MAY we move on to June

 We're becoming more and more grateful that Gabriel joined our family. Not only does Abiel love, love, love having a little brother--sharing his room with him, holding him while I make dinner, singing to him, reading stories to him, telling him all the exciting things they'll do together when Gabriel's a little older--Gabriel also gets better wear out of Abdiel's old clothes. Some of them he even looks better in, since his coloring is so different. Unnaturally observant readers of our blog my notice that Gabriel here sports the same little suit that Abdiel wore at Jini's wedding. His blue eyes bring out the blue in the suit just a bit better than Abdiel's brown. But of course they're both devilishly handsome.

We unfortunately missed the boat with this one: the "I 💖 Berlin Institut" that my Berlin institute students made for the baby I was growing at the time that turned out to be Abdiel. Unfortunately I found it at the bottom of the 6 month clothes yesterday, and at 5 months but 19.5 pounds, Gabriel is already in the 9 month clothes. Hence the suit from Jini's wedding.

Around the middle of May Justin and Abdiel headed up the mountain for a Father and Sons campout. We celebrated with a serious GNO: Nordstrom Rack, YogurtLand, and pink face masks. The last ended up looking like bad sunburns, but our skin was peeling in a good way. 

Justin's poetry skills get better and better. Pretty cool that the old "practice makes perfect" adage applies even to writing. This is my favorite poem thus far, which I also thought about the just-because poem he wrote a few weeks before it and taped it to my mirror. Good things we have years and years ahead of us!                                             

We're not really Star Wars nuts, but in an effort to hold on to the end of this school year, we celebrated May the 4th by freezing C3PO in carbonite blue jello (our Han Solo figurine got tossed out with the millenium falcon on accident), carving a watermelon into Yoda, and making cheese and cracker TIE fighters. Healthy and festive. 

This baby will get its own post later. 

Gwyn and Elinor have shunned all their night gowns for Justin's T-shirts. Unfortunately these are not his old T-shirts, they're what he wears during his COVID workdays, so this practice has been stamped out by moi, but it was cute while it lasted.

We started off the summer diligently working for an hour in the yard every morning, tending our strawberries, thinning our apricots, planting our tomatoes. Strawberry root weevil is having its way with the strawberries now, so we will probably not get many more than the 7-8 pound harvest we've already raked in, but what a harvest!!

 Abdiel is frighteningly proficient at catching snakes. It is, in fact, the only reason he comes out in the yard most mornings. But once he's gotten his hands on some scaly specimin, he puts it back and proves a good little worker. 

Gabriel turned four months and then five months. We're looking forward to that explosion of personality that usually comes around six months and have some indication that it will be quite the pyrotechnics. He is a darling little baby whom we all adore. He also, even as the seventh child, continues to unlock the mysteries of motherhood for me. For example, I never understood why some babies always had a bib round their neck unless perhaps their mothers mistook them for accessories. This little drooler has filled me in. He went through a period in which he was completely soaking three bibs a day!! That has tapered off, but I was very grateful to the good friend who sent adorable bandana bibs so he'd be fashionable as well as unchafed!

Elisabeth has been hitting the Russian books hard and still finding things rather confusing, so I arranged to visit with my Russian friend to secure some help for her. Maryna's yard is absolutely magical, complete with a Tudor-style tree-house, light-up bubble guns, quaint little sandbox with fold-down wooden benches, chickens, bunnies, hammocks, and charming touches, like cinderblocks stenciled with spray paint and stacked into flower boxes. Just lovely. Her ten year old daughter was an amazing hostess and the news that she is high functioning autistic was utterly surprising to me. I think we should all be more like her.

Justin took Abdiel, Gwyn, and Elinor to a Friday night drive-in movie showing of Rayah and the Last Dragon. Other than Abdiel being under the impression that he would surely turn into a pumpkin if he stayed out a minute past eleven, a great time was had by all.

 Julia and Katharine participated in the Lyceum Music Festival Love Music More summer camp. They played Beethoven almost exclusively in celebration of his 250th birthday. This was why Elisabeth did not participate; Beethoven apparently did not write for harp. 😢 These pictures were from Julia's section's final performance at Abravanel Hall.

Can't remember if we already mentioned that Katharine and Gwyn had their dance recital! They did a fantastic job. Katharine straddled between two teams this year and so performed in many, many dances: "Cooties," "I Feel Pretty," "Supermarket Flowers," "Carrying the Banner," and maybe even some others. Gwyn learned both tap and ballet and performed stunningly in both "Rockin' Robin" and "Spoonful of Sugar." We loved watching both of their shows at the Covey Center.

And Elinor is just so cute. We also finished the school year in May. Knowing how much my big kids love perusing their yearbooks throughout the summer, I set myself the task of making a yearbook for our COVID-19 homeschool. They turned out great and Abdiel, Gwyn, and Elinor pay the highest compliment they can to me by them: spending hours looking through them to the neglect of their chores, instrument practice, and other reading. This mama couldn't be prouder. :)