a little ritual

Here's the kiddos smiling by their friend, Mrs. Stevens ...
yes, it's our "mail lady"!

This spring and summer, whenever the kids were playing outside during the afternoon mail delivery (which was often), they would hustle over to visit with the mail lady. A little ritual began where Foofie would "help" by opening and shutting the last three boxes. Mrs. Stevens would then thank her for helping. Next, Foofie would say, "Wanna race to the driveway?" Yes, the mail lady was always interested in racing and would call out ... ready, set, go. The kids took the race very seriously and would dash off at their top speeds. Mrs. Stevens always let them win ... and then she would say, "My, you're so fast! You won again!" Finally, the mail lady would loop around the circle at the end of the cul-de-sac ... and many good-byes were hollared back and forth as she passed by en route to her next destination.

a little correspondence

Here's a couple of letters that Buddy wrote recently. He gave me permission to publish them. It's just a small sample of the kinds of note I often find about.

Dear Friend,

Here is 1 handcuff key, 1 ID card, 1 sheriff badge, and 2 keys for the clubhouse.

Officer Buddy

His friend's mother read this letter to me over the phone and said her son was puzzled ... "What's an ID card?"

Dear Friend,

Do you have a LCPD Badge? If so we are starting a Lego City Police Department Watch for your neighborhood. Visit us on the web at lcpd.com and have fun. You will find out more about LCPD and badges.

Love,

Buddy

HERE IS A LETTER I STUMBLED UPON THAT HALO WROTE BACK IN FEBRUARY ...

She said that I could put it on the blog and that she's
"so past that now" :)

To Friend,

I have something urgent to tell you. I am now added as a member to The International Police Club. You have a choice to join the club or not. If you choose yes to join, so-and-so is our protector and spy. You are a jail watch if you want to be one. The rules are: fight off intruders and keep our prisoner in line. Try to stay away from them (bad apples). Don't show this to anybody. Okay? VERY dangerous. I am second watch.

Signature,

Halo

P.S. This is the stamp that means our club president has approved.

a little tune

I love watching my kids have so much fun together!
(AUGUST 10th at the cabin)

a little sweet tooth

Daddy was doing a Bible Study with the kids. They were talking about heaven.

