National Museum of American History

We went to the National Museum of American History on Friday. It was really fun. We were too busy looking at things to take pictures, but we got one of the little girls drawing on the chalkboards on the bottom floor and one of us in front of the Washington Monument. We walked a little over four miles. There's got to be closer parking. :) There are so many amazing things in that museum. Amazing.

Well, at least they know the words...

Mima: Hey Irene, you want to play soccer?
Irene: No.
Mima: Do you want to play basketball?
Irene: Yes.
Mima: Okay, you be the basket, and I'll be the ball.


Benton: Do you know what a king's grandson is called?
Me: Um...
Benton: In Russian?
Me: No.
Benton: You don't know very many words in Russian, do you?
Me: I don't even know what a king's grandson is called in English!
Benton: A grandson.

Laws

Benton:  I know one law.  It's thou shalt not kill.  But I know one way that it is okay to kill somebody: if they're trying to kill you.  Then it's okay to kill them back.

Songwriters

Brita and Benton wrote this song at least two years ago, probably more.  It's still going strong.

It's a classic.

Featuring Brita, Benton, Mima and Irene as the choir; with a cameo of Elias as himself.

The world could use a few more Bentons

So tonight before bed, I sent Benton up to sit on his bed a little early because of something that happened.  He was crying and wailing when I went up to talk to him so I helped him calm down and he explained that events might have been taken out of context and he hadn't really deserved to go up there.  I felt a little bad about it.  Then he handed the piece of paper that he had been working on before I had sent him up.  It was a card.  For me.

For those of you who might not read Bentonese, it says, "To Mom" on the outside and "Mom, I love you. You are nice" on the inside.

Then I felt very guilty.  At least he thinks I'm nice sometimes, right?  He's a good kid.

The mini-meet

Brita and Benton are at a mini swim meet right now.  I'm waiting for Mima and Irene to wake up so we can go join them.  I hope they're having fun.  They've been loving swim lessons.  They've had them every week day for the last five weeks.  Except one day that was cancelled for weather.  That was like a vacation to me.  I loved it.  Brita can swim by herself for a ways and Benton can tread water for a little bit and back float.  They get ready by themselves everyday and take care of their towels and swim suits by themselves.  We only forgot towels one day and had to share goggles a couple days when Benton's broke.  The people at swim lessons are really nice.  We met some other homeschoolers and hung out a bunch with the Loveridges.

In other news, here's a few things that have made me laugh lately:

Mima looking at the shapes in a game: There are triangles, polka dots, and squares.
Irene later confirmed that they were triangles, polka dots, and squares when she played the game.

Brita: The Philistines are big and so are the Bahamas.
(She was talking about the size of islands.  I LOVE her readers vocabulary.)

Irene at dinner: I'm having thirds!  And then I'm going to have seconds.

Irene: Mommy!  Something--something turned my ice into water!!

Our old house

So this is us at our old house.  We moved on my birthday.  It's the second time that's happened in my life.  The last time was when I moved from Mesa when I turned fifteen.  Anyways, here's us in front of our house the day we moved.

 It was such a good house.

 Just look at that yellow lawn.  You don't see lawns like that in Virginia..  We even wrote a song about our yellow lawn one day.  Brita figured out the tune on the piano and wrote it down.  It was called "Yellow Pie."

We don't see green mustangs in front of our house now either.  Sad times.  We miss Monica.  And our fabulous neighbors.

I hear they planted more trees out front and moved the swing set.  Way to be way more motivated than we ever were, new people.  I hope they love the house like we did.

Blogging

So I've been reading through my blog the last couple days and it made me remember all sorts of things I'd forgotten.  I used to be funny.  And the kids did awesome things.

So I decided to blog again.  So to sum up from the last time I blogged: we're all still alive and living in Virginia.

Now that you're all up to speed I can continue to tell you all the mundane things in my life one post at a time.
You're welcome.

Him or her

Mima was just telling a story from Sunbeams today:

Today a boy or girl in my class today threw away his or her cup but he or she wanted more and so Brother Weber, who was teaching, gave him or her a new cup.  I know it was a boy or girl in my class.

It's a baby!

Elias Lee McNabb was born at 12:15 this morning.  He weighed 8 pounds 10 ounces (of course that was after pooping three times) and was 21 3/4 inches long. 

He is really cute.  See?

I finally had a successful home birth.  He was born about 35 minutes before the midwife got here.  Peter caught the baby. 

We're all doing awesome.