a little nostalgia

I opened one of my folders to work on the family calendar for 2013 (I'm trying to do a little bit at a time), and found these pictures. Wow! Don't know why they were in there, but nostalgia hit me hard.

 This was probably 1990 or 1991.

When the big kids were little, Quinn and I had a rule: on Sunday afternoons, one parent had to be awake and in the same room as the kids while the other parent napped. 

This particular Sunday, I was napping in our room and Quinn was in the family room with the 2 kids. Imagine my surprise when I come out from my nap and find Tag had unzipped his fuzzy sleeper, had pulled out the pans and the flour (we hadn't put child locks on the cupboards yet, I guess) and was happily making a big mess! Quinn was stretched out on the family room couch sound asleep with little Tayler beside him.  

Cleaning up the mess was horrible I'm sure, but today, many years later I don't remember cleaning it up.  I see these pictures and just laugh. I remember that this was the sight that greeted me when I got up from my nap. I remember how much fun my little son was having mixing and pouring and dumping...

not house related!

Tonight was Tanner's second band concert at Alder Creek Middle School. We (Quinn, Grandma, Tanner & I. Taryn was at work) got there really early, so while Tanner checked in in the band room, we had our choice of seats! We sat on the front row (more leg room and we'd get a good view). Sadly, we chose the wrong side of the auditorium--our view of Tanner was obscured by Mr. Winston, the band teacher!

Tanner's in the "Band of White", the beginner band. They played seven short songs. Tanner did a great job. In past years (before they were at the middle school), the 6th graders had band 2 days a week. Now they have it every day. You can see a great deal of difference in the quality of their performance. Tanner did a great job!


I tried to upload a video of one of the songs he played, but it's not working. I'll figure out how to do it later. Last concert I took both Grandma's little camera and Quinn's little camera (my camera is too big in such tight quarters) and one did better at capturing video and pictures. This time I just took Quinn's camera. I guess it was Grandma's camera that did the better job because these pics/videos were not as good as the last concert.

frog economics

It started with a folded paper frog made by Jason. The other kids wanted some and so Jason started making paper frogs. Someone came up with the idea of "paying" Jason using paper money they created. Soon everyone had their collection of frogs. Then Darin decided to make leashes for the frogs and sell them to the frog owners. Tanner created foldable ponds for the frogs. Someone created frog houses and another a frog runway. All of this paid for with "frog" money. There was frog talk in the car on the way to school ("Four of my frogs drink milk and one drinks water. That's so strange" "My frog has special powers. It's so cool"). After a couple of days of frog economics, Jason grew tired of folding frogs. At my insistence, he taught the others to fold frogs. Then a new flurry of frogmaking arrived. Everyone started folding frogs and drawing designs on the frog backs. Jason even experimented until he could fold a teeny frog. Of course, I had to photograph this frog excitement so that I could send everything home with them!