[Crickets]

T-shirt weather. Aaaahhhh, t-shirt weather. Nice and warm in front of the Hollywood sign here today. Yessirree, nice and warm...

Where was I? Oh, right. Current events. You know what it's like when you have a progressive dinner? When the house is quiet and clean and ready, and then all of a sudden a hungry horde streams into your house, devours your food, and then ...[sound of crickets]....? That's what we had on Friday afternoon for our first successful foray into entertaining the elementary school crowd. We invited everyone in Luke's class over after school for make-your-own-cupcakes and pizza. The house was totally quiet while Dave and I hung streamers, arranged tables and frosting and toppings, and stacked up pizzas in the dining room. Then ... zzzzzzzooooom! The hungry crowd of five-year-olds (and assorted siblings) stormed the house. Within minutes the cupcake table had been attacked and the hungry mob was momentarily silenced as cake crumbs flew into the air (cue the "Nom, nom, nom" sound). After we sang "Happy Birthday" to Luke, I announced that there was pizza upstairs, and... whoosh! The whole crowd vanished from the backyard and headed up the stairs. Everyone gathered on the balcony and the crowd was once again silenced as pizza crumbs flew in the air ("Nom, nom, nom, nom...").

After that everyone seemed to settle in, and the kids all started to feel comfortable. We had a Lego table set up, so that kept a few kids occupied at a time. The other games they came up with were 1) a variation on the "clown car" concept, in which everyone was trying to crowd into the playhouse at one time, and 2) some sort of boys-against-girls spy game, in which balloons, flashlights, pirate swords, and power tools were being employed as weapons. But in the end, everyone had fun, nothing got broken, and there were only 5 cupcakes left over (from the 66 cupcakes I had originally set out). Good times.

For anyone who thinks of Luke as the outgoing one and Zach as the shy one, think again. Zach is becoming bolder each day and he seems to have no fear about going up to people and asking questions. Today at Griffith Park we saw a man with a tiny chihuahua. Zach wanted to know what the dog's name was, so I said, "Well, you can go ahead and ask him." Which Zach did. Unfortunately, the man didn't speak English. He managed to convey to me that the dog was only two days old and didn't have a name yet. But Zach was undeterred. He looked up at the man and continued to ask a series of questions that had me and Luke (and the man) cracking up (and you have to imagine each of these questions being asked slowly, with the little lilt going up higher and higher at the end of each one): "Does your dog like to chew on a bone?" "Does your dog like to bark?" "Does your dog like to sleep in his dog bed?" "Does your dog like to snuggle with you?"

Today was the second day in a row Luke has been asking if we have any tomatoes - which made Dave and I briefly consider the idea that we had a case of scurvy on our hands - so when we got home from Griffith Park I sliced up some tomatoes for Luke. Next I made some guacamole for Luke (a food that Zach has never really gotten in to) and a big pot of chicken soup for Zach (a food that Luke has vehemently disdained almost all his life). But then I hauled out a new loaf of olive bread, which is something they both can agree on. And the crumbs went flying. Nom, nom, nom, nom.