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From: Jessica Parker Garvin Subject: The girls trade a lot. To: Ben Garvin I just gave them cereal and within moments they had traded bowls and spoons.  Did the same thing after I put sunglasses on them earlier.  They love to trade.

From:  Jessica Parker Garvin Subject: we have wonderful children To: "Garvin, Ben" I was just spying on Art in the backyard.  He was getting his raquetball that had falling just on the other side of Tsundi's fence [our neighbor], so he was passing it, hand to hand, through the holes in the links over and over until he got to the top, then he just got back to whatever he was doing.  I don't know why I love that stuff so much, but I do. -- Jessica

Jessica and the boys made this short film with a super cool app for the iPad called Puppet Pals. Apparently they've made lots, and in every single on Netta makes an appearance. See for yourself... [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtH9RABvZfY?rel=0&w=640&h=480]

Jessica has an incredible ability to endure, even encourage children to get dirty. It's sometimes hard to watch as the kids get filthy, playing and sitting in wet mud and flipping chunks into hair, etc. But Jessica sees this as a wonderful learning opportunity, to learn about texture and gravity and whatever else. And she's right. So I endure.

This photo was taken during the Easter service earlier this month at our new church . It has been a real gift spending Sunday mornings with such an eclectic and generous group of people. I never ever thought I'd trumpet the value of church. Didn't grow up going and actually had (and still have) a certain amount of contempt for church goers. At least righteous ones. But what I realize is having that weekly time to step back, be with people you care about and remember what is of real value, it's a good thing and makes me and our whole family happy. Walker is in the heart of Minneapolis' Powderhorn neighborhood and full of super liberal radical left wingers. RADICAL LEFT WINGERS! Btw, if you're reading this blog and thinking you might like to check out Walker, do! We went 'church shopping' a few different places until we found a good fit (Walker's more spiritual than Christian). If you want to 'shop' at Walker let us know, you can be our guests!

Jessica went back to her mother's house recently and grabbed an a old metal rocking seat thing from her backyard. I protested, didn't want more crap in our cluttered house. But I'm glad Jessica ignored me cause she made a wonderful little spot to sit near our apple tree in the backyard.

We had dinner at Jessica's uncle's girlfriend's house the other day, Jules. I noticed the neigbors had a trampoline. "Can we jump on your trampoline?" "Sure." "Hooray!" Arthur and Lewis are seen here with unnamed boy jumping away.

Abram and I grew up together in Fayetteville, Arkansas. Countless sleepovers, sledding, throwing water balloons at cars and getting caught by police, riding bikes, whatever it is that kids do to grow up into fine young men in Arkansas, that's what we did. Abram (a cajun!) now lives in Fort Worth with his wife Tati (his beautiful Brazilian bride) and two children. He designs fighter jets for Lockheed Martin, no shit. After my workshop in San Marcos last week I stayed a couple extra nights and we met up for a super fun day in Austin. Played loads of frisbee and walked and talked for miles and miles. Walked across the entire city actually and dined on delicious Indian food. Our family's were generous in giving us that time together, it was a like we were in high school all over again.

We have grown out of recipes for four. The kids combined now eat more than two adults and certain recipes do not satisfy hunger unless scaled up. (At least tonight's Sesame Tofu should have been doubled. Nothing left over except a still-hungry Papa. It was a pretty awesome, If I do say so myself...) Ben and I turned around and saw Bailey trying to eat with a fork in her mouth tonight.

I don't write on the blog very often.  After a day of keeping track of four people's needs and anticipating the next transition or meal or attempted household task I tend to go kind of blank in the evening.  Don't get me wrong - I really LOVE what I do as a homemaker and mom and also what I do with my class I lead at the park, but it does leave me feeling kind of scrambled for me-time after the kitchen is cleaned up.  It's kind of hard to explain. See, I don't think I deserve any kind of medal for managing the kids or barely managing the house or anything - until around 12:30 or 1 on a day with all four kids.  At that point I have probably been up and attentive to children in some fashion for six hours.  Breakfasts have been made, eaten and mostly cleaned up after, diapers have been changed and changed again, my moniker has been uttered innumerable times, mostly when I have been in another room trying to do something like unload the dishwasher, get myself dressed or...

I'm still in Texas for this workshop and will be back Sunday. In the meantime Jessica has been graciously updating me with fun photos from her harrowing time as a single mother with four children. A beautiful Netta. Lunch somewheres. "Using children to wrangle children."

