Ready for some sunshine.

Sam the photographer

Sam was working on his "close-up" photography genre on Saturday. It would be nice to take a picture of Sam taking these pictures, the way he holds the camera at arms length is adorable. (bottom picture: Melissa Keaster, my friend in town for the Flute Reunion at WSU)

What you talking about Willis?

Ben turns 5 months tomorrow, and he rolled from his tummy to his back 3 times this week. My friend Michelle Doyle Keaster was in town for a Wichita State Flute Reunion. My teacher, Dr. Fran Shelly was celebrating her 60th birthday and 4 decades of teaching at WSU, so she held a big shin dig this weekend with lots of recitals, flute choirs made up of students from each decade, a banquet with a really great powerpoint production, and a BBQ. Anyway, Michelle was staying at our house, sleeping on the futon in the living room. I assured her that once Ben was asleep, he wouldn't wake up at least until 8:00 or so. Sam on the other hand, might traipse across the living room to come to our room to go potty. I was thinking as soon as I said it, that I should have been knocking on wood somewhere. Ben rolled over two times in the night, and woke himself up. If Michelle wasn't trying to sleep a few feet away, I would have let him try to get himself back to sleep, but each time I had to go into his room and flip him back on his tummy, and insert the pacifier. Then Sam got up at least twice, once to find his "that-that" (aka: pacifier) and another time to go to the bathroom. Oh dear.

Come visit us and see the new redone Keeper of the Plains. We walked across the new suspension bridges tonight after Memorial Day dinner. There was a beautiful rainbow in the sky (even though we have not had any rain today.) The river is very high, up over the bike paths in many places, because of all the rain we've had over the last few weeks. If you are thinking of visiting Wichita, it's a do not miss attraction.

The view from the bridge of downtown. The big grey building is Exploration Place, a kids science museum that Sam loves to go to for the many Thomas the Tank Engine tables, as well as seeing what he can buy with the money he has "saved" in the gift shop. Lately his newest collectible are the planes from the tv show Jay Jay the Jet Plane.

This is from the Wichita Eagle (our newspaper)
Dally no longer if you haven't seen the new Keeper of the Plains exhibit. It won't disappoint. The city just completed a $20 million face-lift of the Keeper and the plaza surrounding it at the confluence of the Arkansas and Little Arkansas rivers. The project includes pedestrian bridges from the riverbanks to the statue by American Indian artist Blackbear Bosin. Fire pots, a fog system, a sound system with Native American music and a written history of the Plains Indians are among the project's features. Admission is free. Park in the Exploration Place lot.

May I see your licence to drive this car?

Here is a picture from the archives (Sam at 10 months) driving his exercise car and Ben at almost 5 months. Can you tell who is who?

Now, Sam loves to show Ben all the features of the car.

River Festival Sundowner Parade

Fireworks, before and after

Here is the ad that ran in the Wichita Eagle:

N. Riverside...1527 W. 20th Fri/Sat only! Maternity, infant boys, clothes, toys, CD's, books, small appls, electronics, curtains

What is wrong with that ad? We think we will send it to Jay Leno's headlines to see if we can get on TV with it.

It's a lot of work hosting a garage sale. We combined "junk" with a couple other friends and Grandma Shaffer. We made $60 on Thursday night when we were just getting the stuff out on tables. I'm not sure we had planned this, but the sale happened to fall on payday for many customers, who came to the sale after cashing their paychecks. The weather was beautiful, maybe a tad windy, but not hot at all. We got rid of much of the stuff we have collected over the years, and ended up with $300 or so for our junk. Unfortunately many of our clientele was not a size 4 or 6 petite, which is what most of my clothes were. One lady even came up the driveway asking if we had "big mama" clothes. Doug took off Friday from work, and my friend, Kristen, came over to help us out. We met many interesting people, and learned that many of our Mexican American customers did not know the words, "broken" (as in some of Kristen's VCR's and CD players. We learned to use the words, "No Work."), and "sporadically" (as I had written on our 3-disc CD player - works sporadically. The man came back on Friday to tell us it didn't work - but he didn't bring the CD player back so we could refund his money.) We've all decided that we don't want to do this again for awhile, and we have sworn off buying any more junk.

We celebrated the end of the garage sale by going to the park. Even Ben enjoyed the slide and the swings. Sam loves to play follow the leader when we go to the park, especially when it involves yelling when you go down the red tunnel slide.

Who's the monkey in this picture

The new penguin exhibit at the zoo opened this weekend for the members preview. Sam was waiting patiently for the penguins to swim by him, but they were content to just sun themselves on the rocks. It will be a cool exhibit once the newness wears off and there aren't 100's of people trying to see the 12 or so penguins. They have also redone some parts of the chimpanzee exhibit, and now have this "forest" for photos. Sam definitely is a man of ritual, we have to go to the same exhibits each visit to the zoo, thus the 2 photos with the orangutan.

Our Smiling Ben

Sam has been wanting to sit in the "big" dining room chairs instead of his booster seat, so we decided to see if Ben was able to sit in the booster seat. He seemed to enjoy it. We haven't started any solid foods yet, he still seems pretty content with his liquid diet. He laughed (not squealed) outloud for the first time last Thursday when I tickeled him. On occasion he will say "hi" but we have yet to get that on tape. We are working on "dada" in time for Father's day.

Benjamin - 4 months old

Ben had his 4 month checkup and shots today. He weighs in at a whopping 14 lbs. 3 oz. And measures 24 1/2" long. I got out Sam's baby book for comparison. Sam weighed exactly 14 lbs. 3 oz. at his 6 month checkup! But Sam was 24 1/4# long at 4 months, so maybe they will be around the same height. Here is a rare picture of Ben without a bib, as he has become very proficient at drooling. Ben is getting quite a bit of personality, and loves to be talked to. His eyes light up and he smiles so big the drool just runs out.