This Week the Trend...

Dear dedicated blog readers,

In order to have a little more free time, I'm moving to a "weekly edition" format. This probably means loooong posts, or else long posts that are broken into a few different parts. Here's what life looked like this week at Chez Vances!

Potter Party 2013

Every once in a while the Potter and Vance parents team up to give the other family a short break. In effect, this means that six children four and under are interacting under one roof! Memories come quickly and by the dozen. Chrissy calls this "Kids Camp"; I call it Potter Party 2013!!!!

Here, Chrissy shows off her organizational genius by pre-labeling all drinks and snacks. Thus, all conflicts are curtailed and justice is maintained.

The New Kids On the Block. Ready to take the neighborhood by storm!

What might be the secret to keeping six young kids happy, you might ask? Apparently, the secret is stickers, as Naomi's big smile demonstrates!

I had the hardest time getting a smile out of Jonah at first. Then he saw the stickers, and his joy became inexpressible.

Gideon wowed us with his extravagantly mischievous smiles. What is he thinking right now? 

Even the notoriously hard-to-impress Janna was willing to crack a smile. Sort of. 

At least, I tell myself that she was smiling.

Then came the infamous Seagull-Pigeon Controversy between Jesse and Naomi. It all started right here, when Naomi saw a suspicious-looking bird in the parking lot.

"PIGEON!" she cried.

"No, Naomi," Jesse said (perhaps slightly condescendingly). "That's a seagull."

"Pigeon," Naomi maintained.

"Seagull."

"Pigeon!"

"Seagull!"

"PIGEON-PIGEON-PIGEON!!!!"

"SEAGULL-SEAGULL-SEAGULL!!!!"

Then it basically descended into chaos.

Here is the root of all the antagonism, calmly sauntering through the parking lot. Is that a Seagull or a Pigeon? I have no idea...

"ELEPHANT!" I yelled, hoping to peacefully conclude the verbal showdown. My ruse worked; Naomi burst into laughter, while Jesse (more accustomed to his father's ridiculousness) gazed at me tolerantly.

The next step in keeping all kids alive and happy was a Jellybean hunt.

Go!!!

Janna, wildly paranoid that someone might poach her beans.

Naomi, after the activity was finished, reflecting on how tense Jellybean hunts can be!

"No time to talk... eating jellybeans...." Note the gleam of pride in his eyes over a pretty decent 'bean haul.

Naomi, keeping Jesse on a tight leash (ha, ha!). Note that this was actually Jesse's idea - not really sure how to interpret that!

We ended the party with some sprinkler fun in the front. Note Jonah's incredibly determined walking stride! I love this kid.

Unfortunately, the combination of sprinkler and a knot in the skipping rope caused some anxiety. Incidentally, this is the same facial expression we see on his father's face when discussing Arminian theology!

Jonah quickly found his stride, though, and was soon one of the most daring kids of the bunch.

Top prize for water antics, however, goes to Naomi, who definitely rose to the occasion! She was awesome!

Meanwhile, where were our own kids? While Jesse was somewhat involved with the sprinkler, we found Janna sitting on the ground far, far away from the action, pouring water on the grass with a watering can. To each her own, I guess!

At any rate, we had a ton of fun with the Potters, as we always do. We love you guys! 

Killing Time with GIANT TRAINS

Yesterday was Chrissy's day to herself, so I was in charge of the kids. (I'm pleased to report that swim lessons went MUCH better this week, thank you Janna!) At any rate, I found myself at 10:45 looking at an awkward hour 'til lunch time with a heat wave, three children, and no real idea of what to do with them. I thought to myself, I could take them to the basement and basically just wait for an hour until lunch time, OR, we can drive across town to the Science and Tech Museum and check out the giant train in the big field in front of it!!!

Definitely forgot the sunscreen on a scorching hot day. Thus, it became necessary for Jesse to adopt the role of "Commander" of a top-secret mission - he had to lead us across the field, from one tree to the next, so we could stay in the shade and not give anyone heatstroke. As you can see, Jesse took this role VERY SERIOUSLY.

Finally, we got there. Here's the beast, in all its locomotive glory.

Jesse, half inspired by the majesty of the train, half sincerely afraid of falling off of it.

Marveling at the size of the chain...

...that's a big train!

....so big that Janna was legitimately terrified of it, as her facial expression reflects. She refused to get any closer than this and burst into sobs at one point. :(

What Janna really wanted to do was to visit the cool Lighthouse.

Despite the fact that we were all getting pretty hot, we made the final trek.

Having safely arrived, we took a moment to collect ourselves in the shade. Even though she was sweating, Robyn was a trooper, lulling me into a false sense of security...

....before lunging at the lens of my camera!!!

Jesse was devastated that we couldn't actually enter the lighthouse, but he and Janna did enjoy the view from the deck.

As we left (in a torrent of tears from Janna, who had spied her archnemisis - any lawnmower ever), Jesse laid eyes on the Holy Grail of boyhood dreams: a real rocketship! Unfortunately, and to Jesse's eternal dissatisfaction, we didn't have time to check it out. Next time, buddy!

\

MISC

I'll just close with a few misc. photos from the last week, and today's rather tragic attempt at a beach breakfast.

After playing outside for away, Janna came and sat on my lap, which then became soaked. Wondering what had happened, I examined her and discovered that her entire cloth diaper had become undone and bunched around her leg hole. And I needed to change my clothes....

Here's Jesse dressing up as a "Ninja Samurai Warrior," which must be the most intense warrior combo ever.

Janna has been going through some hard two-year-old waves this summer. Some times she can be pretty teary and sad. Poor kid.

At other times she's upbeat and a total charmer!

...and sometimes she's totally ridiculous. I mean, we were eating breakfast, I turned to look at her, and she was just spontaneously making this face at me BEFORE I EVEN TURNED TO HER! This is an unprovoked facial assault.

Incidentally, Janna now has enough hair for us to do things to it. She really enjoys that. :)

Katie and Dan came over to visit. Dan subsequently destroyed us at Carcassone and Settlers. We need more practice!

We'll end on "Beach Day II," a fun morning with a somewhat tragic ending.

Jesse and I, having a heart to heart about the morality of destroying other people's sand castles.

...He then proceeded to step on and demolish the castle "because it's fun." Apparently I need to work on my fatherly admonitions!

Chrissy and Robyn braving the waters.

...giving her some space...

...not sure what to think, but pretty good natured about the whole thing.

Jesse and I have plotted out our own sandcastle design.

Getting to work. 

Shortly after this, we unexpectedly had to leave the beach and go home. The reason for this is that spontaneously, both of our girls started crying and didn't stop. We could blame this on a variety of factors (needing to nap, needing to go #2, etc.); however, I should probably also acknowledge that as often as it might seem like we have entirely blissful experiences with out children, we also have intense and fantastic meltdowns! This is very much a part of our family experience.

In all, it's been a busy, fun, exhausting week. Will write again next week... I'll leave you with this video of strange eating experiences with Janna!

...Until next time!

A Peaceful Beach Breakfast // Invasion of the Killer Ducks

July  11th, 2013: A beautiful morning. And what better way to celebrate a beautiful morning than by having breakfast on the beach at 7:00am? Let's face it: we were all up anyways - might as well make the most of it!

I have to give credit to Chrissy, though; it was her idea and she put a lot of time into preparing all of the food, packing the bags, etc. Nicely done, Chris-Anne!



Hitting the road! Here is the lovely Chrissy enjoying the swaggishly awesome sunglasses we found in our house. (Turns out these belonged to Katie. Thanks, Katie.)

Here I am, looking and feeling slightly out of focus. 7am beach breakfasts will do that to you, but I woke up soon enough!

One thing that I underestimated (and Chrissy didn't) was the complexities of feeding a small child on the beach. Thankfully, Chrissy came prepared with the booster seat, cheerios, and prunes. Cheers!

Meanwhile, the rest of us had gourmet breakfasts prepared in advance by Chef Chrissy. Note the two beautifully baked gluten-free muffins. 

However, I was only destined to devour ONE of these delicious delicacies. Now, normally, nothing in all creation could separate me from a gluten-free muffin, but... something extraordinary occured...

Jesse (sporting his stylish new mohawk, slightly crumpled from sleeping) was the first to notice the approaching storm. 

With despair in his heart, he cast his gaze upon the force that would threaten all that we held dear...

Look carefully.

...They're coming...

"Oh, cute ducklings," you might say to yourself, if you didn't know the evil lurking in the hearts of these dastardly avian creatures.

At first, we thought they were cute as well. Jesse and Janna both kept shouting with excitement. Janna's shrieking, in particular, was winsome in the basic language she used ("DUCKS! DUCKS!"). Even I was swayed into sacrificing some of my precious gluten-free muffins to draw them closer. 

This was a terrible mistake.

Once the ducks had smelled blood tasted Chrissy's muffins, they were instantly hooked and intent upon eating the rest, and us as well. Janna's shrieks quickly changed to "NO DUCKS! NO DUCKS!" as the ducks crossed the invisible line of intimidation between humans and wild animals and began to climb toward our beach blanket.

Here they come, steady as soldiers. And these two little ducklings had SIX brothers and sisters, plus one meaning looking mama duck! Note how they have transgressed the natural boundary between man and animal by moving past Jesse's sandals. Naturally, they were about to eat him, so...

...asserting my powerful forces of intimidation, I scared all the ducks away. 

Vances: 1

Ducks: 0

Unfortunately, I had counted my eggs before they had hatched (heh).

THE DUCKS CAME BACK!

All the way to the blanket. 

Four times. 

They were obviously planning on overwhelming us through sheer endurance and determination. The video below provides rare and terrifying footage of one of these waves of attack. (Please understand that the tone of my voice DOES NOT denote panic - just a high-pitched determination to save my family.)

Eventually, the ducks left us for good. While this may be attributed to our lack of food, which we had feverishly eaten in an attempt to save ourselves, I think the main reason for our salvation was Robyn. As hungry as the ducks were, she was way more hungry, and determined to eat anything that came across her path.

"Just try it, ducky..."

The rest of the visit was like a visit to paradise! Shortly after 7, there was almost no one at the beach at all. It was like a private resort - we had the whole place to ourselves. Here, Janna was delighted at both the fact that she got to wear her life preserver and the fact that she could play with sand toys!

Meanwhile, Robyn was finishing up her breakfast - and she was serious about this. No wonder the ducks were intimidated. Having forgotten a hat for her, we realized that a clean diaper would work just as well AND make her look like a pirate!

Beautiful.

Jesse, meanwhile, was training himself with strenuous swimming exercises. Looking at the photo, you might think that this was a stop-motion while he splashed his arms and legs. Nope! He was just holding this pose (presumably building up massive strength and endurance).

A picture from the front. Now there is determination.

What a great kid! A few times, Jesse lost his footing and plunged face first into the water (a humorous-but-scary effect of the life-preserver is that it plants his face solidly into the water when he falls forwards). Despite being obviously shaken when this occurred, he got up quickly and went back into the water. What a trooper.

After swimming time, we decided to make a massive sandcastle with a huge moat. Here the kids are listening to me with rapt attention as I divulged to them the secrets of sand-castle construction.

Here is Janna, deciding to help by filling her bucket full of water and dumping it on our sand castle. She did this a lot, pretty much destroying it each time (hence, no photos of the non-existent sand castle). Someday!!!

Robyn, amused at our efforts. We had to watch her pretty carefully: not content to eat the breakfast we had provided, every once in a while she would take a fist full of sand and stuff it into her mouth, much to the amazement and anxiety of Chrissy and me. Well, to be honest, more to my anxiety than Chrissy's - Chrissy was pretty good at catching it before it happened when she was on watch. (I became very good at fishing it out, on the other hand!)

Chrissy's cool artistic shot. Note the sweet reflection!

Janna, basking in the destructive power of a simple bucket of water.

At one point, we decided to bury Jesse. He was actually really enjoying this at first... and then he wasn't!

Thankfully, there are few things that a juice box won't fix.

Janna, definitely planning on throwing sand at Jesse before we sternly suggested otherwise.

Jesse and Momma rinsing off after a fun morning at the beach.

It seemed appropriate to take an artistic shot of this juice box as we cleaned up.

Back at our blanket, what did we find!????! Have they no shame!????

So that's our story - Beach Breakfast was great, and I highly recommend that you try it! But if you do, be sure to bring some duck repellent... or a ravenous eight-month old... to protect yourselves. Jesse, in particular, had a really great time. As we left the beach, he looked at me solemnly and said, "But I just want to stay at the beach forever." While that is not really a possibility for us, we will certainly visit Mooney's Bay again soon, and preferably, early in the morning.

I wasn't actually present when this picture was taken, but I can only assume that the kids are joyously thinking back to the fun times had at Mooney's Bay. :)

That's all for now. 

Until next time.... beware of ducks!