Here are some photos from Lewis' mildly successful birthday party. We learned a good lesson, that we should've had a gathering of kids Lewis' age, not a hodge podge that included his older brother. And we sorta failed on the planning front, too. All of this was hopefully not too noticeable by our sweet four-year-old, who seemed to have a great time. Too windy to light candles, so we staged the crucial candle blowing photo. Jessica made the cake her mother has made for all our birthdays, a super duper chocolaty cake with gobs of butter and a pound (or two) of chocolate. Release the hounds! Nominally successful kite flying. Lewis, left, with his good friend Oscar.

I'm at a workshop  for the week in Texas. It's been hard to be away from the kids so it's especially wonderful when these little photos show up in my inbox from time to time. My mother's in town to help and she took this photo of Lewis wearing his new shirt. Jessica sent this wonderful photos of Arthur and Netta looking at a Where's Waldo book in Art's bed.

Yes, that's what Arthur chanted as he ran around the house with this balloon on his head. And I can't really argue with him.

Here's a photo of Jessica drinking it up at a wedding of a friend we went to on Saturday. It was at the Loring Pasta Bar and the reception was at the Varsity Theater in Dinkytown. I tell you, when Jessica and I can get away for a few hours we have a lovely time. It's simultaneously become far more difficult and far more important for us to spend quality time together. Jessica, btw, looked stunning and super fine in her dress and fancy new shoes which you can't see here. We hit the dance floor and showed off our mad swing dancing skills we learned from a recent community ed course we took. We really were pretty impressive.

Nanna's in town, seen here playing memory with lots of her grandchildren.

On Wednesday's Jessica holds a little music class at Willow, Lewis' preschool. And Wednesday happened to also be his birthday. So it was a big fun special day for the little boy. Here he is jumping around in his new birthday shirt during a jumping song. Bailey (and Netta) are always on hand. Kids 'sleep' during the ending lullaby.

Lewis just turned four on Wednesday. We gave him what turned out to be an extra appendage--a 'robot claw' that he can pick stuff up with. He has barely parted with it since he got it. The gift was Jessica's idea, and it's made Lewis really happy. He'll be sitting at breakfast and reach across the table to grab a tissue. As I drove him to school he'd reach up from the backseat to grab something off the front seat and laugh and laugh. So funny. But the claw caused a problem this morning. He work up way too early around 5:30am demanding that we find his claw. 'I really want my claw!" he said through tears as Jessica and I laid groggily bed trying to figure out how deal with the situation (the claw is sorta loud and everyone else was sleeping). Jessica ended up giving a big long hug as he sobbed and sobbed and then got into our bed and snuggled. He's having a little birthday party tomorrow with a few friends.

As Jessica likes to say, "He's got an engineering mind." (photo by Jessica)

In loose chronological order here are some photos from our busy Easter Sunday. My brother Josh called and wanted to hide the eggs for the boys, the same foil covered chocolates our parents did when we were kiddos. So while were at church the 'Easter bunny' came hid eggs. The loot. At church there was an especially delicious pancake breakfast. Here our friend Gregg is having a word with Netta. Here's Bailey sitting on Lewis in the 'cry room', a room for quiet stuff or crying babies. Al, right, does the weekly smudge. I was chatting with him after service and told him how much love watching him do his thing. "It comes from core of my soul," he said. And it does, you can tell. LAZY BABY SLEEPING ON A PEW! I put these three photos together so you can better appreciate Lewis' finding skills. He has an amazing ability to find just about anything. Art's lost toys, tiny little and important Legomen, anything of importance he'll find it. Notice the egg ...

For the past three or so months we've been attending Walker Community United Methodist Church . It's a been a real joy for our whole family and a place I think we'll be at for years to come. Super open, liberal, expressive, musical, loving people abound. I always viewed church with skepticism but ever since having children Jessica and I have both longed to have a weekly moment to reflect and be with people we love and with people that love us and our family. Our children feel safe and welcome as they explore the old creaky church playing with new friends and, during the sermon, as they learn about world religions or talk about things that 'make them feel joy' or whatever else their topic is during Sunday school. It's a Christian church in the loosest terms. They're having a Seder next week, read from Lao Tzu every Sunday and have a weekly smudge ending with a shout out to Gaia. Weird and wonderful. The church has a long history of social activism and commun...

It's no small thing. And Jessica does it every day. It's not just alot of work, it's non-stop work. And planning. Thank you so much, Jessica. And, as an example, this is a dish she said "pulled out of her ass" the other night last minute. Chicken curry. No recipe, so tasty! Pull more out of your ass! [Actually, I did use a recipe. But I also whooped it all together, including a spicy side of spicy carrots and cabbage, in about 25 minutes. That's the real impressive thing for me.]