This evening

 Melanie likes to pose for me-but has a hard time looking casual for the camera.  She'll hold her smile for ages and refuses to grin normally at my lame jokes. ;)

 "My Mom has lame jokes?"

Melanie likes to take over things-and so, I find myself being the target of the camera.  At least Evelyn is on the picture too-maybe no one will notice me.

 Since some of her siblings were in bed, and the others were getting washed for their midweek summer evening cleansing, there were only 3 of us to be models.

 Now all can see what an exciting place our house was this evening!

Evelyn got demoted to her chair while bedtimes got semi-organized.

 Nathan got himself ready. 

 Matthew worked on his teeth in the kitchen.  He has to jump up to be able to turn the water on and off.  But that just adds to the challenge.

"What was the picture like, Mom?"

uninteresting observations

 Evelyn does not share the same interest in blogging as I do.  But she still prefers to hang out with me.  And I love her company too. )

She really is hanging out. ;)

 Nathan does not enjoy all aspects of his piano practice-but (I think) he still likes his teacher.

And Jennifer still likes her toes.  And yes, I did put her pants on backwards.

Scotland Yard

 It is very nice now that Nathan and Melanie have reached the stage of card and board games.  They are highly motivated to do their chores after dinner-and I usually manage to find time to play with them.  They do need practice loosing games though, so we usually do shorter games for happier endings. ;)

 Evelyn was helping the detectives out.

 She told us "I think Mr. X went to #69, do you think the red detective can make it there?"

 Melanie thinks "I hope not!" 

 "Too bad!"

 Matthew gave us some advice too. "Would green or blue make it there?"

 Melanie was pleased to escape trouble.

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Evelyn did not quit...but studied the board carefully-and caught Melanie the next time! ;)

5 lives

 We have a swing now-which the other Matthew helped with the initial work setting it up.  The kids are enjoying it!  They learned a game from some friends on their playset, and call it 5 lives.  We don't have the edge of the playset around the swing-but that didn't stop my kids!  They just set up their own down, and started to play.  Everyone gets five lives, and loose one when touched by the swinger, or when you touch the ground.

 But the kids only really have one life-so when the littler ones copy, it hurts when they try to copy these guys.  :( 

Cheesey

 Evelyn has been playing with toys now!  Well-she sometimes gets something to her mouth-but not often, yet.  She is very fascinated with things put in arms reach though.  And, yes, she even looks cute cross eyed. ;)

 Melanie likes chumming with Matthew, and he's pretty accommodating.

Jennifer is a ham.

 Melanie made a camera-it includes an openable compartment which has a memory card in it.  She keeps adding to it and making it fancier.  She also has a lego iphone with a touch screen.

 Matthew doesn't need gadgets.  Just a wooden spoon to keep people in line. ;)

Nathan also has a camera and phone.  Matching ones-and also with the memory card compartment.  Now he can play imaginary angry bird. (Thanks M.& L D. :p ) Melanie can too, and is so good at it she can pass the hard level. ;)

 Daniel no longer has time for lego.  He is too busy supposedly staying out of trouble in the bathroom.  Potty training, as usual, is great fun. p  I share the sentiments of one Mom who said to me the worst thing about being a mom was...you guessed it! potty training. :p

 Besides being cheesey, Jennifer has decided she wants to be a mother.  And why wait?  She has started taking care of babies already-very regularly, and very well!  She looks oh-so-cute as she holds the baby in one arm, and does other carrying/work with her free arm.  She takes her baby everywhere I let her-and some places we don't. :o

 Evelyn likes to show off her toothless smile too.  She thinks she's pretty special.

So do we!

Everyday Pics

These are a few more pics that I have just of casual everyday stuff. 

Toronto Zoo

 Our membership at the Toronto Zoo expires this month, so, being Dutch at heart, we have been going there as much as we can as the last month ticks away.  That way us monkeys can bond with their monkeys. :p  We usually head out for an afternoon-and then the zoo is nice and empty! :)

 We have been checking out parts of the zoo we haven't seen as much, and this time we saw the capybaras!  They really are big rodents!

 We also looked at the spider monkeys-and they are one of the few monkeys we've seen at the zoo that actually use their tails climbing.

 Flamingos were cool too-standing on one leg was fascinating, we thought!

 But cooler, by far, were TREES!

 Trees that could be climbed. 

 They were just sitting there, waiting to be climbed.  So we did it!   (Three boy monkeys in a row!)

 Melanie was miffed that her tree was stolen by a bigger monkey than her-but she did end up finding a subsitute.

 Indoor displays are pretty cool too.

 And you'd never believe what we found in the gift shop!  The cutest ever little baby zebra!  So we sold our van, bought it and took it home on the bus! :)

Not much grass here for grazing!