From their little mouths

Holding the "whole world"
in his hands...then spitting
on it to make it "rain."

The way Miles thinks:

As we were driving along in the car, he announced, "I'm steering this car with stick back here to make it change direction."

I said, "Oh, you have a rudder there, do you?"

"Yep," he said.  "I actually have two rudders, but my other one is charging."

This is a boy who likes to be in control.

***

This was the haircut he got
 while I was out of town!

Colsen's thoughts:

He was remarking to Pete how it was interesting that with many animals and birds, it's the male who has all the beauty and attractiveness.  With humans he (wisely) recognized that it was the opposite.

 When Pete asked him why he thought this was, he said, "Male animals need to be beautiful to get the females.  But people know English and can use words!  So the men just need to say, 'Will you marry me?' to get the females."

****

Rayna's perspective:

She told Miles to sit down with her at the table to do some "testing."  (She's in the middle of year-end testing this week.)  These were her instructions:

"Ok, you sit there and I'll sit here.   Now we're going to say some words.  You go first."

Miles looked puzzled.  "How do I do that??" he asked.

So then she proceeded to say stuff like, "Alright.  You say, 'horse,' and I'm going to clap and count.  Now we're going to do one more test.  I'll say 'buzz' and you say, 'bee.'  Now what kind of ice cream would you like?"

Her kinds of tests are pretty fun!


****

Meanwhile, Strider....


Having gotten a little old for saying cute little funny things, Strider isn't quoted as much on this blog any more.  Nevertheless he remains one of the greatest causes of laughter in our house!  Miles, especially, about turns himself out laughing so hard at the things Strider says...whether they make sense or not.

We very much enjoy having this creative, enthusiastic, humorous young man around.   (He hates this picture of him, but I love seeing him laugh.)





****

On Brotherhood:

When Colsen had a fever, I tried to keep him separated from the rest of the kids as much as possible.  All day Miles seemed listless and bored.  Afterwards, when the boys were finally playing together again, I asked them if they had missed each other all day.

"YES," said Miles

"So, so much," said Colsen.

I hope they always love to be together like this!