"I think there's gonna be crowns there ... and suckers." Foofie contributed. "I think Jesus will have suckers in his pockets!"

~~~~~~~

All of my kids love treats ... who doesn't?!? Foofie, however, has the most demanding sweet tooth ... or perhaps the least discipline for delayed gratification. I'm not quite sure when she started doing this ... maybe a year ago or so ... but if she would receive some goodie and I'd say we need to save it for later ... she would start sucking on it anyway (perhaps on the car ride home) ... wrapper and all. The first few times I saw this, I asked what she was doing and reminded her that she wasn't going to have the treat now. "I know. I'm only having the wrapper." She would say. Okay, I thought, she is pretending to have it ... whatever. Anyway, at some point, I discovered that she was getting a hole in the package and having some of her treat without my knowing! I was finding sticky suckers ~ still in their wrappers, of course ~ peppermints that were no longer red and white, but pinkish ... you get the idea.

a little antique

"Look at this antique lego!" called Buddy.
"It's all scratched up and bent."

So ... kids think antiques are things that are bent
and scratched up???

a little lesson

Little Dude had his first tennis lesson tonight ... unfortunately, he slept through most of it :)

a little questioning

"Was I the father when you and Daddy were little?" asked Foofie.
"Of course not," I laughed.
"Was I the mother?" she continued.
"No."
"Well ... who was your owner?" she asked.
"What do you mean? Do you have an owner?" I questioned.
"Yes ... you are my owner."

a little faster

Foofie finally got her training wheels off last night. She had been asking for their removal after being on training wheels for maybe a week ... I think that's why she quickly went back to scootering (and trying to rip-stick on her scooter). She likes adventure! Anyway, we made her wait until she was four and just now got around to it.

Note: A few days later she was already trying to do stunts like her older siblings ... What am I going to do with her???

a little quoting

Recent quotes from the kiddos ...
you can probably guess who said what :)

"I know that Mommy is your name ... but Dana is your middle name."

to Baby, while rubbing his back ... "You have just the sweeeeetest back I ever saw."

"Did Daddy used to be a sheriff?"

"Do some people smoke cigarettes so they won't have to go to the bathroom?"
(I don't get this one either.)

after passing a poster for a lost cat ... "Maybe I could find missing animals for a living."

"I like your feet." "Why?" I asked. "Because they're cute!"

"I am not afraid of the light, but I am afraid of the dark because things might kill me. A bear might come and eat me up. And I would not like that. And you would not be happy about that either. You would miss me."

after finding a baby bunny at a family picnic at Great~Grandma's ... "That bunny would make a good police dog!"

"If I wasn't in a grade ... like at church or school ... a stranger might think I'm a small adult because I'm so tall."

referring to Little Cutie ... "His nipples are almost in his armpits!"

ANSWERS: F, F, B, B, H, F, F, B, H, H

a little brother (& a BIG one)

a little haircut

Yesterday, I went to one of those speedy haircut shops. I usually visit these cheaper salons or occasionally just cut my own hair ... I figure I might have to spend big bucks if I want color when I get gray ... so I'm saving while I can :) Anyway, you never know what you're gonna get with these walk-in places ... perhaps an angry young man (that was a few months ago) ... perhaps smelly (he reeked of cigarettes) DUC DUY VU (that was yesterday).

So ... when I arrived at the shop, it was void of customers ... it's just me! Duc Duy Vu greeted me and led me to a chair ... and I immediately realized that we were going to have a bit of trouble communicating with each other. Unfortunately, there wasn't an interpreter nearby. The only other person in sight was a gal in the back room ... also Asian like Duc Duy Vu. (It's possible of course that she has lived here all her life and has excellent english ... but I didn't get to find out.) "So ... how long have you been in Minnesota?" I asked. "Ohhh ... ten years ... or ... two months?????" He questionably responded with a thick accent. Ummm .... which
is it???

As he began combing my hair, I explained that a few nights ago around 1 a.m. I had started snipping at my hair (this is about the usual time when I decide I need a trim) ... and I decided to have someone else finish it since the back is difficult and takes soooo long. I told him to cut it a bit shorter than what I had started with.

"You cut your hair?" He asked in a tone suggesting I'm some kind of nut. "Yes. But I didn't finish," I explained. "You want ... long in back?" He asked. "No, it's long in the back because I didn't finish cutting it," I repeated. When he was done combing my hair, he showed the back to me in a mirror. "How's this?" He asked. He had done no cutting yet! How's what???

"You want long in back?" He asked again. "No. I want you to cut my hair all the way around ... all of my hair ... about this long. Then, add some long layers ... an inch or so from the bottom." I told him. "Don' worry," He reassured me with that thick accent of his ... yet he was looking at my hair like he didn't quite know what to do with it ...

Suddenly, he went at my hair in a flurry with scissors nearly flying. He didn't even section it off ... like every other person has who I've ever paid to cut my hair. It's only hair ... I'm telling myself. A few minutes later I was already driving home ... and I only had to fix a few spots that evening. Could've been worse.

