an observation, a surprise, and a little fun

Late this afternoon Jay and I were lying on our bed. He was trying to get up the ambition to go put in a new water heater for someone, and I was trying to coax him to take a nap first. (I know, I know, nothing gets done by sleeping.)

Anyway, while sprawled out there, we were looking at the new picture Julia drew us. The kids draw pictures and we tape them to the headboard, or to the walls around the bed, to the back and front of our two bedroom doors, whatever. Art has to be appreciated, especially when it's presented as a gift.

But these pictures of Julia's--and all TEN of the kids have done this, keep in mind--all have this theme: Mom, Dad, Julia, and nobody else.

All right,I am not a child psychologist, and I don't have any background in child development, but every single kid has done this, drawn pictures of us and him or herself, and that's it. It cracks us up. It has to be normal, or else we have ten really weird kids.

check us out in the boat...


and this one--a realistic depiction of the beard...



this is the newest one. we were impressed by the tall crown.



Also on my camera was this surprise.


Someone took pictures of these gorgeous anniversary cakes before we ate them! I love the cakes.

I hate the grout on that countertop. I do like tile. But that grout, I get so sick of bleaching and scrubbing, and for what? It always goes directly back to looking like it does in these pictures, yuck. Some day, yeah, someday, I'm going to scrape all that grout out of there and put in something else, something that hides scuzz.

But forget about that. Right now we have memory of those sweet anniversary cakes to enjoy.

Oh and this is the last picture.


There was a conversation about llamas that made me think of it, and on the coffee table in the living room was a photo album from 1998 with this beautiful picture of Kirsten and Little Jay, back when he was shorter than she was. He must have been 6 then? And she was like 11? Sweet little llama lovers, all grown up now. At the time it felt like they'd be little forever. Sigh. Happy Friday. love, Val