My kids, my life and my thoughts, but mostly my kids!

I'm defecting to WordPress

2007-12-08T20:01:00.000-05:00

I'm starting up a new blog over on Wordpress.com. My new blog is http://poppasthoughts.wordpress.com/

I'll keep this up for a while, but new posts and pictures will be on the new blog.

First real snow!

2007-12-02T12:38:00.000-05:00

We had a dusting of snow that didn't stick around for long a couple of weeks ago. We have freezing rain and sleet forecast for later today, but we did get to play outside a bit. Last year SillyBilly did some sledding with the sled that Grandpa gave him, but this year Napoleona got in on the fun.
This is on the little hill just outside our front door. Thankfully, the gravel path serves as a natural braking mechanism so they don't sled right into the brook. SillyBilly and I talked about how he could roll out of the sled if it looked like he was going into the brook.

Mama and Papa traded slightly silly looks while watching to make sure the gravel braking wasn't just theoretical.

Silly Billy at Enchantment Camp

2007-10-27T20:43:00.001-04:00

I've got to give SillyBilly equal time...
Here's a picture of him at Fairy Una's Enchantment Camp.

Thanks for the printer, scanner, copier, Grandma Mimi!

2007-10-27T20:30:00.001-04:00

While we were visiting, Grandma Mimi gave us a printer, scanner, copier that she had laying around unused. It works fine! This picture is from Napoleona's summer adventure at Fairy Una's Camp Enchantment

Recent Events and Other Silly Stuff

2007-10-25T11:55:00.001-04:00

Because certain grandparents (you know who you are!) have repeatedly asked for new pictures ("I checked the blog yesterday, but...") and Blogger has fixed their image upload problems, I now present the following:

SillyBilly and Napoleona modeling their new stuff: space sweater, pumpkin dress, and pink shoes from Nana, gnomie hats crocheted by me!

Wild things wearing new pajamas!

Watering the flowers with Great-grandpa Fred.

Hugs from Mimi and Grandpa Paul!

The kids, Grammy, and Grampa Fred show off their catch.

And the kids help Grammy clean their fish, soon to be fried and eaten! Yum!

I have this annoying habit...

2007-08-19T19:50:00.000-04:00

Whenever Mama tries to take my picture, I make a silly face. I'm pretty good at it, and lately my strategy has been to make it as subtle as possible, because Mama gives up pretty quickly if I'm too obvious. This one, though, is all Mama's doing. I wasn't even trying!

Napoleona has a certain style

2007-08-19T19:44:00.000-04:00

SillyBilly definitely has a style as well, but I think that Napoleona gets all of the pieces of her ensemble together in this, "I'm ready for Enchantment Camp!" outfit. (and you don't really get the full effect of the outfit without seeing the back...)

I've been slacking...

2007-08-19T19:40:00.001-04:00

Here is a picture of Napoleona and her new hair cut. She's very proud of it, and the fact that she got her hair cut at a grownup place.

SillyBilly flying a kite...

2007-05-29T17:55:00.000-04:00

...in SillyBilly's words:

"I bought it at the hobby shop. I loved flying it at the beach and at the park. If you come over and visit in New York we can go fly it at Mary Daly field. So pack up your luggage and fly to New York to Mary Daly field and we'll meet you. Please come!"

I figured that five years old was a good time to start blogging.

Napoleona and SillyBilly love to climb!

2007-05-27T14:45:00.000-04:00

Here's a picture from a beach we visited near Port Hueneme and Point Mugu. The kids didn't want to play in the surf, but climbing on the rocks and playing in the sand was great fun. We saw pelicans, porpoises, sea lions and little shrimpy things.

Playing with the iSight camera

2007-05-12T09:03:00.000-04:00

Sillybilly's first bike!

2007-04-15T15:52:00.000-04:00

Spring actually seemed to be here, at least for a day or two. I had been thinking that it was high time for Sillybilly to have a bike.It was definitely time! He loved it.
I did look for a bike for Napoleona, and put her on one in the store. She looked up at me and asked me if she could have a ball instead.

Visit to the Met

2007-04-12T14:11:00.000-04:00

Sillybilly and I went to visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art last month. It actually began as a shopping trip into Manahattan, but he really seemed interested in going to the museum so we went. When we got back home, Sillybilly decided, quite on his own to draw pictures of what he saw. I'll post some of what he drew.