a little celebration ~ Independence Day & Foofie's Fourth Birthday

Little Buddy snoozing in the vintage Erickson infant seat ... also doubled as a car seat back in the day :)Fun times with the cousins ...

Happy Birthday, SWEETIE!!! (We love your grin!)

The babiEs :)

a little summertime

a little fashion

At dinnertime tonight, I said, "It seems ... I almost have ... no clothes that aren't crazy."

"What are you saying??? You ... have ... almost ... no clothes ... that are not ... crazy???" Husband slowly repeated after me, trying to decode the double negative.

"Sooooo ... you are saying ... your clothes are crazy???" He asked ... as though guessing the answer to a riddle. Suddenly, imagining crazy clothes struck us as rather funny and we all burst out with laughter.

Shortly after supper, I was completing Halo's haircut ... that I had started three and a half hours earlier ~ yes, kinda goofy ~ but life is a bit chaotic right now. (The haircut got interrupted by Baby waking up and other more urgent needs.)

Anyway, as I started working on her hair again, Halo said carefully, "You know ... ... ... I have noticed ... ... ... that most of your clothes ... ... ... are ... ... ... not ... ... ... very ... ... ...
well-fashioned."

a little mower girl

Halo mowed the lawn today! She did a great job! Isn't she cute???

a little scooter machine

Today, Foofie and I went on a three mile "scooter~walk" ... she scootered and I walked. (Biking has lost a little of its excitement and newness ... now she is into scootering and is asking for her own "Razor".) She actually went a bit farther than three miles because she likes to go a little ways into most driveways that we pass. (Thankfully, she's done with stopping to HOLLAR off every license plate she sees ~ that was last week ~ something she learned from her crime-fighting older siblings.) Foofie, of course, made lots of interesting comments along the way ...

We noticed two birds sitting on one of the branches of an old, dead tree. "They're having a meeting," she said matter-of-factly.

Then, we saw an older kid pop-a-wheelie on his bike ... "He can lift up his bike! He's famous!"

"You're not grown up first. First, you're a baby ... and second, you grow up. It takes lots of days until you grow up to be three or four."

After doing one of the driveways ... "That's a bumpy driveway, Mommy! They must have a bumpy house."

As we neared the pond ... "It smells here. Someone put a smell here. This stinky smell hurts myself ... whoever did it was being bad. It was probably a motorcycle ... they have poison gas."

After the exercise, a snack was in order. I had some sesame Toasteds handy ... which she hasn't liked in the past. Now, however, she was eating them with gusto. I commented about her not liking them recently ... and she said, "Well ... I like them ... now that I'm older." "When do you think you'll like salad?" I asked her. "When I'm older than you ... probably fifty-five ... or ... maybe when I'm nine like Halo."

Then, she asked if we could go two more miles. I told her we didn't have time today. "Can we go eight miles tomorrow? Or ten?" she asked. She's hard-core!

Ready to roll (6/18/09) ... this might be Buddy's best smile ever!

a little gathering

A few pictures from Great~Grandpa's 98th Birthday Party ...

a little ride

Little Buddy had his first stroller ride by "the lake" tonight ...

A flower Foofie picked for me on our bike~walk ...

a little album ~ "So fun to have a baby again!"

Memorial Day at Mom and Dad's ... four days old

Great~Grandma (age 93) and Foofie ...

five days old
ten days old
a funny expression ...
gotta love this little mudge ...
thirteen days old
I like Mommy :)

a little snack

FOUND: ALL~NATURAL animal crackers at Target (my favorite store)!!! I hardly ever buy animal crackers or graham crackers or the like because they have all kinds of junk in them ... so this was quite exciting :)

They're really good (especially the box with half original and half chocolate) ... and reasonably priced ($1.99 for a 10 ounce box). My kids would rather have a pile of animal crackers over a cookie any day!

P.S. I also just discovered their Archer Farms line of ice cream ... as far as I know they only have four flavors. The exciting thing here is that the first ingredient is cream! It's not quite Haagen~Daz ... but it's pretty close ... and MUCH cheaper! ($3.99 for 48 ounces versus $3.00 for only 14 ounces.) We tried Madagascan Vanilla and Bavarian Chocolate. YUM!

a little MIRACLE ~ actually a big one!!!

Well ... it wasn't twins ... just a pretty large baby! Our sweet baby boy came into this world at 4:37 on Thursday morning! He weighed 9 pounds & 10 ounces ... and had a whopping 15 inch head (my doc said she'd never seen a 15 incher ... and she's delivered over 500 babies) ... so it was a very good thing that he arrived ten days early.

It never ceases to fascinate me that one moment this little person is inside of me and then, just moments later ... this same little person ... is out! Isn't it amazing how the LORD knits little babies together inside of their mothers? It seems more amazing to me with each child that we have!

We are all so excited to finally see him and hold him and kiss him! Halo is such a good helper and can't get enough of the little guy. Buddy is so thrilled to have a brother. And Foofie is pleased that our family is even and balanced now ~ three girls and three boys.

He doesn't officially have a name yet ... we're narrowing it down though. My husband joked that he's the Haagen~Daz baby as that was a key component of my pregnancy diet. At the moment ...
he is happily going by "Little Buddy" or "Cutie" :)