A Free Lunch

We were walking home from a very informal picnic today where we brought ALL the food ourselves and just sat on the back lawn of college with a few friends. It was extremely low-key. On the way home, Jack said, 'Mom, thanks so much for letting us come to this.' I said your welcome, and then he continued, 'Did we have to pay to come to this?'. Just to be clear, NO ONE would have paid to come to this picnic, it was that low-key. I explained that we didn't have to pay that we had provided everything ourselves. Jack then said, 'Well Dad says there is no such thing as a free lunch.'

He keeps you on your toes - that is for sure - and he keeps you fairly tired from having to explain SO much. :)

Addie, our funny girl

Here are three pics I got recently of Adelaide. They capture her personality in a very fun way: Enjoy:

Jack, the Footballer

Last weekend we were fortunate enough to have a visit from one of our favourite people, Keri. All the kids love her but Jack in particular has really taken to her. It is not hard to see why. She gives him lots of attention (which anyone who knows Jack knows that 'time spent' is definitely his love language). Jack and Keri went out in the back garden to play soccer/football. Keri indulged him and took a video which he definitely 'performed' for. Here it is:

Thank you Keri and Alec

A fun package arrived in the post today for Jack and Theo. They were sure to throw these German football jerseys on right away. Our boys have become obsessed with any type of jersey. These came from Keri and Alec our friends who are living in Germany for the year.


Keri and Alec have become some of the boys favourite people this year. They have always been some of Charles's and my favourite, but it has been fun to have that feeling restored and reinforced by spending so much time with them this year. And it has been a real joy to see our kids take to them!


Right now the boys are out in the back garden yelling Go Deutschland! I hope our neighbours don't kill us! You know there is no love loss between the English and the German.

Theo, The Artist

Everything was going smoothly. Theo and Addie were up from their naps. Jack had just returned from a friend's house. Everyone was enjoying a biscuit and a cup of milk. Jack and I decided to water the flowers out back. We left Theo and Addie happily upstairs. Leaving Theo alone with Addie is not an unusual occurrence. What I saw when I came back upstairs was thankfully not usual:




































Theo had 'coloured' with markers Addie's face black. Addie was sitting happily there still eating her biscuit. I asked Theo what Addie did when he was colouring her and he said she just scooted around (aka 'trying to escape').

Just for the record, the pictures were taken only after Theo was put in his room to be disciplined. We all know he doesn't need to know that I found this incident funny until he is much much older!