Tuesday, May 20, 2008

never trust a calvin

We've already mentioned Calvin's shady racing strategies, but this determination to be best/first/chosen at all costs is spilling over into other venues as well...

This past Sunday in junior primary, the kids were playing a game for music time. One boy/girl was chosen to hide our "musical dinosaur" beanie baby while another boy/girl, who was to find the dinosaur, waited out in the hall. The rest of the children's job was to help the finder know where to look by singing louder the closer he/she came to the hidden toy.

Of course Calvin was dying to be chosen the entire game and only in the last round did I finally give in and pick him to be the "hider". He was so excited and stated that he was going to find the "best spot ever!" to hide the dinosaur. After it was hidden he then sat in the front row to make sure he could watch every move of the "finder".

The rather timid little boy who was chosen to "find" slowly walked back into the room. He was having a rough time figuring out which way he should go and looked to some of the singing children for more help. Of course every child was very eager to divulge their exciting secret and most started then to point exactly to the hiding place. Calvin however, took it upon himself to throw his perceived competition off the trail- because how good of a hider are you if the person looking actually finds it- and so very loudly said "It's somewhere over there." Of course pointing in the opposite direction of the sought after musical dinosaur. The little boy obediently followed Calvin's loud and confident directions. (I'm pretty sure that act went along with our message of trying to be more Christ-like.)

Calvin, you can thank your daddy for those genes... or maybe Grammy.

Sunday, May 11, 2008

back to the ozarks

We were able to sneak down to West Plains last week to see the family - we left strategically at 3 am so the boys would sleep during the car ride. Our feeble attempt at planning ahead was thwarted, however, when Calvin woke up in the transfer to the car and, once realizing what was happening, began chanting "Missouri, Missouri, Missouri" with a gleam in his eye. It's pretty hard to compete with Uncle Willy.


Pit stop at the arch.


Benefit of months of flooding is that everything turns unbelievably green.

Itch was back to help teach the little guys how to play.

Opa took everyone fishing, and everyone had wiggling fish to reel in soon.




Carolee in her snazzy mud boots was up to the task of trying to keep Noah
from charging the herd of cows.


Louis and Noah traveling in the bus - armed with plenty of crackers.


Willy and Calvin only had to be bribed with one bag of rainbow popcorn to cheer Louis and Sidney on in their respective soccer games.

Monday, May 5, 2008

busy, busy...

Here are just a few of the things we've been up to lately:

finding out that dots ice cream may look pretty, but they are too cold for some little boys


enjoying a visit from Grammy and Grandpa to celebrate his 51st birthday by running a half marathon with me and then (sharing)...

banana cream pie from a great restaurant called Schmidt's we discovered on their visit

RB having ankle surgery and being stuck on crutches for two weeks

loving every second of Ohio's spring