pyros in training

salutatio

St. Clement in his priestly vestments.  He's destined for the papacy, I tell you.  :)

Goodness knows he already thinks he's infallible...

So now, if Josephine becomes president (or at least some sort of czar), we'll be on our way to world domination.

This might overwhelm you, dear peasants, but not to worry-- we will be a kind totalitarian regime.

Deus benedicite.

pass the time

I was doing some mending on the couch, which inspired Josephine to find her yarn sewing kit, which inspired Clement to turn into a yarn-unravelling kitten.

Thankfully, a book with trucks and ducks (penguins) proved a good enough distraction from that temptation.

He did a lot of reading out loud "beeeeepppp, beep beep [insert raspberry] zoom zoom beep zoom zooma zoom beeeeeep."  And Josephine did a lot of untangling her yarn, eventually completing the outer rim of her stop sign.

(I finished my mending, too, despite being distracted by their engrossed cuteness.)

Something about the whole experience felt like a time warp, as though I were sitting on the couch with miniature adults.   Amusing.   Regardless of what happens over the next 80 years, they might very well find themselves returning to these same poses, just a big more wrinkled and white-haired...  Can't you see it?

Happy Independence Day!

We did our neighborhood parade, like normal.  The weather was significantly cooler this year than in the past, so it made for a nice stroll around the school.

bubble machine fixation

The kids enjoyed the fire truck again-- Clement especially so, not wanting to walk through the cab.  He would have liked to have just stayed in there!

We went up to a park in Wells Branch for some more activities before lunch, but I didn't get any photos from there.  Clement's not friends with humidity; he was getting a little irritable.  But it was worthwhile; we saw a funny ventriloquist, and I rode with the kids on a little tractor-pulled barrel train thingamabob.

A good 4th of July!  And tomorrow we plan to grill out and swim a bit.  Plus, Sean found city-permitted sparklers so we'll see what the kids think about those, too.  Should round out the long weekend nicely.
Hope everyone else has had a good and patriotic weekend!

brentwood park

What follows are a gazillion photos of Clement at the playground.  Josephine was with us, too, and I would have loved to have taken equal numbers of photos of her, but she was rather preoccupied growing up and being independent.

This is his "cheeeeeese" face.  It cracks me up every time, mostly because he thinks he's obliging helpfully-- he says it with such sweet intentions!

Yes, long sleeves.  In July, in Texas.  There's that whole independent thing again.

to the right of that u-loop in the center, there's a blue dot sitting down: that's Josephine. 

I snuck up and zoomed in.  She never knew!  Stealth Mom, right here.