He's had this somewhat morbid fascination with mummies for a while. He seems to be scared of them, but then sometimes talks about nothing but mummies. He wanted to see every mummy that the Met had.There were also a couple of sculptures that he drew. The first was Perseus with the head of Medusa. (Who needs TV for graphic violence?)
We didn't actually see the Van Gogh's. I told Sillybilly that we should buy postcards for Mama and Napoleona and he picked out three different Van Gogh paintings. He drew this from the postcard.

All in all, it was a pretty successful trip. I think next time, we'll bring crayons and paper and he can draw what he sees at the museum.

Ask and ye shall receive...

2007-04-10T23:17:00.000-04:00

My dad thought it would be a great idea if he could get an email everytime I posted something new. It turned out to be pretty easy. I just had to follow the example of my good friend Papa Bradstein and copy and paste a bit of code from the good folks at Feedburner. Now if I could only write as well, or at least as often as Papa Bradstein. Or Anthromama. Or anybody really.

Of course, I could just take more pictures...

Isn't Napoleona cute in her flowery easter dress?

The Easter egg hunt

2007-04-08T16:33:00.000-04:00

Grammy and Grandpa came to visit for easter, so we had to have the obligatory easter egg hunt. Perhaps next year we'll make them a bit harder to find. It only took them a couple of minutes to find them!

Early spring backyard fun

2007-04-02T16:00:00.000-04:00

Hey Grandpa Al, thanks for the hat!

Going fishin' off the back step.

Up to no good by the brook.

Hey Nana, thanks for the dinosaur sweater!

That gravel sure needed raking.

Where's the farm?

A Christmas Eve hike to the top of Rattlesnake Mountain

2006-12-24T14:34:00.000-05:00

We didn't see a single rattlesnake. We did, however, see half a dozen dogs, a decent amount of mud and a great view of Squam Lake. Here's some pictures of the intrepid mountain climbers and the view. Sorry, no pictures of the dogs or the mud.

A beautiful Christmas tree

2006-12-24T14:22:00.000-05:00

and the elves that made it happen.

...and here I am napping the whole time. What can I say? The sawing tired me out.

One boy's dream realized...

2006-12-24T14:06:00.000-05:00

Well, almost. He really wanted to chop down the christmas tree, but I guess that sawing it down was close enough. Using tools, destroying something, being outside on a farm, a trifecta of little boy, (and girl,) goodness.

If you teach a boy to fish...

2006-12-08T23:18:00.000-05:00

Duncan recently got back from an adventure! He went to visit his great-grandfather Fred in Georgia. One of the fun things he did was learn how to fish.

Grammy says that he was casting pretty well by the end of the trip. He didn't actually catch any fish, but he did get some nibbles. Grammy caught a fish, so at least we get the classic "I caught a fish!" picture.

Very very late Hallowe'en pictures

2006-11-21T16:21:00.000-05:00

Thank you Grandpa Al for taking this picture just as we were preparing to go on our Lantern Walk! The kids were not going to wait for me to find the camera.

Duncan is wearing his spiffy firefighter costume, courtesy Nana Norma. Rebecca specifically requested a dragon costume, and was extremely fierce. (Don't tell her, but it was really an alligator costume!) The sticks they are holding had paper lanterns on the end, that we made along with Grammy Bridget. All you need is small balloons, diluted white glue, and tissue paper for an awesome tealight lantern.

Big D's Birthday

2006-09-26T19:49:00.000-04:00

Somehow, it was Duncan's birthday on Sunday. I'm not sure exactly how this occurred, but Duncan is now 4 years old. All I know is, he never completed those permission forms in triplicate.

Sunday morning, Papa went out and got celebratory bagels and lox, with birthday candles:

Then Duncan opened his presents. The hands-down favorite was the firefighter Hallowe'en costume from Nana:

Then we all piled into the car, drove down to Manhattan, and took the ferry to the Statue of Liberty! Duncan and Rebecca both love to stand on stumps, rocks, what have you, and shout out "Statue of Liberty!!"

Duncan appears to be pondering the responsibilities of citizenship.

Then after dinner, we had a yummy cake, with more candles.

Duncan's self portrait

2006-09-23T21:16:00.000-04:00

Duncan drew this the other day as a present for our neigbhor. It is a self-portrait of him picking a flower.

A thank you note to Pleroma Farms

2006-09-07T22:10:00.000-04:00

Duncan has been drawing up a storm lately. We've given him an art box of his very own, with markers, crayons, tissue paper, glue sticks, scissors and tape. He'll spend hours at the dining room table creating amazing works of art. Recently, we asked him to draw a picture that we could send to Farmer Lups at Pleroma Farm, from where we get good raw milk and eggs. So he did! He drew a picture of a cow and a chicken, on the green grass, under the sun and a clear blue sky.

Bedtime 8/21

2006-08-21T20:56:00.000-04:00

For me, the hardest part about telling a bedtime story is getting started. Sometimes it is easy, and the basic idea pops into my head without much effort. But most of the time, I sit there for a couple of minutes with two very impatient toddlers, searching for the right place to start. Tonight it was harder than usual, probably because I had set the expectation for myself that I was going to write it down and post it in this blog! While I was wrestling with that, the little boy piped up with, “I want a story about a witch and a goblin!” So I ran with it.

Once upon a time, a witch lived in a little house deep in the dark forest. Now this wasn’t a mean witch like you hear about in some stories. This witch was a grandmother who knew special things about the plants and animals of the forest, and knew how to help people who were sick. The other people didn’t understand how she knew these things so they had to call her a witch. The witch didn’t mind, because she knew that the other people just didn’t understand. She was happy living alone in the forest, and collecting herbs and sometimes knowing enough to help people who came to her.

One day, a goblin happened upon the witch’s house while she was out in the forest gathering berries. The goblin was traveling from the north to the south, trying to find as much mischief as he could along the way. He stopped at the edge of the forest and said, “Aha! Now here is a fine opportunity for some mischief!” He went right into the witches house and grabbed all of the herbs that the witch had painstakingly prepared and spread them all around the witches house and ground them into the dust under his dirty feet. He then hid in the forest and waited for the witch to come home.

The witch returned home and at once knew that something was wrong. “Oh dear!” she said, “Something is amiss with my house! I wonder what has been going on?” She went into her house and saw that all of the herbs were missing. “Oh dearie me! Someone has come into my house and taken all of my herbs. That’s too bad. I hope that no one will need any help before I have a chance to gather the herbs again!” The witch busily set to the task of replenishing her stock.

This did not please the goblin. He had been hoping that the witch would be sad or angry, so he could laugh at her. He went off in a huff, looking for more mischief. Later that day, he came upon a hornet’s nest hanging from a tree. “Aha!” he exclaimed, “This hornet’s nest will look very fine in the witch’s bed!” He grabbed the hornet’s nest and made off towards the witches house. The hornets got very upset and tried to sting the goblin, but he had such thick skin, he hardly even noticed, which got the hornets even more upset. The goblin went right into the witch’s bedroom and put the hornet’s nest under her blanket. He then retreated to the edge of the forest to watch the fun.

The witch returned and knew at once that something was amiss. She saw a couple of angry hornets outside her house and asked them what was the matter. They calmed down and told her about the goblin and his trick. She asked these hornets to go back to the nest and explain the other hornets that she was going to come in and take the nest back to where it belonged. When the witch went into her bedroom and picked up the nest, most of the hornets understood and were very calm. There was one who hadn’t understood and he was so angry still that he stung the witch. The other hornets quickly explained to him that the witch was trying to help and he calmed down and apologized. The witch understood that the hornet that stung her was only trying to protect his nest and she didn’t get angry even though the sting had hurt quite a bit. The witch picked up the nest and much to the chagrin of the goblin, carried it back into the forest and put it back into a tree.

On the way back to her house the witch thought about the goblin. She thought, “I know a particular herb that will make the goblin sad and want to see his mother. If I can only think of a way to get him to drink it, he’ll probably run home!” When she got back to her house, she made a tea out of the herb and poured into a big, tall glass. She then took it outside and said loudly, “What a delicious tea I have made for myself! I think that I will go find some berries and mushrooms and come back and have a yummy snack and drink my tea!” With that, she set the tea down on her front porch and walked off into the forest.

The goblin wasted no time. “Aha!” he exclaimed, “Won’t she be disappointed to come back and find that someone has drunk her tea!” He leaped up and drank the tea in one gulp. All of a sudden, he was overcome by sadness and remembered that he hadn’t seen his mother in what seemed like forever. He ran back up the path, headed north to goblin land.

When the witch returned, she saw that the glass was empty and smelled suspiciously like goblin. She smiled and sat down to eat her mushroom and berry snack.