Brain Dump

Mary has taken to drawing. She's getting pretty good. Her subjects are royalty: Princesses and kings and queens and such. Today she'd doing portraits on tiny sticky notes, the whole royal court... including the “grumpy cook” (with 5 o'clock shadow), and a milk maid and (mooing) cow.

Our camping trip was fun. Lots of fun. The kids, as usual, gorged themselves on s'mores and hot dogs. We also tried our “new” dutch oven for the first time and made peach cobbler. On Sunday we attended both the Lebanon and Hanover wards up there so we could visit with all our friends. It was wonderful! Even as we sat chatting in the lobby and watched the rain pour down, it was wonderful! (And our excellent friends made offers of their dryers or their extra bed in case our tents were drenched.)

But everything was dry when we returned to our site. Our big tent was a bit damp around the edges of the base, but everything inside was dry. I was impressed. I thought for sure we'd be wringing stuff out and sleeping in the car. All the kids' tents were 100% dry. Awesome.

Charlie has discovered his inner climber. We had to retire the high chair b/c he kept mistaking it for a mountain. Now he tackles any unattended chair and scales onto the table. Regardless of what may be happening at the table: dinner, painting, sewing, no matter. Last night he saw Joseph balancing on the edge of the bathtub. That was such fun to imitate he finally found himself locked out of the bathroom.

His favorite word, and he says it so expressively, is, “MA!” He can say it softly if I'm near him, or make himself heard across the house if he's annoyed. Nathan's favorite is when I'm reading or whatnot and Charlie comes up, gently presses what I'm doing down, turns his little face sideways and looks right in my face and yells, “MAA!” Then he kisses my nose. He really is very kissy.

I'm working on a pair of socks right now. I'm using a four needle pattern and am trying to convert it to the magic loop method. I was doing fine until I got to the heel. Now I can't remember what to do and have to wait until the library gets the book in (I ordered it yesterday morning after realizing my predicament). So, I wait. Phooey.

I just got a phone call (seconds ago) that our teacher today has a sick son, our education counselor had her baby on Friday morning and all our substitutes are unavailable. Guess what that means. Yes, blog cut short b/c I need to go prepare a lesson.

And Charlie just took off the heating vent and stepped in it. Hmmm... do I have anymore sticky tabs or do I need to break out the duct tape?