So while I’ve been busy calumniating slender British motorcycle maintenance books, here’s what other members of my family have been doing with their creativity:
(You can click any photo to go to Flickr)

(from left):
My brother Oliver is in town from Milwaukee; he and my other brother Sam are going to help my dad and stepmom move into the house a few doors down the street. When I got home tonight, Oliver had mostly finished a pastoral mural in the downstairs bathroom, of rolling hills with a Jefferson-y style building in the distance. The tree trunks in the treeline are done with a palette knife, which is pure Bob Ross. Oliver likes to riff on Bob Ross; I have a canvas of his with a craggy mountain overlooking a pine-rimmed lake (the pine trees have pallete-knifed trunk), and in the water is floating a giant eyeball. I briefly considered hanging it in the nursery.

Kate is completing a double Irish chain quilt, which is spread out to its full size on the floor. The top is now fully pieced and borders are assembled. Kate pieced it using a strip quilting method, which means that she totally, like, matrix algebra-d together the thing by creating repeating sets of strips that stack on each other to make the diagonal chains.

Lydia likes to jump up and down in her jumpy chair. She goes jumpa-jumpa-jumpa, then stops and dangles and chuckles for a while, then goes jumpa-jumpa-jumpa again.