You Wear the Crowns

Burger King. We went there for a change. And because I had a coupon.
Little did I know how much fun could be had with paper crowns, though. Carmen's got torn, so Gabriel made her another one.
So I've been humming Sara Hickman's song, You Wear the Crown all day since taking this picture.

Who's on first?

Tonight, when David was getting Paloma ready for bed, it turned into an Abbott and Costello bit, with David unwittingly playing the hapless straight man.

After putting her in a diaper, David told Moma, "Okay, go get me some pajamas."

And Paloma shrieked, "I don't have any pajamas in there that fit you, Daddy!"

On Sunday, the kids sang their VBS songs at church.
Then we went to Gigi & Hidy's house for lunch and a swim!







Carmen took all of the following shots:




And Eva is 3 months old today!

We went to see Wall-E at the first show the morning after it opened with our friends.
Paloma doesn't know she didn't see the whole movie!
We sat outside next door afterwards for lunch.
The kids had their own table, which was fun for them as well as for us!
After that we spent a good hour in Barnes & Noble, mostly listening to CDs since you can listen to anything by simply scanning the bar code under a light.

Carmen
Landon
Chandler
Postcards from Daddy!

Paloma goes up to sing with the kids at the Friday night finale. And no one cared, because this year it wasn't a performance.
Here's David in his Hawaiian shirt from our honeymoon.

And here's Paloma and Eva enjoying some quality time in our room. So sweet. But it was over when I tried to get a closer look with the camera!

Kristi says to Eva, "Baby, how do you hold your head up with those big cheeks?"
We dressed in beachy-looking clothes, beach towels, and snorkel masks. Some people also wore scuba gear: very funny to watch them walk down the aisles.
Kara has a moment with Noah during a song.

Back to the ever-popular musical chairs.
And we also had a few relay games with our props.
Cal had two big kids to keep up with him.
Ryan wouldn't smile for his mom, but he did for me!
Jacob and Paloma were still together most times I saw them.



We practiced our dance moves for the next day's chapel before we left for the day.
The kids and I tried to take lunch to David afterwards, but "You always get ----d in the drive thru." I've always remembered that line from the movie (because it's TRUE), the Joe Pesci character says it several times. Anyway once we'd picked up Sonic and driven 20 minutes to deliver it, we discovered his burger was missing. Nice.
And now every time we go to daddy's office, Paloma thinks she has to get something out of the machine. This one was out of order, but she settled for a granola bar out of his office drawer.

The music group dressed in grass skirts for Wednesday of VBS.
Eva dressed up in a Hawaiian-print dress, too.
By the third day, adults figured out they needed to help with the bucket.
Eva fell asleep while I was up singing in front!
Pastor Rick had his little shadow, Grant, playing with him again this year.

In our classroom, our game was making a blanket "ocean" and bouncing a beach ball on it.




Carmen wasn't feeling well that day and ended up sitting in our room. I think she was also missing David and needing attention.
Each day the kids measured their offerings.
The incentive, besides helping people and following Christ's example, was getting to see Nathan get pied in the face!
I wanted to leave early because I had an interview, but I couldn't leave because the kids really wanted to see this.
It was a little hard to take the prayers seriously in the midst of this silliness.
Later Carmen and Gabriel stuck their little cocktail umbrellas in a cup of water at home to see the water change color. I found this note attached: Do NOT Drink. Thanks! Carmen and Gabe
Jackie came over to keep the kids during my interview.
They wanted to show her the Wall-E videos on the Pixar web site.
Eva had to check her out.
While Jackie was over, Paloma looked at an old photo album. She found a picture of herself as a baby and said, "That's me when I was a baby. I had a head like that!" (referring to her widow's peak).

I would write here about my first interview in 12 years (?!) and the things that led me to interview for another job, but I'm three months behind now, so I'm going to let it go.

I had a very difficult time at work starting in January and I did not want to go back when I left for spring break. I thought about writing about it here, but remembering Heather Armstrong from Dooce, I decided against it.

I will say that within 24 hours of my interview, I was relieved to find out I was not chosen for the job. I did not make a 3 year commitment to a job that would require me to work during the summer. I would have enjoyed the job, and I would have been great at it. I'm not sure I sold myself very well, and I may have telegraphed that I wasn't crazy about giving up summers or starting back to work at the end of July (when we had an August vacation planned).

And within hours of finding out I didn't get the job, I had decided to go back to school for a school library certificate. I've thought about being a librarian for many years. I took the first class in the degree program when I was pregnant with Gabriel, but it was so time-consuming that I didn't keep going. Now my neighbor who was in that class is the kids' school librarian!