Sloth Man, Hikes, Plays, and Birthdays

The other night. (A small example of how the "sigh of relief" I give when the littler kids are finally all tucked in bed generally turns into a very different type of sigh 😄):

"Mommmm!" A call from the boys' upstairs bedroom. "Jesse is annoying me!"

Sigh. "I sure wish you guys could ever just go to bed. What's he doing that's so annoying?"

"Calling me 'Sloth Man'."

At which point I hear a giggle of obvious admission and guilt from Jesse. 

(Here Jesse and Anders are riding bikes with a newly bike-riding [and newly near-toothless] Summer):

Speaking of Jesse: the other day he told Anders that the way to tell which end of a worm is its head is to tickle it and see which end laughs. Hahah. That boy. He's developing a clever little sense-of-humor (though "Sloth Man" might beg to differ).

Here he is with Penny and Anders on a hike just the four of us went on. Mike sent me off with the three of them after a long day of demands with just the littlest kids. It was evening and just a bit chilly and the air smelled like the rain from earlier in the day. These three middle kids climbed and ran and hollered, and it was very happy hiking with them.

Goldie's high school theater class recently filmed themselves performing a very short play to submit for a competition. Goldie played the coveted role of a protestor who is carried in and tossed on a couch after being trampled. (A bride-to-be also faints and is placed on another couch ... and as you might suspect, the wrong one is carried off to the chapel. ...) Penny and I snuck into the filming to watch. Never has anyone been more convincingly passed out when they weren't really passed out. She even managed to not brush away the strand of hair that landed across her face when they plunked her down on the couch. Which I could not have done. Hahah. (And yes, that is a foot print on her face you can see in the bottom pictures.)

And THIS little tiny baby of the family turned TWO! Never, in one billion years, have I had a two year old without another baby either already here or on the way. (That isn't totally true. Several of my kids are nearly three years apart, but these last four all came piled so quickly one on top of another that it does sort of feel like I've never experienced this before! But it has been kind of fun letting her be the sole baby!)

And a few last photos: