New Hair-dos

Yesterday we took all three girls to have their hair done for school. All of them were looking rather shaggy. Phil had his cut while we were there, too. I took before and after pics of the girls.

Oh, and can you guess who had Papa's Marx glasses this morning? Isn't she adorable?

Getting ready for School

We have two very excited little girls here who are looking forward to Wednesday, when one of them is officially a first-grader and the other is a second-grader. Pippa, of course, is at home with her brother and I, but we are going to do kindergarten together, because she is already teaching herself to read and write - she can write her own name, and she did a pretty good job of writing Nana the other day (she says to me about a lowercase 'a' Mama, it's a turtle with a tail)

Johann is off and walking! He took his first steps on Thursday, and now his sisters take his hands and walk him all over the house, both of them pleased as punch. He is such a sweet little guy. When he first gets up in the morning, he likes to snuggle for a while before he starts to play. He talks to us, but he can't speak much English yet, so we have to interpret :)

Well, the house is stirring and we are going to take all three girls for haircuts early this morning, so I am off to make breakfast and coffee.

Wild and Wet Walks

Bears have a curiosity bump. I had taken a walk this morning, about 6 am, and taken the camera with me to take pictures of dewy cobwebs. All the way at the back of the pasture I found a patch of lovely ones, and was bent over taking pictures when I heard a rustling in the brush. I immediately thought “Oh, Dad’s moose!”
See, Dad has been sleeping out in his tent for a week, and the day before this had awoken to a moose crashing through the brush in the ravine below his tent. He’d crept to the edge and watched the south end of it proceeding north up the creek. So it was a natural assumption on my part to think that this large crashing in the brush was also a moose.
I swung the camera up and took a shot from the hip, flash and all. The flash was my undoing. I might have gotten away with it, but Mr. Bruin saw that light and stood up to see what the light was over the brush. At this point I realized that He was bigger than I, and although not known to attack humans often, I am not going to trust one further than I could throw it. Dad got away with kicking one in the...um. Well, you know. But that one was a yearling, a lot smaller than he, not a big ole bruin looking at little ole me. So I went. Toward the house, wishing that I were a sprinter, not an endurance runner (and that a decade ago!) I am pretty sure he went in the other direction, but I wasn’t really looking. All I know is that he didn’t follow me home!
Talk about adrenaline to start your morning - that was a little too much.

Fun Weekend

Phil and I went up to Milan Old Home Days Saturday, and decided that we'd stay up over the weekend. We went out to dinner, did a little shopping. I got a couple of really cut outfits for Glady to wear to school at TJMaxx, which made me think of Nana. I always shopped with her, but now she is having real problems with recovery from her knee surgery. I am a little worried about her.

Glady just made cupcakes all by herself. All I did was slide pans into the oven. Yay! She is so helpful these days it is a joy.

Not much time - just letting you all know I'm still alive!

My little helper

Glady made breakfast this morning, almost all by herself. She has been so helpful, looking up recipes and helping me with cooking recently. So today she looked up a recipe she wanted, got the ingredients together, mixed (I helped with breaking eggs, showing her how to do it) and I put it on the stove for her. She did an omelette, finished in the oven, with cheese on top. She has become my little Suzy Homemaker the last few days, loving on her little brother and helping take care of her sisters. Of course, she does tend to treat Johann like a big baby doll, but he loves his big sis.

Musical monster child

Pippa, walking through the house singing to herself...

“Jingle bells, Batman smells,
Butterfly laid an egg...
The Bunnymobile lost it’ s wheel,
And Ladybug got away!”

She is her father’s daughter!

I'm so proud of him!

Phil was invited to lecture last night at Southern New Hampshire University in Manchester. He was asked to speak about humor and it's relevance in our culture by the husband of one of our clients who teaches sociology there. Poor Phil was so nervous about this, we got the call on Friday and he spoke Monday night, so I suppose it was good he didn't have longer to worry about it, although it would have been nice to have more time to research. He did a wonderful job of getting the students to laugh, and talking about trends in comedy and the practical application of comedy in life for healing and connecting with others.

