Peanuts

• Official family pictures CD arrived. Rachel will probably post some highlights soon. I hadn't realized how thin my hair has gotten on top. At least the kids are photogenic! (Although catching Isaac smiling is a challenge.)
  
• Rachel: "Every time I fold laundry he wants to play Underwear Gun." Matthew runs by the folding station while Rachel tries to shoot him with the elastic waistband. (This is harder than it looks: Daddy is a lousy Underwear Gunner.)
• Matthew will unpredictably choose to take things he learns Way Too Seriously. Latest example: healthy foods discussion at school. For about a week he didn't want to eat anything without asking "Is it healthy?" first, and complaining if it wasn't. Public service announcement: you're a skinny little boy. IT'S OKAY TO HAVE SOME PIZZA.
  
• Watched the Paris and NJ segments of "No Reservations." I liked it ("One thing you get from growing up in New Jersey is a sense of humor"), but Rachel was underwhelmed. Having one segment in the first show set in a strip club didn't help. We liked "Pushing Daisies" more, although I'm already tired of the narrator.
  
• Matthew: "Numbers never stop. Not even when you die."
• Matthew (while picking up the DVDs Isaac pulled off the shelf): "I'm not grumpy. I'm just mad at Isaac."
• Rachel really enjoyed watching General Relief Society Meeting this year: Andrea was in the choir, right behind/in front of the conductor.
• Isaac is sleeping through the night about 50% of the time now. Hurrah!
• Me: "Do you hear Isaac noises?" Rachel: "Yes. I think he's in the recycling." Something plastic clatters onto the floor. Neither of us gets up. Such is the lot of a third child.
• "Cool! Dad, cool! The flowers do that! When they're in the water." "Look at those flowers! The water's going down, down!" "The flowers died. They tumbled, so they died." "Oh, pretty fish! I saw a pretty fish, Dad! Pretty fish! People feed fish, right, Daddy? Fish is good for you, right Dad? Fish is yummy! I tried fish, and I liked them! a long time ago!" -- about five minutes of Melissa watching Fantasia
• The difference between Matthew's more abstract pieces and what you see on the walls of "artistic" restaurants downtown is only the choice of medium. (And I mean this more as an indictment of the shallowness of modern art, than as praise of my son.) I need to get that boy some oil paints. This could be lucrative.
  
• Me: [describes how good Rachel's from-scratch brownies and carrot cake are]. Mom: "I'll bet you've gained 10 pounds, haven't you?" My mother's always looking out for me.