If you're happy and you know it...

In answer to the questions about where to put the groceries with so many Helpers filling the cart: Haha, I wonder the same thing myself.

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Some of you have already heard this quote, but I need to share it here for posterity. Elijah has been biting Andrew and Lavella lately, leaving full sets of teeth marks. It's awful. This morning, he bit Andrew, and afterwards, we had the following exchange: "Elijah, you may never, never, NEVER bite anyone." Elijah answered, deeply distressed and with great feeling, "But then my teeth won't be sharp and fast enough for lunch!"

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Greg found a house for us in the Austin area (yes Jill, it's the one he told you about), and has nailed down other details about our new life there as well. Back here in Germany, however, I've been feeling figity and anxious. I feel like there's so much left to be done, yet I have no energy or drive to do it alone. I also can't help but feel slightly put out that I'm the one that has to stay behind with the children, while Greg has this adventure off by himself. Of course, this is a completely unreasonable feeling -- there's no way we could have traded places; neither of us would have been very successful if we'd swapped jobs -- but the feeling's still there all the same. Thankfully, he'll be back in three days. Three days and counting. Every day, Elijah asks "but when will Daddy be coming home?!"

To add to my own personal complications, I've been knitting a difficult lace shawl that doesn't seem to agree with me; I've had to fix errors in it so many times now that I'm ready to throw it out the window. I won't though, because I like the yarn. I'll try not to throw anything else.

Overall, however, homelife here has been running along smoothly, and I've managed to keep things interesting and fun for the children so that the time goes by quickly. Today, we went for another walk. Since we were taking the same path to the Sandbox Playground, I brought along a little crate so that we could pick blackberries along the way to take home. We managed to fill it all the way to the top.





There were also plums, I think, growing along with the blackberries at some point.





Can anyone verify that a plum is, indeed, what this is? (I don't feel like poisoning anyone.)





All of the little cowboys and cowgirl had a good time at the playground (and Pete, you will be happy to know that it was freshly mowed this morning!)













Lavella rode on this bouncy horse with Andrew:




Then Elijah thought that it would be fun to do that too:



Lavella felt that it was a little bit too exciting.

We blew Dandelion seeds to repopulate the earth with everyone's favorite weed (I know, I know, the gardeners out there are wincing):




(Elijah wanted to take this picture of me)




Jonah sat and watched everyone, feeling superior now that he can sit up All By Himself.




When we got home, we all ate Blackberry Fools and snickered at the name.




Whipped cream and a little bit of vanilla sugar boosted these tart berries into a rather lovely little treat.




Yummy.

Well, maybe today wasn't so bad after all. Maybe it was just the knitting that was bad. Screw that shawl. I'm going to go knit a sock now.

In the meantime, the rest of you can watch these two videos of Lavella.

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