Wringing the magic from the weekend

1. at Providence's WaterFire, 2. L, contemplative at dusk 3. easy picnic on Monday

4. L @ park 5. we love the park 6.gondola @ WaterFire

7. white legs playing games 8. Miss M 9. more games

10. G on his first holiday off since January 11. protective geese parents 12. crazy Sam

We got two hours of gardening work out of each child (yay!)

went to WaterFire

had a picnic

played badminton

saw Night at the Museum (kids)/Angels and Demons (grownups)

took naps, went on walks

did a lot of lazing

had reallyreally good burgers from our grill

had patriotic, thankful thoughts

and planned and dreamed.

A good restorative weekend, all in all.

The Last Derby

^making last minute adjustments & weight addition

{G flew in from a work trip to Arizona just for this...

driving straight from the airport to the derby.}

^don't you love the one with the skier?

It didn't fare so well in the race but I think

it deserves a quirkiness award

^The first of many heats (Sam's is far left)

I'm a little sad that this phase of our life is over!

Like every other year,

Greg and Sam have spent many nights over the last few months

designing, cutting, sanding, measuring, painting, adjusting.

There's a lot wrapped up in that little car.

Winter light

After school today, the kids were watching t.v.

(their Friday afternoon tradition)

& going through their valentines

(read: eating their candy).

Flopping and fighting.

Pretty blah.

Then the afternoon sun

started glowing in our backyard, 

the ground newly exposed from the melting snow.

My heart did flipflops

and I grabbed the camera and dragged them outside. 

This boy always needs a haircut.

It grows over night.

When he saw this picture, 

even he admitted it's time to visit the barber again.

{And look! My brown-eyed genes showed up here!}

Ah, that winter light. 

It does my heart good.

So do these faces.

It feels like the scene at the end of the Selfish Giant

when winter blankets the earth

but there's a burst of hope in the corner of the garden.

Things are looking up in winter land.

Saturday Afternoon Live

Take two mildly bored kids + one long weekend + a fondness for mysteries + a dash of Monty Python = this kind of wacky but fairly entertaining Five Minute Mystery (the first little bit is fuzzy and then it gets better).

My take away observations:

1. my kids choose the least attractive spots of our house for their filming locations (I mean really, kids, the basement rec room--dumpy and it DOES smell--and storage room?)
   
2. our camera cannot handle action genre films
3. Louie the dog does not like it when you pretend to kill one of our household members (good to know)
   
4. we don't have very much food in our food storage...I'll have to work on that.
5. left to their own devices, two mildly bored kids can come up with some good stuff (I only helped do the titles later but they filmed it all without any help)
6. "make believe" play becomes acceptable again for preteens when there's a camera involved
7. it's very disturbing to hear your son say "sleep well my dead girl..." in a Hannibal Lector voice.  I had to take it out...it was too creepy.
   
8. there's a hole in the ceiling is my very favorite part, complete with an accent of some sort