Silly

Adam sent me an email today that said, "The bill is on the high end of their scale. Total including replacing the mounts is $43,509.60. The car will be ready on Friday."

Hello, Typo! Yeah, I'd say that's on the high end of the scale!

Whitney and I have had a three year love affair with Lime Green paint. It was first used when I helped Whitney paint her entire room that color. I took the rest home and painted big circles on what was later named "The Polka Dot Playhouse." We finished it off tonight painting this:

Reliving my childhood

This week we are holding our summer camp - "Musicals and More!" There is much singing of show tunes, grandiose melodramatic emoting, and even choreography. I'm having a total blast.

Do you know how I spent almost every free moment of my childhood? There were two games I loved to play:

1 - Playing School. I was always the teacher.

And 2 - Creating a Show. I can't tell you the countless productions we created in our home - with song (usually interuppted with fits of giggling), dance (always less than graceful on my part), costumes (shabby chic), scenery (including an old sheet we colored on, used as a backdrop, then wouldn't let my mother throw away for at least a decade), tickets (to make it seem REAL!) and always an audience (bless their patient and longsuffering hearts). Topics ranged from the W.E.T.S. news show, to Starlight Express dance numbers, to reenacting the signing of the Constitution during a particularly patriotic phase.

Someday, when I have time and energy, I will post some of the incriminating evidence.

I would regularly enlist my sister, cousins, neighbor kids, church friends - anyone who was game, and we would perform to anyone who would listen.

This week, as I was leading a group 50 kids in song and dance, it all felt so familiar, and I realized, I've been preparing for this my whole life!!

So, thank you to my patient and encouraging parents, aunts and uncles, and the parents of the neighborhood kids I can't even remember names of. No, wait, Laura Serena, that was her name. Hope you're doing well, Laura!

Some things never change. And I'm loving it. :)

Visions in Technicolor

I feel like I'm wearing Technicolor glasses today. I woke up early to take Adam to work, and here's what we saw when we went outside:

We'd been Flocked.

Oh, you've never been "flocked" before? Well, it's a clever scheme to raise oodles of money, one yard prank at a time. See, you have to pay $20 to have the flamingos removed to another yard of your choice. Very, very clever.


Later, I threw out all the child labor laws and enlisted the help of my 10 year old, 7 year old and 4 year old to put together 60 music binders for the CCC summer camp next week. "My fingernails hurt from opening the tabs!" "I got another paper cut" - such wimps! Why, when I was a kid, we had to assemble 600 music binders, all while walking uphill in the snow. So don't whine.

Aren't they so colorful? It's to go with the "Coat of many colors" theme of the week. Ooooh! TECHNICOLOR!!!

It was actually really fun.

Then we picked up the Summer Camp t-shirts:

What can I say? We don't want to lose anybody! And bright lime green should do the trick. :)

Well, I'm off to bed. Hopefully I will dream in black and white.

Have you missed this face?

I sure love this boy.

3 Cheers for Summer!

Mt Whitney

Click on the picture to see the amazing pictures from Adam's Successful Summit of the tallest mountian on the Continental United States!!

No Time, Any Problem

So, I was hanging out with Ivy today and she did me a favor, so I told her, "Thank you, Ivy!"

She replied, "No time!"

. . . HuH?

Then Lizzie and I realized that she was mixing up the two phrases "No problem!" and "Any Time!" to make a new phrase: "No Time!" Which naturally led us to the other mixed-up phrase: "Any Problem!"

I was thinking about it and decided that this has kind of been the Stewart family motto this week.

Broken Transmission? "Any Problem!"

Need a new hairdryer? "No Time!"

Accidently broke the pool filter which was just replaced? "Any Problem!" "No Time!"

I'm hoping we can get un-mixed up soon here, because this family motto is getting expensive! :)

Sockless on Mount Whitney

I found Adam's special REI hiking sock last night when I was folding the laundry and watching Arrested Development with Erin. He was looking for it frantically on Wednesday night before he left on his big trip. Whoops.

This morning he called me from here:

The one-socked mountain climber on the highest peak in the contintental United States. I hope that one of your feet was nice and warm.

These conditions are not ideal. Just call him Bear Grylls.

Eli's Dream Jobs & Nightmare Jobs

This morning at breakfast, we received a telemarketer phone call. After I hung up, I told Eli how I had a job doing that once during college, and Eli suggested that I do my "dream job" instead. So I asked him, Eli, what are your dream jobs? Here's the list he rattled off. I grabbed a pen and paper and wrote them down:

Eli's Dream Jobs:
1. Ice Cream Taster
2. Trampoline Trickster
3. Computer Whiz
4. Mattress Tester
5. Freestyle Swimmer
6. Holiday Window Painter
7. Oatmeal Maker
8. Playhouse Builder

Then he told me some jobs he "would NEVER do, even if someone paid me a million dollars!"
1. Shark Catcher (could get bitten)
2. Trapeeze Circus Person (could get badly hurt)
3. Perfume Mixer (the smell)
4. Toxic Waster Cleaner (really gross stuff)
5. Ship Captain (it could be exactly like Titanic!)
6. Computer Smasher (That I would never do.)
7. Electrician (could get electrocuted)
8. Bee Catcher

This is going to be a fun summer!

