Sunday

Only extraordinarily beautiful people are allowed to wear that t-shirt.

Farms are for dumb people.

Broom Girl

It's strange when your kids start teaching themselves to do things.

Girls

Samantha started 1st grade the other day. We gave her a home-grown butternut squash to give to her teacher. Apples be damned. We also taught her proper wedgie techniques to use on the kindergartners. She's good.



Lucy can't explain why she's adding marshmellows to her pizza toppings. She's still not very good with her L's, so the sentence, "I'm a gluttonous sloth" is still difficult.


Hair. Almost.

We've had a fair amount of trans-sister fighting recently. We don't have very physically violent daughters, but they're extraordinarily vocal. This post is mostly to remind us that it's possible for them to get along once in a while.

Here, they were reenacting the movie "Unstoppable." Sam is playing the part of the grizzly, experienced Denzel Washington. Nora is the young and brash Chris Pine, and Lucy is the the fat guy from "My Name is Earl" that lets the train go.

Here, Samantha pretends to be Al Capone, issuing instructions to the lower crime bosses over a mafia tea.

And some videos.

Thy Fearful Symmetry

The other children saw Samantha in the feline majesty that Becky created for her and demanded more of the same.

Absence

Well, while Becky and our eldest are zipping across the country on airplanes and minivans, the rest of us are making do.



Lucy and Nora took to the stage while we waiting for the Deanna Rose farm to open. Here, Lucy is giving us her rendition of "Quando, m'en vo," Musetta's aria from Puccini's La Boheme.

Here, she holds a tomato.

Here is a picture I stole from my dad's seldom used blog of our partial reunioin a couple weeks ago. That's our niece/cousin, Annie, who is excellent.

Smitten

Our charming little four-year-old, Lucy has been extra charming as of late. She's shown off her progressing literary skills by saying things like, "I do not like M-O-M."
She's also quite an artist. She presented this jewel to Becky, along with a conversation that went like this:
"Mommy, I drew this for you!"
"Oh, wow, is this lightning?"
"Yep! It's hitting her!"
"Who is the girl?"
"It's you."

Burgundy

We've been fairly blog-lite over the last month or two while we figured out what we wanted to do regarding our internet service. We've figured it out. Everyone can breathe a tremendous sigh of relief. Go ahead.

A majority of the Tolman clan came to KC for a visit over the 4th of July weekend. This is the only picture we managed to take of the entire affair. Nice, eh?

It was 106 degrees without the heat index yesterday. Lucy was trying to look into the camera, but her eyelids melted.

This is Donatello.

Things that occupy my time

You say tomato, I say weeds and aphids.

Tow-truck drivers, in my experience, don't talk about very much besides tow trucks and towing.

This used to be our eastern view in our backyard.

Now it looks like this.

Teeth, Naked Hopscotch, and Rogue....

As you can see, Sam's teeth are finally repaired. She was a lot of fun after her dental work. Versed is a great drug, and she has no memory of the couple hours she spent grasping at the "white stuff" that was apparently floating a few feet in front of her.


Tile floors and recent potty training combine to create magical adventures.


Sam completed kindergarten. She got to play the drums during her class's rendition of "Blood in the Rio Grande," a Navajo death chant they learned for Culture Week.

And I have something to confess. I don't believe the plants I was trying give away were zucchinni. I'm 93% certain they were..... pumpkin. It makes sense, seeing as I dumped the guts of the one big pumpkin we produced last year into the compost. Unfortunately, I gave away about 6-8 plants to an interested coworker. I suppose I'll have to tell her. I am shamed.