Croaking Frogs

As we started walking home from playing baseball on the school playground, we heard frogs singing in the ditch that runs along the side of the gravel road leading home. My wife commented to our youngest son to listen to the frogs croaking.

J, age 12, responded: "If the frog 'croaked' once, how can it keep croaking over and over again?"

Dangers of Stating the Obvious

My dad took our family out to dinner at a restaurant in celebration of C's recent 6th birthday. It's a fun, much anticipated, tradition my dad started to take the whole family to out to dinner to a place selected by the Birthday person.

T (age 9) ordered a Hot Chocolate. When the waitress brought it out, she politely said, "OK, here's your Hot Chocolate...careful it's Hot."

Taren responded matter-of-factly--and not too quietly--with an obvious tone of 'duh' (including the lazy eyes and head shake), "Why do you think they call it 'Hot Chocolate'?"

Happy Birthday #5!

Baby C aka #5 was born 6 years ago today.

Our 5th boy, he fit right in with the rest of us!

Ever since he was tiny he has loved trains.

#5 has a great smile...

and can be a real sweetie too.

He also has his share (or more) of mischief.

We love you #5! Happy Birthday!

Signs Seen Through Town

T (age 9) noticed a sign as we drove to a picnic event in another town. "Who would want to buy fleas?" He asked, puzzled.

Is it Soccer or Football?

J was asking why asking facetiously why do people in Europe call soccer, 'football' and in the United States we call football, 'football' instead."

S explained that we call it, 'football' because in football there are a lot of 'hikes'.

Happy Birthday Baby B!

One year ago today we welcomed Baby B into our family. I can hardly believe it has already been a whole year! Happy Birthday to my sweet baby girl!

In the Hospital

Blessing Day

She's a Smiler!

Mischief

First solid food

Sitting Pretty

When did my baby turn into such a big girl?

Happy Birthday B! WE LOVE YOU!

Perspectives On Cemeteries

In anticipation of a future service project, we drove through a cemetery today to review the extent of the headstone cleaning we will be doing.

We visually toured acres of upright headstones (we couldn't read all of the on-ground headstones) engraved with symbols and pictures that helped explain the personalities and beliefs of those memorialized by them. You can't help but respect the people who came before you and ponder about what kinds of experiences they had while they were alive.

It was the first time I've been into that cemetery and I was impressed with how nice it was. The cemetery sits on a hill overlooking a small lake spotted with lily pads. The opposite border is padded with a nice evergreen forest. Beautiful blossoming cherry trees guarded the front.

I was thinking out loud about how nice it would be to invest in some personal real estate at a this or a similar cemetery.

Shortly after a family of deer peacefully walked through the cemetery, J (12-yr-old) piped and commented, 'This would be a nice place to be buried."

K (age 7) joined the band wagon, "This would be a great place to play hide and seek!"

Conflicting Messages

The other morning our 1st grader was getting ready for school when I walked into the room.

He said with a confused tone, "Dad, do you know what? When we have writing at school, [my teacher at school] says, 'take your time and do the best you can.'

"...Then half way through she says, 'I want to see smoke coming out of your pencils.'"