Crazy is as Crazy does

 There's no lack of crazy around here. I rather like it. It's been a while since I uploaded pictures, so these are from at least a month ago. (Hence Amelia wrapped in a fuzzy blanket on the porch swing--preparing to read a chapter of "Farmer Boy." We are now finishing "On the Banks of Plum Creek.")

 This is from when I visited Amelia's classroom on her birthday in May. She was totally nuts, and made all kinds of wacko faces for the camera. Do you think it will still be this exciting and inspiring when I visit her classroom in, say, 10th grade? (Do parents visit classrooms in 10th grade?)

 This is our eldest. She has crazy down to a science. And she LOVES her teeth. So much, in fact, that she stubbornly refuses any attempt to work the loose ones out.

We've been waiting on that final front tooth for well over a month now. It's practically on a hinge and can swing up and out at a 90 degree angle to her gumline. It's, well, crazy.

Quote of the Day

On a lovely drive home today from a wonderful Blackman family wedding at Virginia Military Institute, Alan said something to the girls about being cooped up in the car.

"Cooped up?" Said Amelia, dryly, with her thumb in her mouth. "What's that mean? It sounds disgusting."

Oh beautiful, for spaceship skies...

http://n.b5z.net/i/u/10149664/m/2012-05-27WGardini.mp3

On the Sunday prior to Memorial Day, the girls sang for church. Since it was right before the message, they ended up getting recorded. :) If only I'd been a little more attentive to diction...actually, their diction is fine. Correct lyrics are what required attention. But then it wouldn't be quite so adorable.

"...'til all success 
be nobleness, 
and every gang divine!"

Out with Mom: Taking the Stairs

 So I'm a little behind. What's new? These are from our Mother's Day celebrations last month. In honor of Mom's love for history, art, and getting to know the city in which she's spent over 45 years of her life, we STEPPED OUT in Baltimore! Check out the most adorable window under the front stairs of the house above! It is across the street from Peabody Conservatory. (I peeked in. It was a little library and reading nook. I wanted to crawl through!)

Mom descending the cool, modern staircase at the Walters Art Museum, where we  were struck with how much really violent and strange art has been inspired by Biblical and Church history themes.  Who originally had the enormous painting of Jael driving a stake through Sicera's head hanging in their medieval family room?? 

Here's the elegant, old-fashioned staircase at the Walters. I love the symmetry. Except I am just noticing that, speaking of stakes,  it looks like the statues of Adam and Eve are driving one into Mom's head. 

Check out THIS lovely building! Mom on the steps of the Mount Vernon Place Methodist Church, which I think is just a glorious piece of architecture. And no statuary driving stakes into my mother's head.

The staircase at the Charles Carroll House near Little Italy. Now who knew THIS was here? The week before Mother's  Day, Courtney, Mom, and I lunched in Harbor East, then walked to this little historic site. Charles Carroll was the last living signer of the Declaration of Independence, and he lived right here in B-more, hon! Our tour guide was a point of interest all by himself--a young, slightly awkward and disheveled history buff with stains on his shirt and a runny nose. But boy  did he know everything about Charles Carroll, and we had the whole place to ourselves.

So take advice from my Mom--get out and enjoy the fascinating world at your fingertips! And  always take the stairs.

I love you, Mom. :)