early morning bike ride/sing along

perhaps the only benefit that comes from having your husband be out of town for a week is getting to ride a bike alone through the neighborhood belting out songs to your new ipod. i thoroughly enjoyed my bike ride this morning. not that i don't like riding with loren--we actually get in some good talking time, which is always good. but, i have to say that it was very liberating to really let loose this morning. i figured if someone else was crazy enough to be out and about at 6 in the morning, they deserved to hear me singing at the top of my lungs. i love it when i'm able to do things that make me grin to myself. hey, i've got to make training for a triathlon fun, right?

is this a boy thing?

i'm not the only one who has found my voice (see previous post). pace has discovered that he can talk really loudly about a lot of things. i guess this isn't actually a new discovery--he's been perfecting the art for several months now.

this is what i heard in sacrament meeting 2 weeks ago coming from the back row in church (where loren sits with the kids while i am up on the stand playing the organ and delighting in my alone-ness): "yeah! the bread! josh (a deacon), give me some bread. josh, come back here. where you going, josh? where's hailey (josh's sister)? oh, bread! (as someone, not josh, finally makes it to the back row with the sacrament). mommy, you got bread? yum, yum. i have more?"

my other children die of embarrassment every sunday. i try to pretend i am unaffected by the chatter. loren tries to make it through the sacrament in the actual chapel, but is usually required to make an early exit.

pace doesn't limit his exuberance to church meetings, though. we just got back from the grocery store. pace was in one of those 'car' grocery carts. he was very excited about this and was spinning the steering wheel wildly and shouting out "whoo! i go fast! look mommy! yeah!" loud enough to make everyone we passed smile. he also started repeating everything we said. (liesel: "let's get cereal". pace: "yeah! let's get cereal!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!", etc.) the other kids were begging each other to be quiet so he couldn't repeat anything. at this point, pace decided to up the excitement by bursting into a rousing rendition of "we will, we will rock you!", which is one of his favorite go-to songs. liesel's reaction to this: "i should have stayed in the car."

i really don't remember my girls being quite so vocal about their excitement. but i guess if a whole grocery store is smiling by the time we leave, it's not such a bad thing. right?

the art of screaming

okay, so (south) florida wildlife has gone too far this time. a lizard came into my house. while loren was at work. i do not normally think of myself as a screamer. apparently, i am. it seems lots of screaming is necessary to properly catch and trap a lizard in a tupperware bowl and get it safely outside. the screaming was hard work and i'm ready for a nap now. or maybe it was the sprint to the front door with the lizard bowl that wore me out. i am not good with skittery creatures. hopefully the lizard will pass the word along to his lizard pals that there is a crazy woman in the house and they should all stay far away. unless his pals are the type that will want to see if they can make the lady scream, too. let's hope not.

the 10 commandments, by gretchen

gretchen: (holding up a piece of paper) "mom, pretend this is the 10 commandments."

me: "okay"

gretchen: (reading from the paper) "if you be bad, you get dirty. if you get baptized, you get clean.......and grapes are healthy."

me: "wow."

gretchen: walks off with a satisfied smile.

one more thing

you might laugh, but my own personal accomplishment for the 4th of july weekend was playing the "Star Spangled Banner" on the organ with no (noticeable) mistakes. becca, you'll understand.

4th of July

get ready for a lot of pictures. what can i say, i love the red, white, and blue look on my kids. i am trying to convince those in charge (loren) that we should celebrate the coordinating outfits by taking a family picture. hmmm. we'll see.

anyway, we had a great weekend. i have to say i still missed the leesburg (virginia) parade--nothing can quite compete with those dancers (and that's probably a very good thing).

we went to the beach on friday and had a great time, as usual. pace is getting braver and likes to kick his little legs to get his tube up over the waves (which, admittedly, are not real waves, but still......).

friday night we had a little party in our backyard and set off lots of fireworks. you'll notice in the pictures that some of the kids had mixed feelings about this. gretchen spent a good portion of the night inside the house with her nose pressed against the window so she could enjoy the view without the noise.

saturday night a group of us watched the fireworks from the "hill" by our house (a landfill that was converted into a park--it's the only hill in all of south florida--i'm told we are very privileged to live right by it). it was very fun. (is it bad that my favorite part was being able to get home quickly with no traffic?)

so, here are the pictures of all the festivities. happy 4th of july!