Erica having had more than her fill of weeding retires indoors to work on her needlepoint.

A gorgeous day and Jeanine decides she must be outside weeding. Please note the Frankenshoe she wears on her recovering right foot.

We love having Erica visit and hope we are not wearing her out. She has been an enormous help with Jeanine still recouperating. Jeanine went in for her one week check up and the doctor was very pleased with the outcome of the surgery and the healing progress.

Maya and Erica swinging in the backyard.

Maya is attending camp at the Museum of Science and brought home this molecule today. She has named it “tricubic”.

Erica made an absolutely delicious lasagna for the family this evening. Nicolai has officially graduated to a normal eater and Maya has secured the picky eater crown.

It is fun to watch the boys play soccer with each other. This week they have been in the backyard every evening kicking the ball around. What’s really amazing is that there have been no fights.

Maya stayed up late last night and this morning is looking rather tired.

Mother and daughter sampling the birthday pie. We adjusted Jeanine’s crutches to the proper length and she is starting to move about nicely. Everyone has played with the crutches and all have a new appreciation for how adept Nicolai is and how much extra energy it takes to use them.

Apparently his wishes will be coming true this year.

Even though the official day was yesterday, we celebrated Kyle’s birthday today. He requested Chinese takeout (in consideration of his mother’s healing foot) and a chocolate peanut butter pie (Jeanine prepared it before her surgery). Earlier in the day Kyle had some of his friends over for a band practice and later dragged his father off the sofa for some one-on-one soccer including Nicolai. Although he beat me like a drum for 30 minutes, he made the mistake of accepting a next goal wins challenge in which I was able to score. Regretably, he will have to wait until he is fifteen before his next opportunity to claim soccer superiority over his old man.

After I got tired of chasing bugs around, I relaxed with this flower composition. I find something about it very satisfying.

After a day full of chores and staying close to Jeanine, who is recovering nicely, I spent a little time this afternoon shooting macros.

Kyle turned 14 years old today. Seems appropriate that today’s post should feature him. It didn’t take long before there was a reason to aim a camera at him. Nicolai kicked a soccer ball into this tree and Kyle volunteered to retrieve it. In consieration of his birthday, I would say that Kyle has graduated from monkey to ape.