Snapshots

The kids were playing Pokemon before I even woke up
on a lazy Saturday morning.

Jared and the Brother of Jared and a barge.

Spot It!

The Hobbit

Cat helped Eliza get her dresser organized.

Luke offered to clean the brownie pan.

This is Luke working on a Georgraphy assignemnt.
He really enjoys learning about history and science.

Eliza had a piano question and Jack helped her before I could.

Luke helped Ben marinate the 16 pounds of pork belly
he bought so he could smoke his own bacon.

Ready to refrigerate for 3 days!

The girls and I got haircuts on a Friday afternoon right before Ben
and I were going out to a nicer restaurant for a work-related dinner.
The girls had gotten their hair curled and I wanted fun hair too, so
Cat curled my hair while I did my makeup and then we had fun taking pictures. :-)

On the other end of the spectrum, this was Luke after he and
Eliza had fun playing outside for a while and then we found out
they'd been digging, and filling in the hole with water, and
you can probably figure out the rest.

Luke let me try on his new glasses.

We tried something a few Sundays ago, where the kids each helped make an item to contribute to dinner.  Jack helped me make lasagna, Eliza made mint brownies all by herself, Luke helped make French bread, and Cat made a Caeser salad (smarty pants teenager held up a piece of lettuce when I wanted a picture).  It turned out great!

The next week Eliza was in charge of mashed potatoes, Cat (and Eliza) helped me make rolls, Luke requested olives (black AND green), and Jack wanted Nutella mousse, so he and I worked on that.  The mousse is so simple that I thought I'd make it a little more fun by letting Jack make chocolate decorations (piping melted chocolate chips onto parchment paper, then refrigerating).  Eliza and Luke did some too, and they turned out really well!