Everything Changes~

Lizzie got her braces off! (This was Phase 1, Phase 2 will come in a few more years!)


Oliver found his toes! (It's like there's toys dangling from the ends of my legs - how fun!)

Stinky Potter

I have a sensitive nose. Maybe it comes from being the daughter of an Ear, Nose, and Throat doctor. Maybe it's because I had to drive a car in high school with the license plate "Dr. Nose." Or maybe it's from being pregnant four times, and eventually your nose becomes a lightning rod, if you will, for odors that are "off."

This week, I took a nap on an uneventful afternoon, and when I awoke, my nose told me that something wasn't quite right. I smelled a scent different than any other I had smelled before. It had a tang to it, almost a metallic hint. When it was really strong, it felt like I could taste it on the tip of my tongue. This was worrisome. I checked the outlets, lamps, anything electrical. I had Adam check the attic and vents to see if there might be trouble up there. I was able to narrow it down to one room - the front room. I was starting to become slightly paranoid that we were getting chemical metallic poisoning. Maybe it was that new oven element! Maybe I should get my Carbon Monoxide detector out and see if it had anything to say about the matter!

Having found nothing out of the ordinary, I began accosting every person who entered our home:

{Ding dong }
Hi! Stay right there and breathe deeply! Yes, I know you just wanted to drop off something, but I need your nose right now!
Okay, the porch smells normal, right? Now, come into my house. . . slowly. . . slowly now. . . okay: Breathe. Deeper! That's better. Keep breathing. . . Do you smell that?!?! Don't you think it's kind of metallic?? Can't you almost taste it on your tongue? Isn't it driving you crazy?? ME TOO!! Do you know where it is or where it's coming from? Help me! I'm going mad!

At which point they would turn and run.

After three (3) days of this, I consigned my fate to the reeking aroma, concluding that maybe after we started showing symptoms, it would be easier to diagnose. I could practically feel a rash coming on.

On Saturday, Adam and Eli were gone all day at the Fathers & Sons Campout, so I thought this would be a good time for Lizzie to finally open the package that had arrived for her from her Grandma Vickie. We hadn't had time to properly enjoy it, and since I knew what was inside it, I thought it would be more fun to open it when she could really get into it.

We sliced the skinny packaging open to reveal a GIANT LARGER-THAN-LIFE-SIZED Harry and Hermione pointing their wands directly at us! It also revealed a GIANT LARGER-THAN-LIFE-SLIGHTLY-METALLIC-ODOR that almost knocked me over! ah HAH! How had I not deduced this before?! It was that stinky paint they used to make the stand-up cardboard Potter and sidekick Hermione. You can't smell them in the movies, but they really do stink.

The smell was worse, now that it was fully unleashed, but the mystery was solved. And Harry and Hermione are going to de-fumigate in the garage for a while before they're allowed back into the good graces of our home.

I want YOU to stop stinking up my living room!

Lost: Another Tooth

Our Little Poetess

Was given an award recently as a district winner in the poetry contest. It was for her poem "The Chase". Here she is with her teacher, Mrs. Willis:

Blond white girls were in the minority at this party.

Reunion

Grandma Palmer hadn't seen Oliver since he was 1 day old, and Grandpa Palmer hadn't met the Big O yet. What a sweet reunion this was!

And yes, I do have three other children, but they are going to have to give the spotlight to Oliver for a little bit longer. Sheesh, they've been basking in it for the last ten years! We've got some catch-up to do!

What?

Guess who went swimming!!

He wasn't so sure about it, and this was pretty much his expression throughout the entire experience: (Look at his cute toes! )

Classics & Creatures! - What a night!

Our concert was last Saturday night - whew! What a great time!

Tia conducts the CCC: Erin enters as the "Dew Fairy" to awaken the sleeping chidren (from Hansel & Gretel)

Erin really did knock the socks off of everyone there! What a star!! We love you, Erin!

Lovely flowers for us at the end of the concert! We have the best choir families in the world. :)

Looking oh so professional!

I loved how one of my friends put it: "There was something so poetic about you sisters growing up singing in children's choirs together, then now to have you conducting the children's choir with your sister soloing with you." It was a sweet experience, and one of the highlights of my musical life, to be sure!

Roly Poly!

Oliver has been rolling over all morning! :) :) :)

It is so much fun. I think when you're a butterball like Oliver is, it's easy to just roll around!

Thanks for the picture cord, Jenni! :)

Visitors

Erin and Oliver finally meet! He's thinking about it...wait...

Yep! He's decided that he likes her! :) Yeah for Auntie Erin!

Lost: One Front Tooth

We just can't quite seem to pull it together over here...our camera cord has been missing ever since we got home from Coronado, and I have lots of amazing photos that I can show you if you just come to my house and squint into my camera screen. Until then, we have the camera phone.

Here we have some self-portraits by Eli on the day he lost his tooth at school!: He's been a real late bloomer on the tooth-losing process, so this was very exciting indeed!