Avery Turned 4!

She's always been the easiest child.  She was born on Cinco de Mayo in Phoenix, AZ.  She was a really really great surprise.  With her little stick legs and arms and her love of birds (especially parrots), her name fits her.  She loves yogurt and applesauce and insists on eating it with a tiny spoon.  She hates fireworks.  He favorite thing to do is dump a puzzle out on the wood floor and work on it all day, often completing it three or four times in that time.  She has an imaginary friend named Eliza.  

Some children are born happy.  Avery was born happy.  She is a daddy's girl and loves to lavish tight squeezes and tiny tender kisses on him.  

 Avery wanted white cupcakes with pink frosting and "a cherry on top!" for her fourth birthday.

She's easy to please.

Now stop growing, my little Rose.

Avery's Arabesque

This tiny dancer had a big recital.

Complete with tap shoes, and tulle.

Dr. Gooch was even able to make it to the performance via FaceTime.

A Bouquet for our Baby-No-More.

Celebrating Ben at CC

Ben turned 27 on April 27th.  To celebrate his birth, his Olivia brought Gypsy Stew and I brought the Christmas Crackers.  They were gold because it was a golden birthday.

Ben is my brother and the baby of the six of us siblings.  He is tall with lots of curly hair.  He married Olivia who is the oldest of her mother's big brood and they had Cohen Juarez Knudsen:

Who is about to become an older brother to their second boy, a daunting task.  The oldest bears the brunt of a mother and father's fumbles.  But, I'm convinced he comes equipped with steady shoulders and a head to match.  Cohen has not proved me wrong (as far as I can tell).

Not so with the youngest.  She brings the party.  And also pensiveness.  Ben is the youngest.  He was always accidentally injuring himself.  He slipped on the bathroom floor as a tobbler (as they're called at our house) and split his chin open.  But besides the bruises, Ben is brilliant company.

I'm the second child, like Lucy (and Baby Boy Juarez, still in mama's belly).  We like to live somewhere that nobody else can see, some people refer to this as "daydreaming" or "head-in-the-clouds".  But we know exactly what is going on around us always and we know what we want.  

Olivia is a born mother.  Those kind exist.  Their children are lucky and Oivia is beautiful.

There's only six of us, but it's an instant party.  Loud and longlasting.  This one, on this day, lasted clear into the late late hours.

Ben, when you have your third boy (or girl), get ready.  If I am to judge by the one that tripled our tobbler trio, the third hits the ground running.  Just look at her!  Hazel is the most helpful and also requires the most attention.

When Ben comes over to the house, I get completely confused and start calling my little brother Seth and my oldest son, Ben.  Both get a kick out of it.  In fact I switched both their names in the same sentence this night and it sent Seth (my son) sailing off his chair into a fit of laughter under the table.  As he does, Ben just smiled.

To me, Ben will always be the little boy.  The one who fell out of the apricot tree slicing his leg open wide.  The one who is always genuinely as pleasant as he appears in this picture.  The one who is bashful in new company.  The one who looks really really great with a crowd of kids at his chair.

I love you Ben.  And will always treasure the time we shared a state and many many suppers.

Happy Birthday, baby brother.

L-A-K-E Spells Spring Break: A Series of Photos and Their Captions

Kiddie Ride

Sewer Rat

Sharkbait with Sunfish

Hazel and Harriet

Setting a Good Example

Dominos

Fly Boys

Yoga Master

Boy Bliss, Squared

Tulips, Time, and Toil

It's totally like me to love something as fleeting as flowers.

As soon as the pansy is plucked it begins to die.  And, what's more, it inevitably leaves a wreath of pollen, petal, and plant product on the table.  Not to mention the vase of vile swamp water, scum skimming the top.

When I fell in love with Dr. Gooch and he fell in love with me, I felt like he would, at any moment, flee, dropping wrinkled petals in his wake.   It was not that he was too good to be true, it was that we were too good to be true.  The match, it was too good.  Too.  Good.  The pair of us was so easy. This was before I knew the work of marriage.  The re-pluck factor.  That is the nature of a moment, that is doesn't last.  But there are forever fields of moments.

Every day I enter the garden armed with scissors and gloves to trim the tulips, pluck more pansies, or rob the rose bushes and lop off the lavender.  No smooth surface is safe.  The tables, of course, but also the piano, the mantels, the back of the toilet, the laundry counter, the window sill, and the bathroom sink.

I am afflicted with an affection for flowers that will only fade (the flowers, not my affection).  Maybe that is the attraction?  Is it the temporariness that taunts me?

That is the work of it.  To forever have flowers, one must continually clip, clean, and freshen the water.

This is the moral: it's all worth it--the work.  Keep plucking.

April Fools! I'm Still Alive!

Dear Blog,

Whoa.  Three weeks.  That's gotta be a record around here.  Okay, I'm making my way back to you and this glorious space.  A lot has happened around here.  Mostly in my head but also in beautiful places and our own front yard!  Not the least of which was Dr. Gooch planking midair.  See you soon with many more words and a few snaps.

Love,
Your Master

"I want a Peacock for my birthday"

Well, what did you yearn for 

when you were about to turn four?

For My Dad

It is so apropos that my Dad was born on the first day of Spring, as if he were meant to love flowers.  He was most certainly born to garden and came into this world with two green thumbs (and left-handed like our Lucy and Avery).

As we grow up we tend to guess at our gene pool and wonder which of the chromosomal currents came from the parental pond.  Mom's penchant for meditation?  Dad's determination to finish the job 'til it's done?  Her eyes?  His smile?

For me, the guessing ends when it comes to gardening.  

I got it from my Dad.

I love flowers so much.  So much that sometimes when viewing them I say it out loud to them.

And no flower outshines the flowers that appear out of spring bulbs.  These were planted by Dr. Gooch. 

Hundreds of them, pink, striated, red, pale, bright, yellow, and oh so fragrant.

I missed his tribute on the 20th, so today, on the 22nd, these are for you, Dad.

Pictures of the posies...

that have turned our little plot of land into a parade of color.

Next year, let us celebrate you, Spring, and the tulips in person.  Then I can thank you face to face for passing down such fantastic (and flowery) genes. 

And, because I know you love a good trivia question, can you name this surprise bloom?  Is it a rare type of Narcissus?  It smells as sweet as a hyacinth and seemed to have stowed away in the bag of tulip bulbs...

Happy 58th!  I love you.