Autumn Whirlwind

Apologies to those who have been checking out our blog to find nothing new for the last several weeks. An early morning surge of energy (pre-waking hours for the rest of the house) combined with the revelation that Blogger now accepts groups of photos at a time is responsible for this poorly edited and overly thorough presentation.

We begin with Kaj and Tom preparing goodies for our eldest's 5th (!) "friend" birthday party 

- with an Angry Birds theme, no less. 

Aunt Annie outdid herself with this spread of app game goodness that was the hit of the neighborhood. The bar has been raised. 

Prepare for more delegated tasks, Anne Lisa Larsen. 

What kind of Angry Birds birthday would it be without some sort of target practice? 

Bring on the Kick Croquet!

I believe the stock of food coloring at our local grocery store was depleted that weekend...

       Fun with friends from Kinderfarm and the neighborhood

A bag of jumbo marshmallows and an all call on Raven Ct. = a simple pleasure with cute kiddos

A trip across the Illinois border to Niabi Zoo - what a find! 

A Hawley Angry Birds birthday a week or two late - no complaints from Kaj. 

Another fantastic cake! 

Bloomsbury Farm, you are a new favorite. 

JUMP!

LASSO! 

What a pro! 

Looking for precious stones with Aunt Annie...

...hiding in a giant tractor tire...

...jumping pillow...

....awesome slide...

...duck races...

...and a barrel ride. What a hoot!

Until next time!

End of August in the IC

What have we been up to? (other than being back to school and settling into the work-home balance once again)It's been very dry in Iowa these last few weeks, and our (OK, Tom's) garden is not pleased. Yet we still find new veggies each trip out there. Tonight we added some lovely squash to our spaghetti and turkey meatballs. The boys find eating their vegetables a lot more fun when they've helped pick them. Garden, don't quit on me now!

The flowers may have peaked, but we still have a few beauties.

Tom has split the hostas again and has created what will be a very lush bed

next summer in our front yard.

ACK! Kaj, that's going to be WAY too spicy!!!

Gotcha, Mom. :)

My Grandma Marguerite came through Iowa City with my Uncle Dan on Thursday and ended up staying overnight with us. We had a blast! While I was working on dinner, I found her a chair where the boys were playing in our family room, came back a few minutes later and found...

...her at the organ at the other corner of the room. Somehow Amba made her way over there without her cane, which appears to have been commandeered by Kaj

(see screen right).

Love these neighborhood boys... a little toast with Nutella was a huge hit!

Rockets!

Our lovely neighbors, Chris, Carol, Zachary and Zoe, invited us to join them at Wetherby Park last night for what is clearly a favorite pastime for their family - launching rockets. Tom had some fun with our camera's action shot feature and managed to capture some great sequences.

Get ready...

Get set...

Blast off!

Heads up!

I swear they were having fun! Leif kept saying, "Cover your ears, Mom."

Until recently, Chris spent his days working on the Juno project,

so clearly we were in good hands. What a treat!

into the corn

Iowa corn in August+missing rocket=long gone

half the fun is trying to catch the descending rocket

Summer projects

This week has been all about projects around the house, so I thought I'd go ahead and share our accomplishments with my vast readership. :)

a new ceiling fan in the boys' room

a newly painted guest room

new drywall over the infamous hole - what a relief!

no more sponge weirdness.... now the grayish purple I like!

This is for you, Amba. The boys love having easy access to the electric piano.

Hmm, what shall we read first today?

Our summer groove

Now that we're into our summer groove at home, it's time for an update.

On Monday Kaj started his latest session of swimming lessons, which he loves. Yesterday he reported that his favorite part of class was jumping in from the edge without any help and going all the way under the water. Fully submerging without protest is pretty new for him, so this was very exciting to hear!

Our library hosts a summer reading program and has put together a comprehensive task list of activities kids can choose to complete with their families. Once they have finished fifteen items, they can return their forms to the children's desk for a "reward." Yesterday the boys exchanged their checklists for books of their choice and a colorful bag full of pencils, stickers, and - the biggest hit of them all - temporary tattoos. Kaj chose an adaptation of Stone Soup set in China, and Leif chose Chrysanthemum. After all the excitement of the library, we walked down the ped mall in the rain to meet Aunt Annie and Grandma and Grandpa Larsen at a new Italian restaurant in town, Basta.

The boys love spending time with their cousins.

We broke in our patio fire pit the other night with a round of S'mores.

Tom and the boys spent the night (yes, the whole night, to my amazement) in our tent in the backyard. Perhaps this is a sign that it's time to buy a family-size tent!

Summer in the Neighborhood

One of the many things we like about our house is its proximity to two charming four-year-old playmates. A couple of days ago this trio nearly flooded the backyard while running through the sprinkler.

The following day our AC decided to crash (thumbs down) so we headed to our relatively cool downstairs family room for a little picnic with our friend Kenji.

"Pickles!"