around here

this boy gets bigger every day. he is almost six months old. he drools a ton lately, so i suspect that some little teeth are on their way. i could be wrong though. i'm notoriously oblivious when it comes to my children teething. 

 

a couple of weeks ago madeleine and i stole away during naps to do some blackberry picking. we found some good looking bushes on the side of the road (blackberries are the weed of the northwest) and got to work.

madeleine wanted to take a picture too.

i took them home and made some jam and then also made some mini-pies to freeze in half-pint mason jars. in the past, i've made a berry pie each year, but randy eats one piece and i eat the rest of the pie all by myself. the frozen pies pace me a little bit better. i don't like the ratio of crust to filling quite as much, but they're still pretty delicious.

i needed just a few more berries, so all of us headed out the next day to pick a little bit more. this is my blueberries for sal girl. she thought it was hilarious that i kept calling her "sal."

jonathan just figured out how to really work the johnny jump-up in the last couple weeks and loves it. there's a video of him bouncing around at the end of the post.

these two are pictures from our date night. i generally don't mind breastfeeing my babies, but every once in a while it does cramp your style. having the baby tag along on date night limits you somewhat. at least he's cute.

this is madeleine last sunday, right before the primary program. she had her line all memorized and was ready to go, but they had an adult up there whispering the lines to all of madeleine's class. they're young, and i understand that it gets crazy up there, so it's not easy to keep track of who knows their line and everything, but i was a little sad when i saw that they weren't going to just let madeleine say it because she was excited about doing it all by herself. but then, she got up there and the line that they whispered to her wasn't even her line. madeleine just rolled with it and i just had to laugh.  she sang all of the songs really well, so that made me happy. 

diane is too young to be in the primary program, but wanted her picture taken too. unfortunately, she wouldn't stand still.

 

jonathan just recently found his feet. i love that stage. even if it does make changing diapers difficult.