Goofy Pics and Random Stuff

Today we got given two big bags of clothing for Hannah- including the adorable hats and scarves in the pictures. After we sorted through it all, Hannah and I had a good time goofing off and playing with the camera.

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In other news, today was Children's Sunday at church, meaning the entire service was done by the kids. The whole thing was themed around the twenty-third Psalm. I read scripture, Amanda wrote and read the benediction, Nathan and some other boys took the offering and he acted in a skit performed by his Sunday School class, Joshua helped greet, and both he and Ben recited the twenty-third Psalm and sang a song with the other kids.

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Nathan has joined Boy Scouts and he's very excited about it. He has yet to get his uniform and handbook though, which is upsetting him. Later this summer, he'll be going to a Scout camp for a week. Until then, he'll just be attending the weekly meetings.

~Megan~

Hectic House

We have been pleasantly invaded by relatives here to visit Grandma Siebert: Mommy's sister Adrianna and her daughters, Olivia and Selena, and Mommy's brother Pete and his kids, Jake, Luke, and Molly. Selena especially likes swimming, so we have been in the pool twice a day today and yesterday. Jake is obsessed with frogs and insisted on going up to the pond to find some. Sure enough, he caught two and is keeping them in a bucket outside.

Molly and Hannah are a frightening pair; one never knows what they will do next. Usually they just take out all the toys and make huge messes- today they covered floors with Lincoln logs, baby dolls, play food, and Mr. Potato Head. They tried to play in my bedroom, but fortunately Amanda discovered them and kicked them out before they had done too much damage.

I thought they were pretty safe playing outside, but apparently I was wrong. I got suspicious when I spotted them hauling a bucket across the lawn, chasing a kitten. Further investigation revealed that they had emptied several water bottles and some soap into the pail and were planning to give the poor kitties a bath. (Or drown them!)

~Megan~

Life is Good- with Jellyfish!

Here's the latest in our famous Life is Good series of pictures. This one was designed and drawn by both Amanda and I. We're on a summery theme- in this case, scuba diving with enormous man-eating jellyfish. Isn't life good?

In case you're unfamiliar with our Life is Good pictures, I will explain. We have made a series of Life is Good ripoffs, usually featuring something morbid or deadly. They were designed to be computer backgrounds. This was our original, drawn by Amanda:

Here is one Amanda drew for the winter:

Hannah made this Christmasy one with Amanda's help:

And, finally, I made this one:

There are a few more, mostly involving pools or fountains of blood. We'll probably do some more soon, along the summer theme, so watch for them.

~Megan~

Vitamin D

Mommy says that 10 minutes of sunshine will give you all the vitamin D that you need in a day. If that's true, I definitely got my D vitamins for the next week. I was pulling weeds around the pool fence. Daddy had everyone outside helping get the pool ready for use: vacuuming, skimming leaves off the surface, fishing the dead frog off the bottom, sweeping, weeding, and putting the ladder in. Only thing was, he decided to do all this at 1 o'clock this bright and sunny afternoon, when it was 83 degrees in the shade.

Fortunately, after we finished, we got to go swimming for the first time this year. The water was a delightful 76 degrees and felt absolutely wonderful after working in the blazing sun. Daddy sat on the edge, dangling his feet, and almost refused to get in. He said it was too cold. I think he's getting wimpy in his old age. Finally I splashed him and he came in after me. I got dunked for my efforts.

Afterward, Daddy made us an early dinner on the grill, and now we're going to go visit Grandma Siebert. Got to go!

~Megan~

This & That

There's not a lot of big news around here, just bits and pieces...

~ It's been hot. Too hot. And humid. Blech.

~ I learned to French braid my hair this week. Not quite mastered it yet, but I'm working on it.

~ Joshua was the acolyte today in church. He had a very solemn and serious attitude as he walked down the aisle. (I thought he was adorable.)

~ We have strawberries in our garden- juicy, red strawberries.

~ We are now the owners of a new used car- a red Isuzu Trooper. Now Daddy can take that to work, so the rest of us can have the van. Whoopee!

~ Amanda, Nathan, and I haven't done much writing lately- maybe because it's too hot for coffee.

~ Stella has been hunting. She's caught almost a dozen chipmunks, two moles, and several mice. She brings them to her babies to play with and tear apart.

~ The winter pool cover is off, and now Ben and Hannah can't stop asking when we can go swimming.

~ The garden is thriving. We have harvested a mountain of spinach and lettuce.

Well, that's all the news I can think of at the moment, and Mommy is suggesting all sorts of random, boring details, and there's watermelon slices waiting for me, so I shall wrap this up for today. Happy Memorial Day!

~Megan~

Battle Plans

Writing today was more hands-on than usual. At this point in the story, there is supposed to be a battle. That meant we had to figure out some battle plans. So the three of us set up Nathan's Axis and Allies pieces on our map and moved them around like they always do in movies. The tanks were catapults, the bombers stood for dragons, a soldier represented 100 infantry, and so on.

We then proceeded to have a long and very heated discussion as to the best plan. (We tried to keep it mostly in character. It's much nicer to yell at each other in character than in reality.) Finally we mostly agreed on a strategy. Nathan says it's unrealistic, because it involves 100 men charging at 300 men and winning, but he doesn't have any better ideas, so we're going with it.

Just pretend you're a starving Indian...

Nathan and I were in charge of making supper tonight. (We make dinner every Thursday, and Amanda and Joshua cook on Friday.) Nathan very much wanted potato soup, so I agreed. The soup turned out alright. The biscuits, however, were a deep shade of brown when I removed them from the oven. The texture seemed fine, so we were hopeful that we hadn't overdone them too badly. A single bite, with its burned aftertaste, changed our minds. Most of us managed to choke ours down with a heap of jelly and a lot of drama. A scene from the movie The War, also involving burned biscuits, came to mind...

"Just pretend you're a starving Indian and this is the last bite of food between you and death. And you got into a fight over it with another starving Indian and it fell into the fire and got burned."

Nathan and I decided that we'd rather give our biscuits to the neighboring tribe and let them die from eating them. Then we can take all their food.