do this in our yard!)

Anyway, we've had a great time playing outside the last few days and enjoying it all. The boys were very interested in, but careful with, the crocus (crocuses? croci? dang, it's hard to start a speech with this crowd!)---they have been learning for several weeks not to hurt the "tender little baby flowers" coming up in our yard---and in fact, they seemed to be actually "tiptoeing" through them at times. Isn't that what one is supposed to do through tulips? :)

A rolling lesson--conducted by Professor Abraham

Abe on his head

Ky sees a bird (he LOVES birds)

Art

Malachi did this the other day. (My fault--I fell asleep while he was playing and he got colored pencils out of Sam's backback and decorated this wall.) I took a picture of it before I cleaned it off, because frankly, I was quite impressed.

Because he really worked on this. Look at it! It's not just a few scribbles to see what would happen. It's not deliberate destruction. It's construction. There are two different colors present. And lots of layers. I could tell it took him a lot of time and effort. (I slept for over an hour without hearing a peep from him!) Cute little guy!

Lookalikes

Sebastian

Dad

Quelle sophistication!

Sebby called me in to see this carwash he had built this morning, and then informed me, "It's the Eiffel Carwash."

[Another cute thing today: Abe came up to me quietly while Sebby was downstairs and said, "Mommy, we need to start encouraging Sebby to put my piano music away in the right place, because I keep finding it on the floor."]

Scout + hat

My aunt made a little Scout suit when her oldest son was a baby, and since then, all the babies in the family (including me) have had their pictures taken in it. It's been Malachi's turn for a while now, and I recently realized it was imperative that I get some pictures soon, before he grew out of it.

It still fit just fine, luckily, but because he's such a tiny guy, he's older than my other babies were when they wore it, and it turns out that makes things more difficult. He would NOT leave the hat on. He kept removing it and saying "Hat! Hat!" and holding it out to me triumphantly. He was none too pleased with the neckerchief, either. Still, I got some cute pictures.

Misdirection

Sam and I were talking about trying to confuse a potential follower by altering your tracks. Sam pointed out that, were one to be tracking Malachi, one would probably find Ky's tracks to be confusing enough with no alteration.

• Sometimes his tracks would be two baby feet.
• Sometimes his tracks would be two baby feet and two baby hands.
• Sometimes his tracks would be two baby feet and two big-person shoes.

signing "where" (looking for the other shoe, I presume)

signing "shoes"

Ky is usully found walking around with shoes on his hands. He prefers it, in fact.
None of the rest of us can ever find our shoes anymore.

Expressionism

Malachi has developed several deliberate facial expressions which he trots out for us when he's trying to make a point. The above is his silly smile. "Look, I have a shoe on my hand! Funny!"

Here is a mad, squinched-up-nose scowl/cry which he uses here to say, "Hey, I didn't want to come inside! Why did you bring me here against my will?"

And this one . . . well, I guess I don't know what this one means, actually. I suppose he likes to retain some mystique.

Arizona Trip

Have you been to Arizona? It's a great place, but oddly, quite grainy and washed-out, as these pictures will show. It's unfortunate that they don't get to enjoy the vibrant, detailed technicolor that, as my usual pictures demonstrate, we have here in Utah, but I suppose they have other compensations. Among them:

1. Lemons



Kenneth and Sheila have orange, lemon, lime, and grapefruit trees in their yard. Sebby especially liked picking the "yemons." He carried this one around for an entire day, smelling it, rubbing it on his face, and letting it jump with him on the trampoline.

2. Warm sunny weather

We absolutely basked in the lovely 70-degree temperatures. Most days. I was TOLD that AZ gets something like 340 days of sun per year, which makes us either really special or really unlucky that we were present during a day and a half of ferocious thunderstorms. However, what I kept endeavoring to convey to our hosts was: It was perfect! It was lovely! Even the rain was a welcome, welcome change from smog/dirty snow/below-freezing temperatures.

3. Old West Mining Towns

We went on a great outing to an old mining town that looked just like you would want it to. They had a "shoot-out" and a jailhouse (sorry, Ky) and a reptile show and a train ride. And also, I love fields of cacti.

4. Desert Botanical Gardens

We absolutely LOVED the botanical gardens (thanks for the tip, Allison!). You would not think desert plants could be so varied and beautiful, but they are. Ken and Sheila very kindly watched the boys for us so we could enjoy the gardens without worrying which boy was going to impale himself on which cactus, and we had a wonderful time.

As an added bonus, we got to see some amazing glass creations by glass sculptor Dale Chihuly. (Perhaps you saw his exhibition at the BYU MOA a few years ago? To my everlasting regret, I put it off too long and missed it, so you can imagine my delight when I saw there was an exhibition at these gardens!) The sculptures were put in among the desert plants here and there, creating an amazingly wonderful juxtaposition of forms. It was really almost indescribeable---otherworldly---almost like they were some strange alien plant-forms, or undersea vegetation, or something. They fit in with all the yucca and cacti and so forth like they had grown there. Seeing those delicate, fragile glass forms (you can see in the pictures, they almost seem like balloons!) next to the tough, spiny plants was really unforgettable---what a great experience!

5. Meteor Crater

Here is the largest chunk left of the meteorite (it was 150-ft wide on impact!). It's amazing to feel it---it's made of iron and nickel, just feels like a big chunk of metal---and think, This fell from space!

This natural landmark is worth visiting anytime you're in the area---there is a great museum with a short movie, and some interactive exhibits where you can design your own meteor and see what the impact crater would be like (hours of fun!). I thought maybe the boys would be worried about meteors hitting us, and true, there was much discussion in the car before and afterward about how this happened a long time ago and meteorites like this are very rare and there won't be any loud noises now because the loud noise was 50,000 years ago and nobody's house was hit because there weren't any people living here then and so forth. But in spite of all that the boys were fascinated; they loved the museum and the BIG, BIG HOLE.

****

I don't have pictures of the other great things about Arizona: a HUGE treehouse/playground/"family fun center" we went to on a cloudy day and the boys LOVED, lazy picnics in the backyard, frisbee in the park, cousins (Abe says, "Katy is my best friend!!"), Ken and Sheila's great cooking, the hot tub, Andy's basketball game, Katy and Lucy's dance recital, etc. etc. But we had a wonderful time and are SO glad we got to go. Thanks for having us, Nelsons!