11th anniversary...no, Father's Day..no, day of sick kids

Patrick threw up tonight, then fell asleep at the top of the stairs (panicking Jason and I when we saw him there). After throwing up in his bed, he went to watch a movie in my bed. After the movie, he threw up again--at which point Melkamu came in saying "Ow ow ow" and holding his stomach.

I know you come here to read about my childrens' upset GI tracts.

In happier news, it's Father's Day! We celebrated by making Jason Star Wars pancakes for breakfast, then the kids and Jason went for a walk in The Big Forest near our house (and Jason informed me that there's a wild blackberry thicket there, hooray!). After they cleaned up a bit, we went to lunch and then Patrick bought a new bicycle--two wheels, no training wheels. He's not quite ready to ride it but we'll work on that when he's feeling a little better.

It's also our 11th anniversary! Eleven years ago today, on Father's Day of 1999, I married the love of my life. We've had such a wonderful time over the last 11 years, with such a great family...I can't imagine any other life that could make me happier than the family we've built together.

*Happy sigh*

And since you've been forced to read about my children being sick and my sappy sweet tribute to my husband, who brought me a dozen beautiful white roses today, I will treat you to some pictures of my kids when they were NOT sick.

Patrick is teaching Melkamu to use the computer--they both like PBS Kids a lot.

In this perspective, Melkamu looks like a giant...oh wait, he IS a giant. I just took out the 5T clothes for him to wear.

Patrick: "Mama, did you see the picture Daddy took of my pretzel rings?" Hmmm. Note to self--keep Jason away from the camera.

Patrick's love of constructing different things on the steps often comes out during quiet time.

The lack of pants never hinders Melkamu from painting a picture of a train.

Kamu took this picture of Patrick catching a firefly. Awesome, isn't it?

They were awfully sweet out there, catching fireflies in their matching jammies.






We're having a fantastic summer, with a lot of laughter and fun so far!

I have to warn you, next time I'm posting pictures of all of my canning--spaghetti sauce, strawberry and blackberry jams and, coming soon, Mom M's pickles.

The summer hath begun

Which mean's it's time to share pictures of the kids and the fun we're having!

Kamu really, really loves reading and books and magazines.  The pictures in National Geographic Kids are some of his favorites.

Sometimes a dad just has to dress like his kids, and vice versa.

We always have a fabulous time at the Renaissance Festival!  Here's the annual picture of the kids with King Henry VIII and Queen Anne after the kids's knighting ceremony.  (P.S. Patrick's not short, it's just that Kamu's ridiculously tall for a 3 1/2 year old.)

Patrick's getting better and better at cooking!  Here he is cooking his scrambled eggs (under close supervision, of course).  He now cracks the eggs, puts in the milk, mixes, and cooks.  If he was allowed to touch the knobs on the stove to turn it on, he'd be doing it all!

Look at the hair on that kid.  Man, I wish I had hair like that. 

Have I mentioned that he's got 3 loose teeth?  As a baby he got his first tooth late, then got another every 2 weeks until he had the first four.  I suspect they're going to come out the same way.  Man, he's going to look funny ;-)  What's the going rate for the tooth fairy these days anyway?

We had some beautiful weather last week and decided to hit the last week of strawberry-picking season.  Thankfully, this coincided with the first week of blackberry-picking season!  We picked almost 3 gallons of strawberries and 1 of blackberries. 

7 jars of strawberry jam and 5 of blackberry jam, strawberry cheesecake ice cream, strawberry shortcake, along with countless berries of each eaten...mmm!  We're going to have to do this again with blueberries soon!