He has been told that if last night went well, he may be offered a more regular opportunity, which is exciting, and leads us to conclude that he will be going to the Laugh Conference in Sept. I am in the process of filling out a scholarship from http://www.laughterfoundation.org/index-new.asp
for him. Wish us luck!

In the long run, we hope to have him teaching daycare and elementary teachers how to use laughter in their classrooms to connect with and help their students learn. As ever, the practical everyday application of laughter for us is in entertaining kids that he encounters in his audiences, and even our own children. As we start reaching out more into senior centers the use of laughter becomes almost a healing agent, something to lighten weary days there. Because he is an entertainer, the study of laughter and comedy's uses to reach others is a natural extension of what he is already doing, a more guided application of a pratical tool in his repertoire.

The above is the essay for the application. What do you think?

Monday Morning

Sitting here with my mocha, taking a quiet moment after getting Phil and Dad out safely, and thinking. We celebrated Juliet's birthday last night, although she won't officially be 6 until dinnertime tomorrow. I found some pictures of her birth the other day. We had a full house for the event, our midwife, with permission, had brought along two students/apprentices, and her 13 year-old daughter who was interested in following in her mother's footsteps. I have a picture of them in fun balloon hats that Phil did for them at some point before the birth. Of course, Dad was there, and took the pictures as well as being the general gopher. He was able to be at three out of the four arrivals into our family, and this was his role every time.

We had a busy weekend. Saturday I went with Phil, as we had a triple and I was actually hired along with him for the last one, but there wasn't time to come home in between them. Sharon came up in the afternoon and gave Dad a hand with the kids. They taught Johann how to drink out of the hose, which I hear was incredibly cute. Saturday morning the girls had special yogurt with crunchy bits in it, and they were so happy. I was working in the other room, and overheard Pippa exclaiming, "this is so yummy! It's like... like... Cinderella's slippers!" Of course, she meant that since Cinderella is her favorite princess and her shoes are loverly, that is the highest standard she could think of. But it made all the rest of us laugh out loud. Fortunately, she can take a joke, so she laughed along with us.

Friday we went up to Plymouth to the Super Walmart... the first time in a long time we have been able to take all the kids in a long time, but now that we have the van! So as we were checking out, Phil took the girls aside, since we had presents in the carts, and I had Johann with me. He turned around and was kneeling in the front, reaching into the cart and handing me anything he could pick up. Such a helpful little guy! Of course, I wasn't ready for them yet, so I ended up with a double handful of stuff while I waited for the people in front of me to finish.

I have a great family!

Hummmm...

Glady and I saw three hummingbird moths together today! They were feasting on the bergamot (bee balm) and we stood and watched them for a minute or two. We were out there packing the van for a balloon workshop. Glady went with her Papa to help hand balloons out. It has become a custom for her to go along to his workshops as a helper, and last time she earned $5 and a happy meal :)

Hot, hot, hot!

Guess who these little people are!












The picture was taken in Hillsboro about Nov. 2001


Whew. I hope this doesn't last too much longer. The house didn't really cool down last night, even with the fans going. Poor Phil barely slept. The baby woke up thirsty about 4 this morning. He drinks water happily, fortunately, so I don't worry about him getting dehydrated.

Musings

It was supposed to be hot today, and worse tomorrow, but so far it has been cool and rainy. I'm not complaining, mind you. Sometimes I think my natural habitat is the Pacific rainforest, because I am equally uncomfortable at extreme heat and cold. Phil is off to a balloon gig this morning, and then back out for a late afternoon "Magic, Ahoy!" I am packing off the printer we had had briefly and just couldn't keep up with the ink. As we send it off, though, we are planning on getting a smaller one. A good color printer is a must around here, between the need for flashy mailings to keep up with other competitors, and my facepainting being so graphic driven.

Well, scratch the rainy and cool. I was just outside and it is getting very hot and humid.

The girls are supposed to be cleaning their room. It has been so much better in there since they helped me boogie it at the beginning of summer, and usually they are good, but today they are like three little butterflies, fluttering about in completely random paths around me. Oh, well. When they figure out that it's peanut butter sandwiches for lunch unless it's clean, they'll get motivated!

I am going to get Phil's show packed for him, so he can just worry about lunch and bunny when he gets home. I have a little repair work to do and that's about it...