Happy Father's Day

Happy Father's Day!
Our little boys had big hugs and two new shirts for their Daddy-O.
:-)

Baptism

Our little ones were baptized at our church this past Sunday.  Tamlin was baptized back when he was little, but Jude still needed the blessing.  When we decided to join our nearby Lutheran Church, we asked Pastor Rich to baptize Jude.  We decided to do it on the Sunday before our trip to Great Wolf Lodge, since this will allow Mom and Dale to be here too.  Shelly and Rick jumped on board and decided to have Ciearra and Elizabeth baptized too.  It was a great ceremony within our usual contemporary Sunday service.  I had a couple of favorite moments.  One was watching our JuJu climb the little stairs and boldly hold his head over the bowl. He seemed to be concentrating really  hard on doing it all correctly.  The second moment was when Pastor was anointing each little head with the Holy oil.  Tamlin  peered very closely when Pastor made the sign of the cross on Jude's forehead.  I think  he was desperately trying to see the "invisible" mark of God on his brother.  The third moment was hearing the story of the seashells they use to scoop the water up.   There is a couple from the church that selects these shells from the beaches of Florida, then cleans them up and polishes them for the baptisms.  Pastor even allowed Tamlin to have a shell too, which made his face light up.

 Yeah God!

Little Elizabeth wore the same dress that Shelly was baptized in.  It had been made by Aunt Rosilyn.  I had to add elastic to the edges of the little cap sleeves and I added a bit of vintage lace.  I love working on these older dresses that my Aunt had crafted.  Her sewing skills were pretty kick-butt...so many seems done by hand and many edges finished with an overcast stitch since she lacked a serger.  And her blind hems!  Awesome.    And Elizabeth looks pretty sweet too.

Christopher Lee has passed away

Christopher Lee has died.  He was an awesome actor and had a beautifully deep voice. 

(27 May 1922 – 7 June 2015)

I love the movie Wicker Man (1973), in which he played Lord Summerisle.  Aparently, it was one of his favorite movies too. Prior to this film, he had played Dracula in numerous horror flicks.

He also kicked but as Saruman in The Lord of the Rings film triology.  Again, he played as powerful evil dude...this time he was a white wizard.

And he was a supremely evil bad dude in Star Wars II and III, Count Dooku. 

 Eighty years old and he was doing most of the swordplay himself.

And he was the voice of Death in Terry Pratchett's animation of Soul Music.  

 

Lee died from complications of respiratory problems and heart failure

Slip and Slide

  This Slip-N-Slide was SO worth the $1 I paid for it at a yard sale several years ago.  Finally, this year both boys are willing to actually slide down...now Jude usually only slides the last foot under the "car wash" section, but Tam will run and slide.  Both boys still think it is a hoot.  The photos here are from the second day that we had it out...so the boys are wearing whatever swimsuits they could find.  Jude very randomly picked these shorts, which are size 6 (Tam's)...so they look more like MC-Hammer pants than swim trunks on him :-)


   

 2014 - June

 2013




 2012

End of May

 Last day of May and we spent the morning outdoors.  Brian and I wanted to get some more gardening done in the cooler morning hours.  The boys helped me to plant some radish and carrot seeds.  They then lost interest in planting and decided to help with watering instead.  We had just found Jude's little orange watering can in the garage (man did his eyes light up when we dug it out!), so he very excitedly delivered water to our plants.  I did plant some bean seeds too; I surprisingly really liked our green beans last year and was excited to get some going again this year.  Our tomato, pepper, and leek seedlings were all planted last weekend and seem to be fairing well.  Now we have a bazillion of the tomato and pepper seedlings, but we have high hopes of lots of fruit from them in the fall.  I did also remember not to plant ALL of the carrot and radish seeds so I can stagger their planting / harvesting this year.  (Recall that we did get a million radishes all at the same time last year and got pretty sick of radishes).

After working in the vegetable gardens, Brian expanded one of the flower beds in the back and planted some lily-of-the-valley plants.  By 9 o'clock it had gotten hot, and the boys were sweating.  I let them have some fun on the slip-and-slide but by 10am, I gave in and got the pool out.  Yep, it's May and our wading pool has been set up.  I hope that this doesn't mean that this summer is going to be hot one...especially with the camping I've got planned!

And I got a good chuckle while over-hearing the boys (ours plus neighbor Liam) play.  All three of them use a deep-voice to indicate that they are grown-ups speaking.  They were using the toys for  racing and making engine sounds and upgrading their cars / trucks and hauling things and other great imaginative play.

First Third Thursday of 2015

Our town has a big music party on the third Thursday of the summer months.  This past week was our first third Thursday of the year. It had been chilly and overcast, but no rain, typical spring weather, so we had to wear our jackets.  This did not stop us from grabbing ice-cream cones at Granny's!  Mmmmm...I love ice cream.  

All over town, there are musicians standing outside rocking out for the public. I think it is just great for to hear so many different types of music and seeing our neighbors out enjoying it. The first guitarist we stopped at was singing kid songs!  The boys thought this was hilarious and loved participating in the silly songs by shouting out suggestions for versus. 

The balloon-animal-twister-dude was here again.  Of course, we stopped so the kiddos could have a piece of balloon art.  They had a fair wait until their turn, so they saw several other crazy balloon shapes get made. 

Tamlin opted for a sword, but a "really big sword".  The man obliged.  Tam loved his sword and kept attempting to slide it down the back of his hoodie, like it was its sheath.  He thought he was a wicked-cool Ninja Turtle. 


When it was Jude's turn, he asks enthusiastically for a "fire-bird."  What??  Brian and I look at each other and we both look at the balloon-artist.  "A Fire-bird!" shouts Jude.  What??  I shrug as the dude look's totally confused.  I try to frantically think of what my four-year-old son might actually want...what's a firebird?  Did he mean a phoenix like his daddy's tattoo?  "FIRE-BIRD!"  I lean in and tell the guy to just twist up a bird using red and yellow balloons.


Know what?


This is EXACTLY  what Jude wanted.
He then held his bird by its feet, pointed his head at things, and made whooshing sounds.  Apparently his bird shoots fire out of its head = fire-bird.
We laughed and laughed and were just so happy he got what he had imagined.

(Note, the yellow balloons are the feet, the black is the beak, and the red is wear the "fire" comes out. Jude is holding it side-ways)


Some of favorite bands from last year are back again, and then we heard some new groups.  The local middle school band played a few fight songs for the crowd.  Also, our highschool's jazz band played down at the beach, and performed a few dance/song numbers. 

Tamlin and Jude rocked it out whenever there was room for them to get their grooves on.
Tam's been learning some great dance moves from the YMCA; his after-school teacher loves doing line-dances and has been teaching the kids.
Jude just goes for broke, often spinning or running in circles. 

It was a great way to kick of the summer.