Sound Bytes

He lost a tooth at school just before spring break.  He said when he pulled it out his whole class clapped and cheered for him.  He was so tickled to have lost a tooth at school!

* We begin our family home evenings with "family business."  Usually it's just me and Nate ping ponging back and forth about to-do's and syncing events on our calendars.  But this week when we announced it was time to talk about family business, Henry piped up, "Good.  I love it when we do family business; I finally know what's going on around here."  We had a good laugh about that.  And it was also good for me to realize how important structure and predictability are - even to the little people in this operation :)

* Yesterday Henry and I did a lot of yard work after school.  We mowed our big lawn (quickly because we were trying to beat the threatening rain).  We built a little path out of flagstone from the patio to the side gate.  We cleaned up a bunch of landscape fabric that had been churned up in our flower beds and raked the bark smooth afterward.  The whole time I felt like Lily should be out helping us, but didn't really know what to have her do, especially since I couldn't supervise her while I was mowing.  When we finally came in to wash up, cute little Lil had a stool pulled up to the sink and was washing the dishes that had piled up throughout the day.  "I wanted to do this for you so you wouldn't have to get your belly wet," she told me.  She has plenty of spunk and sass, but at her core she is a sweet, sweet observant little soul.

 On a recent hike: "Look, guys!  When I do this face I can see my eyelashes!"