Joseph, look at these new shorts I got for you…they have this little guy on them. Do you know who that is? (no) Michael Jordan! (Oooh!) Do you know what he plays?

POLO!

Mom–that one right there…the crooked one…is that a guy or a girl?

“Mom, can I have a fig newton…pleeeease?”

“No, I’m not going to let you have a cookie for breakfast!”

“It’s not a cookie!! It’s FRUITED CAKE!!”

Well played sir. Well played. (He did get a fig newton.)

Wait, I’ll stroll through the pictures.

(I gave Joseph an old digital camera and an adventure map of the backyard with spots to photograph highlighted. He was gone an hour and loved it. He showed us all the pictures tonight…strolling through them with the camera buttons like a pro. He took pictures of all the things I suggested and more–and some pretty good shots, too! Will have to post those as soon as I find an xD card reader or camera cable…)

Mom, are we going to stumbling class?

Yep. Pretty much.

We were reading about ice dwarfs, or plutoids, and Joseph says, Hey! Those are those little white things that grandpa gives me! (Altoids)

Mom, back in the 1850s, their fingernails weren’t long enough so they invented back scratchers…just long pieces of wood like this one. To scratch their backs!

This is a picture of me and my sister holding hands in the grass.

“I do not like this asparagus!! It’s in the shape of an X!!”

“It’s good for you just put it in your mouth. …is that why you don’t like it, cause I can put it in a different shape.”

“Also–I don’t like how it tastes.”