Ray went the more traditional route, with a lovely peach pie. I made a mocha silk pie, partially so we didn’t use all the fresh fruit in the house, and partially because – well, frankly, I wanted an excuse to make it again.

It was a close contest. Chava preferred the peach pie, and Ian voted for the mocha. Since Ian was the official judge, I won the prize for the best pie. This is my prize, which I am displaying proudly alongside Ray’s prize from a previous (and more rigorous) cooking contest.

This morning, Ian explained that he was evaporating water to make hail, which would ’scare away the enemies.’

This afternoon, as we were outside playing, the sky began to get dark. Ian immediately realized that the water he had evaporated had made a storm. He explained to us that he had evaporated a lot of water, and was preparing for a really big storm. With hail. And thunder and lightening. It was going to be so big, it might even break the windows, so we would need to stay back.

All of this scared Chava, who is nervous about thunderstorms anyway. I had a talk with Ian about how it probably wasn’t really going to be a big storm, and told him that we didn’t even know that it was going to rain. Ian did, in fact, know that it was going to rain, because he had evaporated water and made the storm.

Chava was still scared, so I suggested that she draw some pictures of the rain. She wasn’t interested, but Ian thought it was a great idea. He decided to take it a step further, and make himself into a thunderstorm.

He tried to rain down on people, which wasn’t working out very well. So we had a little talk about the other things rain does – falling into ponds, making plants grow, falling into rivers and running to the ocean. That led to some talk about the biggest lakes and rivers in the world.

(here he is raining down)

Sure enough, it started pouring down rain. Ian was thrilled. I am pretty sure that out of all that talk about geography and science, what Ian is going to take from this afternoon is that HE HAS THE POWER TO CREATE STORMS.

Ian’s preliminary plans

Ian is serious about this project. He has a plan for how the robot should work, and how strong it needs to be. He wants it to be able to dig for at least an hour before needing to stop for repairs. He wanted me to give him electric cords, so I suggested solar energy. He wanted to know where to get solar energy, and I told him he needed something to collect the sunlight. He thought a plant would work well for that.

Chava helped with the digging arm, and provided opinions on what the robot needed to do. They had some intense discussion about details and materials before they ever actually got to work. They spent hours on this project today, and have every faith that it will operate as designed, after a lot of work.

(pictured here is the ‘digging arm’)

The smell of the greasepaint…

The roar of the crowd….

“Mommy – I ‘oosed’ all the black paint.”

(I feel like I should offer a prize for the person who can name the most things he stuck on there…)

Attention to Detail

Cooperation

Hard Work

And Contemplation

Ian made these two little guys today, and I loved them. The pictures just don’t do them justice. I told him they were very cute, and he explained to me that they were monsters – they weren’t supposed to be cute. Which is too bad, because I admit to a slight bias, but I think they are adorable.

Speaking of cuteness, the kids also found this in the garden today.

Today was no exception – but we did make time in the morning for hanging out and creating as a family.

Chava stayed inside, working on her project. She had very specific ideas about how it should look.

The boys took their project outside, to recreate Ian’s gun. He had made it with a glass bottle, and I wasn’t comfortable with him carrying it around with him. So Daddy, Ian and Micah remade it. I wish I had a picture of the original, because it was an extremely creative contraption (and it really shot). The second version turned out to be extremely creative, as well… and it really shoots. Just what a mommy wants.

This wasn’t a part of either project, it was just some silliness before the supplies got put away. The kids were ‘raining’ feathers. Don’t love the mess, but I loved the colors.

We spent the rest of the day hanging out and having fun. We took the kids to their first baseball game; watching a friend of theirs play at the park. We ran a couple of errands, including grabbing some more art supplies that we have been needing. When we got home, Ian wanted to do school – so he sat down at the table and had me “teach” him about rivers. We worked on another project for a bit, then dinner.

We ended the night with an impromptu Can-Can party. I don’t have any pictures, because I was already trying to dance while holding a baby, and laughing too hard to breathe. You all will just have to imagine the five of us attempting to do a Can-Can chorus line.

And, because the kids opened a bag of feathers, it looked a little like a neon chicken exploded back there.

One of my favorite things right now is listening to Ian sing. He makes up his own songs, which are an excellent glimpse into the way his mind works. This morning he spent some time on the swing set, singing about what a great day it was. How we were having a glitter party, and later going to the park… eventually it evolved into a song about monkeys in the jungle. And glitter.

Micah is all about work. The other kids play hard, but my little guy works on everything he does. He spent some serious time in the sandbox, and worked hard lugging this board around.

(resting with mommy. And the board.)

We went to the park this afternoon, and had a great time. I was too busy chatting to take pictures, which is a shame, because it was a beautiful day. We spent some time with friends, and wore ourselves out.

Came home, threw dinner together, and ate in the backyard. I love that we can do that now, and I am hoping to spend time out in the evenings as much as possible. Soon it will be too hot to eat out, unless we wait until dusk. At which point the bugs come out. And it’s hard to see your food.

It was a very colorful day. I’ll end with Ian’s words of wisdom, from his monkey song…

“It’s a party… and everywhere you go is a party… the party comes with you…. you take it with you when you go… and it’s always a party… ….. ….. ….. when something dies, something else is born… that’s the way it is, in the jungle… you always have something else… when something dies… there is always something different… in the jungle….. “