QOTD

After he threw up at a restaurant at lunch today, I rushed Samuel outside to clean him off. The first thing he said was, "Those flowers are pretty."

Then when we got home he asked, "Can I sit in your lap and throw up and watch a movie at the same time?"

It's good to be home from YW camp, even if Samuel is sick.

Samuel's Quote of the Day for Tuesday June 16th

As we were walking back from the park this evening Samuel had two great quotes...

Daddy guess what? Guess what's under sidewalks? Grass - but you can't see it because it's covered by sidewalk.

and

Samuel: Look! There's a Black bird.
Joseph: What do Black birds eat? (see last post about blueberry birds to understand what I was expecting)
Samuel (with a real "Daddy you aren't very smart" look on his face): Worms of course! But you know what Daddy? Black birds are red inside when they open their mouths...

We had fun at the park by the way. What a beautiful (but hot) night.

This week...

Laundry and two little causes of laundry. We did six loads without the dryer this week, thanks to the drying racks (you can see them outside the kitchen window).

We cooked in the solar oven twice - ground beef and potatoes. Last week the highest temp noted was 175, but yesterday it was almost 250 degrees. Here's the ground beef and the solar oven. I have been very pleased with it so far. The banana bread didn't turn out very pretty, but it was cooked. And it was a partly cloudy day too.

Today while we were on a bike ride Samuel said, "Mommy, do you know blueberry birds eat blueberries? Because blueberries are blue just like blueberry birds."

His latest thing is pointing with his feet. It has improved his balance - he pointed to and counted the seven birdhouses he built and he didn't knock over a single one. But it's not so nice when he is pointing at your face.

For FHE we took Samuel to one of the Beehive's middle school orchestra concert. He was very well-behaved and we tried to only whisper. "Mommy, what's this song about?" "Pirates." (It really was; it was called Pirate's Cove.) "Where are the pirates?" It was almost as bad as a book with no pictures.

Here's the boat safety lesson from Samuel's swim class, just before the teacher helped Samuel fall out of the boat.

Luke's Hand Sandwich

Samuel at breakfast today

Row, row your boat,
Gently down the stream,
Merrily, merrily
Like's a box a stream.

"Mom, how was your day?" (It's 7:30 a.m.)
"Good, how was your day?"
"Good, I just have lots of crocodiles under my bed. When I get working I don't have a place to put my birds."


The "birds" started with 3 baby bluebirds that fell/flew from a nest in our tree. Last week at Joseph's soccer game Samuel picked up two imaginary baby birds and ran around with his hands cupped for about an hour. I can't help you because, to quote from Jack Handy's Deep Thoughts, "Sorry, got these sacks," or birds in this case.

I pulled for his breakfast today an MRE applesauce out of his 72-hour kit. I wanted him to eat one and see that it's good so that in case of emergency, MRE's won't be foreign material. I am opting for mostly MRE-fare in the kits so I don't have to rotate everything annually.

New "Snowman" lyrics

Couldn't find the video camera, but here's a transcript:

"Did you know that song?

Once there was a sowman, sowman, sowman,
Once there was a sowman, snall, snall, snall.

Once he painte, painte, painte,
Once he painte all blue."

Thanks Samuel. Now I know that song.

A reason to go to the mall

Northwest Mall's one redeeming feature: the train layout!

When it's remodeled to be a fancy outdoorsy mall, I wonder if the train layout will still be a feature. I hear Memorial City Mall has a train layout too...maybe another day.






Mesmerized. This was the best I could do at getting Samuel to look at the camera.

We had to keep a close eye on Samuel because the trains could clip your nose if you leaned in too close.

Intense about trains!