Bleeding heart

–noun
1. any of various plants belonging to the genus Dicentra, of the fumitory family, esp. D. spectabilis, a common garden plant having long, one-sided clusters of rose or red heart-shaped flowers.


2. a person who makes an ostentatious or excessive display of pity or concern for others.

Pictured here per definition #1 only. #2 is something else entirely such that it's a bit odd they share the same name, but such is our bizarre English language.

After the parade

 

Sydney, Crayon, Wall

 

The walls were about to be torn down, so the kids were allowed to use them as a drawing surface. This was the morning after the frosting incident.

Saturation

And peach blossoms.

 

 

Petals

 

 

The Great Buttercream (and hotdog) Vomit Incident of 2010

Those of you who've seen us lately or who read facebook may have already heard about the incident, as it made quite the impression on us.

At his cousin, Jason and Liu-Xuang's wedding, Josh managed to wrangle a whole tray of hors d'oeuvre hot dogs for the kids, then later we let Zachary pick something from the vast spread of desserts. His choice was a cupcake the size of his head at birth, and covered with about a cup of rich buttercream frosting. In the photo below, he'd already eaten the majority of it. (Notice the cake part is untouched.)

4 hours later, I went to check on a crying child, and found one of the scariest things a parent can see in a half-awake state: a child so covered in vomit that both parents need to get up and so one can bathe (me) while the other disinfects & picks little bits of vomit-y hot dog from the hotel rug.

Branch

Roman Fountains

Mannekin Pis

For whatever reason, the city of Brussels is obsessed by this tiny little statue of a little boy peeing into a fountain pool. The tourists of Brussels are obsessed with chocolate. And these obsessions intersect.




And the real thing (yeah, we couldn't help ourselves here...):


Apparently, Mannekin Pis gets dressed up on a regular basis. Check him out on wikipedia, dressed up as an organ-builder-colleague of my father. (Though for the record, as far as I know, my father has no such hat).

Zach's big cylinders

Ever since hanging out recently with Craig, Zach has been obsessed with cylinders. The square, rectangular and triangle blocks all remain in the bin while the cylinders get paraded around the house and beyond in the dump truck, carried to day care in his little suitcase, etc.

Rome offered an exciting array of giant cylinders that were unfortunately just a bit too heavy to take home for his collection. E.g.:

Pine Cone

This was Zach's object of affection for much of an afternoon in ancient Rome, and the source of at least 1 fight with Ryan. It was, indeed, a spectacular specimen. For posterity and before parting, I took its picture.

Colosseum

What I failed to fully appreciate till seeing it was just how big of a building this thing was, is.

Below, Zach and Ryan pose, before the start of Zach's pretzel strike (don't ask).