One of these things is not like the other . . .

They are all in Trinidad right now. They all like mangoes. They all have impressive wingspans. But only one catches the others; and only one I can't wait to have home in one and a half days!

All together now . . . huff and puff.

Mark had the kids join in on the Blowing out the Candle part--I guess he's getting old and needing all the young lung help he can get.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MARK!!! WE LOVE YOU!!!!!

Why we did the chocolate cake after the kids had already had their bath and were in jammies??? I don't know; it was just one of those days. But it was a good day--newsflash: MARK AND EMILY NOLTE WENT ON A DATE!!!!

Alli states her name

17 months and can say her 4 syllable name. ;) Her first word was "bubble" and she also says "jesszzzusss" "ball" "quack" and uses some useful signs.

Screaming and hunger.

Kids begin to scream about 5pm because they are hungry. I offer various tide-them-over things to eat. Alli refuses those and continues to scream for most of the time that I am cooking. I pick her up when I can but have to put her down so i won't burn her with what i'm doing. more screaming. when i finally manage to put the food on the table one is screaming because he wants-and-can't-have: chocolate milk, a movie, anything but dinner. I try to put Alli in her chair, because all throughout this i have been racing the clock of her hunger, and what happens? She screams and goes rigid and will not go in her chair. So I tell her it's dinner or in her bed. She responds with screaming. When i return to the kitchen from putting her in her crib, Simon is screaming about something. So now (5:38) they are both in their room screaming and i am not eating the fabulous vitamin filled meal i concocted, but i am blogging and ignoring the childrens. Simon just came in and said "Mom, I think Alli's ready to be out." Okay . . .

They are good kids--they just get stuck on scream and whine. There were a few good moments during dinner prep when i put in the children's songbook cd to keep them from wrestling on the couches (a.k.a making alli scream every 30 seconds) and they started to look at library books. But it didn't last long enough to get us picture-perfect to the table. The report from Simon:
"Mom. I stopped crying."
A few minutes later,
"Mom, Alli didn't stop crying yet."

Guess I'll go serve them the dinner now. They don't like it warm anyway. ;)

It's a party on the aircraft carrier!

Simon is regularly spearheading a party on his aircraft carrier and expecting us all to join in. He entices us with promises of "pet stores, toy stores, Santa, dancing, food, lots of jets . . ." and in this video describes some of the food and people. (You have to push play twice).

Religious musings . . .

At lunch today, with no warning, we had this statement.
Simon: "Buuut, God says that you shouldn't feed horses while they're going poop." ???

I guess that's the final word.

Birds, Bugs, and Buds

Mark had a saturday off from DNA (see Fig. 1) and we went birding and bugging with the buds.

Happy May Day!!!!!

My favorite memory of May Day is accidentally being in Amsterdam on May Day 2001 while on a layover to Zimbabwe; we wandered through rows of tulips for hours and it felt like a diem really "carpe"d. Holland really knows their tulips.

Second favorite memory of May Day is making construction paper baskets as a girl scout and having to drop them off with wildflowers on elderly neighbors' porches (somewhat scary for shy little me, but still a really neat tradition that's mostly forgotten).

So, go put flowers in someone's day today!