Things I've Skipped Over (May)

Miscellaneous pictures from May:

Henry enjoying his favorite meal.  He loves noodles of any kind, and requests them for every meal.  This is his new picture smile.  So handsome, right?

More baseball.  Tristan got to try out pitching in a few of his games. 

Oliver concentrating on running the bases.  Notice the Mariners uniform - Ollie had to step up and play on Tristan's team quite a few times, because they didn't always have enough players.  He was a good sport about playing with all older kids and braving kid pitch instead of coach pitch.

Henry with his T-rex tail, some of his favorite dinosaur toys, and princess shoes.  This kid loves everything about dinosaurs.  He just occasionally likes to play with them while wearing fancy shoes.

Eating raisins and talking about dinosaurs (and princesses - I love how adamantly he denies playing with princesses at first):


Rachel is the proud owner of several pairs of high-heeled fancy shoes that have been passed down to her.  Every once in awhile, I'll find them all set up on display in random places throughout the house.  She'll walk around saying, "Mom, I just can't believe I have so many high heels!  When you were five did you have any?" (no).

I think this particular day she was getting out the old heel collection so she could get all dressed up for our fancy candlelight dinner.  Daniel had taken the boys out for a father-sons night, so I told the girls we could have a special dinner at home.  They chose macaroni and cheese (of course).  And we lit candles and pretended it was a restaurant. 

At the pool.  We are getting a lot of good use out of our neighborhood pool this summer.  I love it.  I wish it was a little bit closer (we walk/ride bikes), but I still love it.

Lizza and Henry playing with Star Wars guys on the stairs.  Star Wars is Henry's new obsession.  He switches back and forth between being Darth Vader or Luke Skywalker every 5 minutes or so.  I know when he's being Vader because he walks around doing the imperial march and breathing "koo-pah" really loudly.  He loves to assign other people in the family to be different Star Wars characters, too - I can't tell you how many times a day he tells me, "you be Darth Vader, I be Luke. . . .actually, no, I be Darth Vader, you be Luke.  Rachie be Princess Leia.  Ollie be Jabba." 

Blankets are no longer blankets.  They are Darth Vader capes.  And when he wants to be the Emperor, he puts them completely over his head and walks around yelling "the dark side!" to everyone.  He convinces the older kids to turn on the Star Wars theme song on the ipod all day long.

Sunday walk near our house:

Braving the murky waters to search for creatures:

I always picture photo ops like this (when I can get all five kids sitting together, in order even!) miraculously turning into great shots of all the kids that I can frame, send to grandparents, set as the new blog header, etc., but mostly I just end up with a picture of a bunch of ragamuffins/orphan children.  But at least they are in age order, right? 

The walk home:

The day after our Sunday walk, Oliver didn't get home from school for quite awhile - he had stopped in that same little canal to do some more searching.  When he did finally arrive, he was carrying this huge fellow (some sort of crawfish/crayfish/crawdad type thing).  Apparently it put up a bit of a fight, and Ollie had the battle wounds to prove it.  I like it when my boys do boy things that I would be too scared to do, but I don't have to witness them doing it (because I would ruin their fun by telling them to be careful about everything).