Here's what Lydia's imitators are trying to pass off as "Malaguena"...

Malaguena, part 2 of 2

Lydia plays Malaguena

I don't know the origin of Malaguena, but Lydia's performance last week at her piano recital certainly honors its original composer. The video file was too big as a single file for You Tube, so unfortunately, I had to break it down into two files. :(

Isn't she stellar?! She's only been doing this for a year (maybe less). I'm so stinkin' proud of her!!

--Dad

Lydia here;
I cracked up over that last few moments.
I'll try to get a pic of him grinnin'.

Colette's antics

This is Colette. She is a very fun handful. Very curious. If she makes it to adulthood alive, we will be relieved and consider ourselves successful. Colette is developing for herself a reputation of leaving trouble in her wake. This is the child whom the neighbors brought back to me in Indy when I didn't know she was missing (how embarrassing). (Once she'd just had a bath and was still naked.) This is the child who shut herself in the dryer, thus turning it on. The child who smeared shortening everywhere. And now, the child who earlier this week put a frog in the freezer. I mentioned it in a recent email and that we buried the poor little guy. But my friend Janet wrote me that it was probably not dead when we buried it because frogs can survive freezing temperatures. *sigh*

I had a little talk with Colette, trying to understand her logic here. Why did you put the Froggie in the fridge? (She doesn't distinguish between freezer and fridge.) "Well, he needed to be cold." Well, the frog died, honey. You killed it. So don't put any more frogs in the fridge or the freezer, okay? "Okay."

Yesterday Lydia found a frog in the freezer.

We put this one outside in hopes it might have survived. I never learned its fate.

So speaking of dying... last night at dinner Colette monologued about her imaginary friend Hannah who died. "She died because she was wearing her shoes and hat with her dress. And an alligator ate her. And she died and died and died. We couldn't stop her!" (This all repeated several times in her monologue, interrupted by tittering from the peanut gallery. Then Colette pauses to correct everyone: "Stop laughing. It's not funny.")

This morning as Chris was leaving for work, we said our good-byes, and he left. As soon as the door closed behind him, Colette turned to me and said, "He's cute." I had to agree.

Jonas at 6 weeks

Here the kids are playing the game of Life. (The boys weren't happy they had to get married.) The game said if you get more than four children, just crowd them in like you do in real life. :) Mom is reading to Gretchen The Book of Live Dolls, which was a favorite for her, my sister, me, and now Lydia. It's out of print, but you can snag yourself a used copy for a bargain basement deal of just $75. Dad is helping Gretchen smash rocks that have fossils inside. Mom is playing Blokus with the kids (strategy game). And Colette is modeling her new "s'mores" look. It's all the rage.

And the Big One Got Away...

This year was like a fish jackpot for the kids. Between the 5 of them, they caught around 20 fish, mostly Bluegill and Sunfish. Lydia learned to clean the fish independently this year, and Peter, Micah and Gretchen can scale their fish now. I love the look on Gretchen's face here as she scales her fish! And you can see Colette's commentary on the lovely aroma of dead fish. But Grandpa got more than his share of fish cleaning this week. Isn't that a cute little perch Colette caught? Just her size.

A couple explanations here: Peter had something messy to eat (chicken bbq?) and thought he looked like his dad with a goatee. So I took his picture. And there's a shot here of the inside of the cottage (Mom in kitchen). The refrigerator there is unique because my Grandma Blandford bought it in 1937 with the $50 she got from winning a recipe contest for the wives of grocers and butchers. (Grandpa Blandford ran a grocery store.) The fridge still works!

Chris asked all the kids to keep a journal of everything they did while they were at the cottage to share it with him. Micah here is drawing a picture to show Dad. Also here is Signe, my mom's cousin, holding little Jonas.

Colette is talking to Daddy here on the phone because he couldn't join us for the week, sadly.

Our Annual Trek to Newaygo, Michigan

These shots are of the mann bunny- yeah, the one that ran away this morning.
That is one dead bunny.

testing...

Tackled by a 3 year old

Baby Announcement

This is our family's version of the Brady Bunch jingle. You have to click on the picture (or the lyrics) to view it in a larger size. One of our friends thought we should name the baby Greg or Bobby since we already had a Peter. But we decided against it, and we decided not to name him Brady either. We did think it would be nice to have an Alice, but you'll notice she's missing.

Peter Mann, walking tall...

Peter learns to walk on stilts at Grandparents Jesters house ~ May 26, 2008.

Peter presents, "How to Make a Pizza Pocket"

Peter will present "How to make a Pizza Pocket" at the Allen County 4-H fair
later this summer. They were declicious!

--Mann Cub Gazette editorial board

Jonas is 2 weeks!

Here's a picture of Jonas last week, along with a cow blankie from Aunt Betty Blandford and an Alaskan moose from Ruth's cousin Brian Blandford in Nome. Gotta love that double chin!

The kids always want to hold him and the younger ones at least want to be forever stuffing a pacifier in his mouth. He must want it, surely! I fear he may not walk until he is too heavy for big brothers and sisters to hold him! Peter didn't want to hold him until the umbilical cord fell off! Too gross, I guess.

About the time Jonas arrived on the scene, we had another fun event. We got six Barred Rock pullets. I'm posting some pix of them as well. And my dad was kind enough to fence in a pen in the barn where we are keeping them. When they're grown they'll be gray and white spotted and they'll lay brown eggs, starting around September.

We also had several new kittens but they haven't fared so well. The mother's aren't the most attentive, so while there were about 4 or 5 total (the number is disputed), we seem to be down to just one lone kitten. Kind of sad considering how much love was lavished on them, but I have no plans to keep any kittens.

Lastly, we got our garden in. I'm excited to have such a big garden. You see three sections and one whole section is strawberries. It doesn't look like much right now, but hopefully it will be overflowing with good things later this summer! (Yes, that's one of our cats that thinks it's a litter box. Chris put up a nice fence all the way around to put a stop to that.)