Not Too Much

What did you do this weekend?

"Not too much" is my default answer for the casual acquaintance at church or a patient at the clinic. I mean, do you really want to know? Can you handle the truth? Because what I did this weekend is really nothing great or exciting by most people's standards.

But I could go on and on. And on. It would be so long that you'd wait for me to take a breath and say something like, "oh how nice."

But those aren't our standards? Who's standards are "they," anyway?

These pictures don't even capture the half of it. Seriously. Some things are WAY too big to capture in a facebook or twitter blurb or blog. You don't see me trying to teach Luke how to spell snake while Ben is "drawing" or pickup hoops or church or the Messiah soccer game. You don't see our Lord of The Rings (plywood) fort or Luke going on and on and on about this dumb bird.

The video at the bottom is my attempt to capture/video more frogs than I have ever seen before in my entire life. I mean cumulative in my entire life...I've never seen as many frogs, total, as I have today. And I've been around the pond, as far as frogs go. They seem like phantom splashed in the video, but they're frogs. Hundreds of thousands of them climb over each other to get into the water for the entire circumference of this pond, location to remain undisclosed.

Hat tip to Max for the great bullfrog find.

School, The Second Day

Wow. What an adventure. We're in for...some kind of ride. Many lessons being learned around here, yes.


Luke is relearning s words. He's writing s, z, and the numbers 1 and 2, using sidewalk chalk on our driveway. These aren't any old 2s and z's. They're huge. Apparently, the bigger the better. Which is great, for now.


Owen is learning some of it too, though exactly how much I'm not sure. He knows how to sit at the table and do "work." He waits his turn and proudly offers me his creations to put up at the office.


Ben learns how to climb out of the pack-n-play. Maggie is discovering how to get the knees of her pink and purple little pants every bit as dirty as the brothers. They're learning to play together. Amy breaks out a special little toy to occupy the small ones and everyone else wants in on it.


Near the end of the day, Luke nets a nice little bird with a broken wing. He's with Owen and Lianne, jumping for joy and dreaming of all possibilities. Hambone is knocking the top off the makeshift bird cage.


That's what kind of day the second day of school is around here. Luke is writing and reading and Ben is painting at the table, if you can imagine that type of day. Maggie is suddenly over in the dogs water dish having a blast.