Sunday, November 02, 2008

Charlotte is Five!

For Charlotte's birthday I gave the kids two bowls of icing (chocolate and Pink) and the box of sprinkles and told them to go wild. They were very proud of the result -- although George is putting on his Serious Face here so you can't quite tell.


He was the official Card Reader.


"Oh," she exclaimed, "just what I wanted!"

She loves, loves, loves this outfit from Grandma and Grandpa and has worn it about four times in one week. (Sorry it is too early for me to figure out why this has reverted to un-rotated.)

It was a lovely day. Next ... her party!

Birthdays

We celebrate the birthdays of our distant family members (yours!) as a way of feeling a little closer to them. I think this is a great idea but it would work better if the birthdays were a little more spread out. We celebrate 22 birthdays, and five of them occur in one week, 8 in less than a month:

Clarinda: Sept. 28th
Aunt Kathy: Oct. 2
Grandma H.: Oct. 3
Aunt Jing: Oct. 6
Patrick: Oct. 7
Amy: Oct. 9
Aunt Nancy: Oct. 20
(and of course Charlotte's on the 24th, but that's the next post)

Sometimes we decorate a cake, sometimes we stick a candle in a bowl of ice cream. We tell stories about the birthday person, and sometimes we call and sing Happy Birthday. We wish we were closer to everyone, although since you live all over the country, that's not possible.

Happy Birthday, everyone!









Tuesday, October 14, 2008

A new perspective

Charlotte has been playing the Sims a lot lately. It's ultimately frustrating for her, since the game is for much older people who can (for instance) read, but she likes creating the family and building the house and especially telling them what to do. Her kids never do homework and therefore get sent to military school. She often puts in a swimming pool but forgets beds, so her people drown; otherwise she forgets to feed them and they starve to death. So she has lots of practice making new families.

She always makes our family, which is a little unsettling to me -- "Look," she'll say, "the Charlotte is playing!" But it does offer an interesting perspective. When you create your people, you have to specify their personality using five measures: Neat, Outgoing, Active, Playful, and Nice. Take a look at us (sorry for blurriness):

Me: nice, very neat, not *at all* playful.


Dean: also neat, nice, and very outgoing, but not active, and not playful. This seems a little unfair since he plays with her all the time!


Charlotte: again with the neat! Active, playful, not so nice.


And George -- very active, very playful, not so neat, and not really very nice at all.

Monday, September 29, 2008

Social graces


(Click on the image for a bigger view. In case the image isn't clear, this is what it says: Call Thaylo's parents for a playdate at home. Say: George would like to invite you to come over, after school or on a weekend; whatever works.)

Monday, September 22, 2008

Around the house

What's been going on around here? Well, we set up the waterway system, which amused George for half an hour and Charlotte for two days:

Charlotte brought Bitsy the spider (puppet) home from school for a glorious weekend visit. Here she reads to Bitsy in the house she & George built:

(Mom & Dad, this is the fort set you gave them for Christmas a couple of years ago.)


She brought something else home from school, too, and spent a couple of days on the couch recovering:


The nights are getting cooler, and she is loving her giraffe pajamas (really just a pair of sweatpants & sweatshirt that I batiked)

Here she is signing "giraffe":




And here she shows me her giraffe posture (note elongated neck):



She's also pretty taken with her new fall jacket:


But wait! Someone is conspicuously missing from this blog:



Well, he's busier than ever this fall, but here's one quiet moment:

Saturday, September 13, 2008

For Leah

... since you asked. There aren't many photos of me from way back then, but this blurry one is one of my favorites (and also the only one I can find):


Saturday, September 06, 2008

Eye of the beholder

Charlotte & I spent hours and hours at the fair the last couple of days, going through the animal barn at a slow pace even for me. We looked at, admired, and discussed each and every cow, chicken, sheep, goat, and pig ... especially the pigs. Charlotte has never shown any special preference for pigs before, but this year they really struck her fancy. So of course the sow & piglets in the petting zoo made a huge impression. We watched them for a very, very long time.

