Last Summer

I found these photos from last summer's big family picnic (down in Dubuque) on my sister-in-law Lindsey's facebook.

My niece Lilly and Atticus playing the piano at my folks' house

Atticus & Lilly having more fun together!

Clark!

My brother Jon, sister-in-law Robyn & nephew Clark (6 mos.)

Remarkable Cows

So my mother recommended going to Sandra Boynton's (the children's book writer/illustrator) website as an entertaining, fairly useless place to hang out for awhile. And also posited that she seemed like "our kind of people". Well, I finally read Boynton's biography section today and my mother is right, as she often is about quite a few things (though, of course, not all).
Here it is: http://sandraboynton.com/sboynton/Boyntonography.html

Wit Overthrown

Last week our small group from church watched the movie Wit (based on the play of the same name) about a woman dying of cancer who in her pre-cancerous life was a serious scholar/professor of the poet John Donne. It is an excellent, excellent film. Emma Thompson is brilliant. The young child's book Runaway Bunny as an allegory of the soul?

The poem the movie returns to repeatedly is Death Be Not Proud, but the Donne poem that resurfaced for me was"Holy Sonnet" #14:

Batter my heart, three-personed God; for you
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend
Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurped town, to another due,
Labor to admit you, but O, to no end;
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
but is captived, and proves weak or untrue.
yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain,
But am betrothed unto your enemy.
Divorce me, untie or break that knot again;
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor even chaste, except you ravish me.

Pasta and Rock'n'Roll

Last Saturday night Brad & I went on a truly wonderful date together. We put Dietrich down for bed around 8 pm; left Bekah reading books to Atticus; took Lincoln with us. Lincoln had been varying degrees of fussy since 7 pm the evening before (all night and all the next day). We got in the car and he "passed out". Bekah had given us a gift certificate to Buca di Beppos (one of my favorite restaurants -- a downtown Italian joint) as a present for a couple months' free room and board. So we arrived at the restaurant around quarter to 9. We then proceeded to wait an hour and a half for a table (it was crazy-wrong, but it was a free meal waiting for us). The baby never even woke up!!!! And then kept right on sleeping through our awesome Lasagna dinner and all the way over to the movie theater. I nursed him and he kept sleeping -- no spitting up, no hysteria, nothing. Peaceful, happy, calm baby -- miraculous. The movie theater was the Riverview, a historical, independent place not far from our house -- We love it. There was a special 11:30 pm showing of the new Wilco (one of our favorite bands) movie just out this month. Mostly concert footage from a recent tour they did across the southern states. Just incredible re-interpretations of a great selection of old and new songs with some short interviews thrown in. The baby kept on kept on sleeping until we walked through our back door unto the kitchen, set his carrier down, and he made his first chirps to be fed again -- completely storybook baby easy. Crazy-good. Brad and I had so much time to talk and not change diapers or do endless house chores or manage anybody's emotions or hunger-levels or gastro-intestinal discomfort or even corral or re-direct anyone. It was so so nice to be normal, calm, conversant people for a few hours. Ahhhh. Thank you, God. Thank you, Bekah. Thank you, Lincoln.

Lilly at Easter

My Niece Lilly Easter-Egg Testing in Texas

Lilly & my brother Aaron

Lindsey, Grant, Aaron & Lilly
I miss you.

Minnesota Zoo

With Brad's work cutting back hours, Brad's been home on Fridays. Last week we went to the "big zoo" to see the animal babies in the farm section. We needed to be back to pick Grandpa Tom up from the downtown convention center (here for a volleyball tournament) to visit with the boys for the small window he had between games. So we only had time for the farm section and a little of the Grizzly Bear Coast. It's so fun to go with Brad to places like the zoo -- places I've been to with the boys on my own but now he gets to enjoy the experience with us.

Baby chicks.

Saying "No!" with his ubiquitous ear flick.

This doesn't do the situation justice but this sea otter was so playful back and forth across his tank. Atticus and a handful of other slightly older boys were laughing so hard racing back and forth trying to follow the otter, running into each other and being silly. It was so funny. This is the very tail end of the chase, the other boys were called away by their parents and atticus left in a solo performance.

Sweet Lincoln

Visit to Como Zoo with the Deems