safety first

risky situations are often described as accidents waiting to happen. penelope is like an accident trying to happen. trying desperately. a horrible human tragedy striving, struggling, yearning with full force to come to fruition. watching her run is like seeing a drunk bear on its hind legs trying to set a land speed record. every precarious step is taken with total disregard for accident or injury. she doesn't watch where she's going. she climbs on unstable structures and shifts her weight awkwardly while running downhill. in one week she pulled a sink out of the wall, scaled a five foot bookshelf, and nearly popped the screen out of her second story window from a platform on top of her dresser. she refuses to wear shoes while running on the deck, dragging her bare feet like little fleshy pin cushions across the splintering wood. she turns the hose on the garage floor and runs around in untractioned sandals. then there was the time she fell down a drainage sump in the basement. as frequently as she's injured, i'm always amazed by the number of disasters she actually avoids by sheer merit of luck.

remembering granby (may19-june3)

kelley's mom spent a couple weeks with us to ease the adjustment to our new "party of five" situation. we always jump at the opportunity to outsource our parenting, especially since billie punches her time card at 6am. 

three stooges

here's a string of unrelated pictures of the kids...

sound effects

i don't know if its a little boy thing, but eli comes with built in sound effects. actually, i should say sound effect. (singular). whether he's playing with a toy, running up and down the stairs, or just generally traipsing about the house, the action is accompanied by the rumbling output of a high bypass turbofan engine. this is a deep glottal sound made by heavy aspiration between the top teeth and the lower lip. think of it as making an "f" sound while trying to get a popcorn kernel out of the back of your throat. whatever the task being preformed, he seems to truly believe the action is being driven by 250,000 lbs. of thrust anchored to his elbows. note his pursed lips in the following pictures, you can almost hear it...

nhpa rules

per bames' lars-line castigation, i need to mention a key element in the new back yard, the two nhpa regulation horseshoe pits along the north perimeter. the pitcher's boxes were christened at a large scale family gathering held in conjunction with lucia's baby blessing. in a truly monumental course of events, the course's first official pitch was a ringer thrown by myself. in the absence of a national horseshoe players' association official, we used two witnesses with proven knowledge of the sport to verify the event.

dad's first pitch went from the right platform, and so, in accordance with nhpa rule 3 section c.1, did his second.

in order to remain in compliance with nhpa rule 2 section b, clay pit material was altered only with permission of the opponent, unlike dirt material, which does not require opponent consent.

measurements were taken to judge shoes in count, with entrance into the pit predicated, of course, on opponent consent.

before the bocce ball tournament begins, eli tests the turf for slope irregularities.

we ran fuel efficient family tours around the neighborhood.

blessing day.

the cake commemorated billie's birthday, kelley's, penelope's, lucia's, our anniversary, may day, cinco de mayo, mothers' day, memorial day, florence nightengale's birthday, flag day, fathers' day, summer solstice, and anything else that occurs in may and june.

back... with grass

allow me to apologize for my blogging negligence of late. at the beginning of the month, i went back to work after taking a long sabbatical for lucia's birth. after only a few weeks, i became extremely comfortable with my new lifestyle of three bar-b-ques per day and aimless peregrination about the neighborhood in a golf cart. on returning to work, i found it very difficult to do any more than drive imaginary donuts around the col-de-sac in my head. somehow, pushing 34 metric tons of steel 35,000 feet above the earth at eight tenths the speed of sound loses much of its luster once you've been behind the wheel of a 24v electric golf cart, but i guess i'll have to carry on until someone buys the publishing rights to my personal memoirs...

among my stay at home dad projects completed was the conversion of the briar patch behind our house into a respectable suburban courtyard. so without further delay, i present to you bar-b-que town, usa...

potty humor

as a casual observer of human behavior, i have found one common link that bridges all races, cultures and ages- bathroom humor. so why is it that we deny ourselves the camaraderie and fraternization of sharing our common interest? as thrilled as i should be to share in my children's discovery of the latent hilarity inherent in words like "toot", "poop" and "pee",  i find myself suppressing such discoveries as they develop.

the other day, when penelope rewrote the lyrics to a popular lds children's song about the temple and sang, "i love to see the doo-doo", did i join in her delighted levity? no. instead i told the most blatant lie i have to date, ever told one of my children. 

"penny, i don't think jokes about doo-doo are funny."

on another occasion, when the kids were in the back seat of the car laughing uncontrollably at penelope chanting the hilarious mantra "my booty! my booty!", kelley used an unfortunate choice of words to remind them that such phrases are reserved only for their practical applications. 

"penelope, do you need to go poop?"

it did not call them back to a state of gravitas.

so when eli came running out of the bathroom with his underpants on his head, what could i do? children are curious beings, and try as you might, you just can't stifle a discovery as visceral as the external donning of underwear.

i grabbed my camera.

park play

larsens make use of the family friendly facilities in their neighborhood.