The sow was some kind of pink pig. She wasn't as big as some we've seen, but she was pretty big. The week-old piglets were just darling. They spent most of their time nursing vigorously, climbing all over each other as necessary to get to the top row of teats.

The sow was practically comatose. The only time I saw her respond was when one piglet started rooting in her mouth; that seemed to bother her a little, but not enough to make her open her eyes.



Charlotte saw things a little differently. Look at this happy, smiling mother! And doesn't she have a great nose? We watched the piglets exploring the pen, rooting in the sawdust, and talked about how pigs use their nose to investigate the world. Clearly she understood that; exact shape is really beside the point.

We went to the fair together Friday morning, then met Dean & George there for dinner & carnival rides Friday night, and returned to the fair this morning to look at the animals again. On the way home she wept at the thought that we couldn't go back until next year. Lucky me -- I've finally got someone to go with who won't get bored halfway through the barn!

Friday, August 29, 2008

our summer, part 2

At the end of July we went up to Iowa for the Hougen extended family reunion. We took a leisurely trip up, stopping in Wichita to visit the peculiar and fun Museum of World Treasures, and then heading up to Middle o' Nowhere, Iowa, to visit friends.

Charlotte could easily have spent her whole vacation here, in a house that boasts a BABY and TWO little girls and about a million Polly Pocket dolls and seventeen pairs of tap shoes -- who could ask for anything more?

But we continued on to Decorah, where the Hougen reunion coincided with Nordic Fest -- Vikings! Parades! Rommegrot! There were about a hundred family members at the reunion. Here 98 of them take pictures of the other two:


We live so far away that our children don't really know their second (and third ...) cousins, but they enjoyed watching the parade together anyways:


We were very surprised when parade participants started passing out ice pops in addition to candy. And then came the people with ice cream, and then cookies, and then cheese sticks! Truly Iowa is a strange land.



People look funny there, too.


George had a great time talking to Viking Sam:

In fact, over the two days of Nordic Fest I think we spent about 3 hours talking to the (very patient) Viking. His weapons are accurate but blunt, and both kids enjoyed posing with them:


Charlotte waited patiently for just about ever to get her face painted. The result was charming:

George joined us towards the end of our wait and made himself an Evil Crown:


We also visited Vesterheim, the immigrant museum. Charlotte loved making lefse:



After the reunion was over, we went to Dean's parents' house for a few days. It was a nice, relaxing visit. We toured a lovely garden at Iowa State, with a fabulous butterfly house.


Here's George inspecting Grandpa's compost system:


And we had a great time riding the restored carousel in nearby Story City:




Charlotte rode about 17 times, and afterwards we all went swimming. It was a fun afternoon, and a fun trip.

Our return journey was very different from the trip out -- the whole thing in one day, no stops, no sightseeing. It was a long day, but the kids were pretty good and we weathered it all well enough. All in all, it was a great trip.

Monday, August 18, 2008

What we did this summer ....

Whaddya know -- another summer gone by without blogging! Since I spent most of the summer with most of the very few people who ever read this blog, you'd think that wouldn't be much of a problem. But I am getting some flack on the home front, so here goes. This may take a couple of posts.

JUNE

Summer started slow, with some time to do nothing much. George and Charlotte played long games involving drawing and action figures. Here's a drawing that is an adventure for Brother Bunny and Baby Lancelot:


The pictures get drawn bit by bit, as the adventure progresses.

There was some weaving, too:


George took art classes at the Firehouse Art Center again, and loved them (again). His favorite was clay class:



He made several projects, but this dolphin was his favorite.

JERSEY SHORE

At the end of June we went to the Jersey shore with the relatives on my side of the family. We rented a house large enough for the 15 of us and had a really nice week.

We had a lovely time at the water park:


and the kids really liked the boardwalk.




Charlotte loved this ride, which went higher the more you pedalled. I was not so thrilled (note closed eyes.)


George's favorite was Dante's Dungeon:

The boardwalk could be exhausting:


The kids had a wonderful time with their cousins:




But the best of all was always the beach: