1,292,976,000 seconds

A Frank-type question is this: "How many seconds are there in 6 years?" We spent a half hour figuring out the answer to that question, as well as how many seconds there are in 3 years as well as how many seconds there are in 8 years. Also learned that today I am 1,292,976,000 seconds old! Definitely a milestone worth marking.

Here are projects we've been working on since we've come home from vacation:
Watch for updates as we progress! We can only work on it when # 3 is asleep or off visiting friends.
Maggie's reading log since she started it Monday. She gets a free book from the library after 10 hours of reading.
Franco fighting with his friend Daniel over a "lego guy."
Momo's birthday portraits of her mom. I'm helping her move her finger off the lense of the camera. The second one is my favorite, since she got the 1977 portrait of me in frame, and also somehow created a halo for me.

Babs: we don't have A/C!

My email sending function is not working here at the hotel where the wedding is happening. I don't know why. So I hope that our friend Barbara will read this and see my message. Sorry, no air conditioning! I thought you knew that. There are fans in all of our bedrooms though. Katy from next door is going to be coming over to water my plants around the house every few days. IF it rains, could you please close the windows, Babs? If it appears you are not able to Katy will come over to take care of it.

Now, pictures from the past few days:







Katy, our neighbor, is from Annapolis. She gave the kids the assignment of finding Alex Haley.




Here is Maggie on the plane, with her favorite birthday present.





And here are other scenes from this leg of our trip. Tomorrow we move on to Richmond, to see more cousins, the Wagner girls.

a birthday and a wedding

The past couple of days have been very full. Yesterday our oldest child turned 8, which I am still astonished by. I spent the hot a.m. driving 3 kids around, gathering birthday celebration stuff. And Maggie's big present of her first pair of Irish dance "hard" shoes. $$$$$$! She's excited and I know she'll be using them because her lessons at the neighborhood Irish dance school will continue throughout the summer.

Tomorrow we leave for the east coast for 10 days. A wedding over the weekend, then to Richmond to visit my brother and his family. Kids are psyched, and I am having a panic attack about how to get all this packing etc. done. I should take a picture of the huge mound of laundry I am sitting on as I type. Mr. Tim is at work, doing something he needs to finish before we leave, and printing the boarding passes. i hope.

I'm ready for a nap, but I better get busy. Time for a chocolate ice cream break.

Frankie's frog

Or, I guess it's a toad since we found it in the back yard. Frank took the picture.

weekend

My number 1 plan for this summer is to not overschedule. I have not signed any one up for Harry Potter day camp or Zoo classes or swimming lessons. It gets easier every day for me to admit that too much busy-ness makes me cranky. I hate running around like a chicken with my head cut off. I know I'm weird this way, definitely not in the majority. Nonetheless, we spent a fair amount of time on Saturday running around. Driving around, I should say. One worthwhile event was an engagement party for my step brother. Here are pictures. Bubba had only one clean outfit to wear, and that was the seersucker jacket outfit I got for him to wear to a wedding we are going to this weekend. I was trying to take his picture in it, but he kept getting away from me. "I feel like an idiot." is what he had to say about wearing this outfit.

Today Art Jr. came home with a slip and slide. It was hot, and the kids had a good time. Meanwhile A.J. could cut grass and I could move hosta.

Practice picture

My friend Hilary snapped this photo in May when she was visiting us. It is me and noisebucket #3. It is a perfect example of how differently focused this mother and child are! It also scares me how much I am looking and acting like my dad.

I'm back

Wow, I've been out of the loop for so long! I guess it makes sense that I gave up blogging when I started a part-time job at my kid's school a year ago. I guess I was also done with my old blog topics and ready to move on to something else. And here we are already, now it's summer vacation! The last day of school was June 7. Time for me to hang with the kidlets since I will not be working at my school job this summer.

So, here's what I'd like to do at this blog during this summer of 2007:

1. Write. I dropped this habit when I quit blogging, and since feeling guilty about not writing is not getting me back in the saddle, maybe resurrecting this little blog will.
2. Figure out how to post pictures. I've never done this much, and I want to start. Post one picture every day this summer, even if I don't post words.
3. Create something I can share with my kids, about what we do together this summer. Maybe even invite them to provide a guest post every now and then.

And now, here are my key players, using but updating the aliases I gave us two years ago when I started this particular blog:

me: Katy, Kate, Mama, Mom, Katzkeroo
my spouse: timmy, The Big Man, Art Jr, A.J., bike freak, internet addict, Chunky Monkey
eldest child, age 8 (almost): Magda, Magdalena, little Katy (poor thing), Katy Jr. , tiny dancer, Nina
middle child (age 6): boy is he!, Franco, Francisco, Sir Francophile, Bubba, Crabcake, my little Cermudgeon, A.J. jr. , little man
youngest (3): Mo, Moo-Moo, Moey, Maureen, Babykins, Trouble with a capital T and that rhymes with Maureeny

Tune in and see if I pull this off or not! I think it just might work!