good times at home

Today we ventured into the land of ice cream day-dreaming (coming up with our own imagined flavors), ice cream making, ice cream eating...

Watching the first batch of mango ice cream churn round and round

While we waited for the ice cream to harden, I prepared chicken and salad stuffed pitas and lentil soup for dinner. When I asked Sam if he was willing to help with setting the table, his answer to that was "Sure! I'll get the scissors and go across the street and cut some fresh daffodils for the vase." Our neighbor welcomes Sam to come and cut a fresh bunch each week and last week's were looking tired. So I guess to Sam, replacing them was the most important part of setting the table.

Once he snipped some, he brought them home and trimmed them all to just the right length to look nice

...and brought a hyacinth for our little bunny vase.

After dinner... time to test our finished batches of mango and strawberry (chocolate still hardening in the freezer)

digging in!

it was rich and decadent and we can't wait to experiment some more

After dinner Hillary, Sam and Kale and I joined Aden out in the driveway to burn off some of that ice cream with some skateboarding. Kale is studying Aden's moves and trying really hard to figure out how to ollie. Since he hasn't quite gotten it, his next favorite thing to do is stack items and obstacles in the way for Aden to ollie. Then he watches, inspired to work toward it himself.

Sam has recently figured out how to balance while rolling downhill and is so proud and excited to learn more. These kids have nerves of steel and will try anything. To me, the pavement just looks way to hard.

Kale and Sam look up to their biggest brother Aden (who is 17) admiringly and will eagerly eat up any tips or suggestions he offers them.

Aden is one of those really cool (loving, caring, full of sound advice) big brothers that I think any kid would want and is such a positive influence in their lives. I'm so glad they have the relationship that they do.

Sam's extra-special proud moment tonight was this: standing on the wheels of his upside down skateboard while balancing on an old pop crate. Yup, the kid's got skillz, that's fer sure.