Oh what do you do in the summertime..

..when the green is almost gone?

Do you go to the fair?

Ride on a pony?

Or play in the water with the neighbors?

"I'm supposed to throw these at people? I think the grass wants them more."

"Yup, those things popped pretty good!"

"Forget about balloons. Let me adjust this hose for you, ma'am".

I'll smell the fading flowers,


Then kiss them goodbye.

Until next summer.

Popee the Naughty Grocery Store Baby

As I mentioned some time in the past, Joshua's nickname has been Poe-pee since before he was born. This special pseudonym is constantly evolving and morphing into new and exciting forms. For example:

Pope-ilini: my Italian baby
Pope-ilani: my Hawaiian baby
Pope-alishi: my Asian baby
Pope: my Catholic baby
Pope-n-dope: my rapper baby (also Pope-a-dope, Joseph's favorite)

Pope-n-bope-a-lope: cousin to the popular Jackalope
Pope-in: my Lord of the Rings Baby (He's good friends with Pippin.)
Pope-n-bope-a-lope-a-dope-pope-pope-pope: when I feel like making up a song.
Poepee bopee- well, you get the idea.

The word "Josh" can be substituted for the "pope" part of any of these, thus creating dazzling and exotic combinations.

He'll answer to all of these and more; he knows who he is. Joshilini has always been a happy little fellow, and not nearly as Saucy as his sister. Until lately. Hitting, drawing on the wall and fridge, biting, throwing things at people: these have all become his new specialty. His newest words are "mine"and "be quiet"(to Elora, mostly). Oh, and "car", which is totally unrelated.

Today was an interesting day. We were at the super-mega grocery store, buying a zillion dollars worth of groceries because our school money came in. And we needed some food. Elora was in her usual place standing on the end of the cart, while Joshie got to sit in the seat, the mounds of groceries looming behind him.



At one point, Elora asked me, "Mommy, what's in Joshua's mouth?" Thats when I realized he had been sneaking grapes from the bag just within his reach. I moved it toward the rear of the cart, but then Elora started crying that she wanted one too. I finally gave in and let her have one, all the while reiterating that we shouldn't eat food while still in the grocery store.


Then ensued a little dance, wherin I moved the bag to various positions around the cart to avoid the two grasping child hands. I wasn't very successful, as Joshua kept grabbing the edge of the bag to pull it toward him, all the while wailing like I was depriving him of sustenance. Oh wait, I was.
A couple of times he snagged a grape and popped it in his mouth, and I was just hoping he didn't start choking to death right there in the dairy isle.

Thats when it happened. Every time he grabbed at the elusive treat, he had ripped the top of the bag a little bit. You know, the little zippy top of certain grape bags, that doesn't really work? Yeah, that thing. The very last time he reached for the delectable fruit he triumphantly lifted the bag into the air...where the top ripped off completely, causing the bag to tip over, spilling its contents into the cart and all over the floor.

I gasped, "JOSHUA!" as both he and Elora watched with shocked expressions. I quickly tried to gather all of the loose orbs hiding amidst my full cart of groceries, while Elora happily started eating them off the dirty floor. Thankfully, a worker and some other shoppers came over and picked up the rest off the floor, and gave them to the employee to handle.

Fast forward to about 15 minutes later. We are in the checkout line. Joshua is crying again because I keep confiscating the two crescent roll canisters that he has been banging together repeatedly. After much ado, I finally hand them back to him just so he'll calm down.
He promptly chucks one at the floor whereupon the metal end of the container bursts off, causing the rolls inside to ooze out in a most interesting way.

I ended up unloading my cart onto the conveyor belt one handed while holding the doughy can in the other, with the occasional surreptitious push on the bread trying to hide it back in the much-too-small canister.

Thankfully, the cashier didn't ask me to pay for it, and was kind enough to have someone retrieve another can for me, without holding up the line.

Now don't you wish YOU could go shopping with two toddlers!

Speaking of Portraits...Portrait #7

For this portrait I was given two photos to reference, but told they wanted this photo specifically for the drawing. In my opinion, the boy had a much more natural smile and a cuter haircut in the other one, but I suppose they must have their reasons!



I found the perfect combination for the eye color this time, grey and a blue I don't usually use, but I may have to darken it later. I erased the blue lines out of his mouth so his teeth weren't so harsh. His smile looks a little like a grimace so far, but thats the photo they wanted...



He has that blonde hair that is turning brown, so for the dark sections, I have to use a specific brown that is grayer and more plain than the others , or it ends up looking too auburn and too rich for a blonde kid. I will probably have to darken it more later.




Here I changed the shape of the mouth on the left side of the page ever so slightly, and it made his smile look more natural and friendlier. His vest was a dark color where I couldn't tell if it was blue or black. Either way, I never want to use just straight black on anything because it comes out looking flat and dull. I did his clothes with blue, black, and red all blended together. His jawline has more red than usual because his red collar is reflecting up onto his face.



I gave in and did the blue background to go with his eyes.. that last colorful background was a lot of trouble. Hey, they all have blue eyes, what are you going to do? The red collar of his vest has red, orange, blue and purple to give it definition.



I finished up the background and added a bunch of color to the face, then I figured it was pretty much done:



But the more I looked at it, the more unfinished it seemed. So pulled up the photo on the computer, then I went in and darkened everything: the hair has more brown and purple, the left side of the face has more shadows, and the shapes around the eyes are more defined, as well as the dimple shapes on the cheeks. I also made the cheeks more rosy. I erased out some of the forehead to make the reflection from the photo and to add more contrast. All of this seemed to do the trick, as his smile seems much bigger and his face looks complete. I added in the two little freckles he had on his nose..not sure if that was a good decision or not, but at least its done:


Does he look like he's wearing makeup? Oh well.

Other Portraits

A few weeks ago, I suddenly remembered a bunch of portraits I had done in high school or shortly thereafter, and I wondered why I hadn't seen them in a while. They were drawings of people I knew, their photos gleaned from the school yearbooks I had at my disposal. I recalled that they were all recorded in the same 11x14 notebook and I feverishly searched the house for them. When I couldn't find it I had my mom search her house. Luckily she found them safe and sound in a box of my youthful trinkets in the basement. She was finally able to get this treasured collection to me and I scanned them in just this week.

Unfortunately, the pages are bigger than my scanner bed. This resulted in some interesting crops on some of these, but I kind of like them that way. The biggest issue with these scans is that they all have these odd shadowy parts off to one side or the other, because the page didn't lay flat on the scanner. Oh well. I was too lazy to try to take photos.

Some readers know who all of these people are (or you are one of them, hope you don't mind), and I hope you can recognize them! So, without further ado....

The Legendary Poetry Lover

(This is the oldest of them...the rest are better! Hey, I was only a sophomore.)

The Performer

The Musician

The Politician

The Pensive English Teacher

(she doesn't really have man hands.)

These last three are copies of the originals:

The Psychologist

(The scanner acted up on this one, sorry for the weird lines. Nice braces though, huh?)

The Dreamer

(1947-2006)

The Grandfather

( I don't know WHAT those giant teeth are about! I did a remake of this portrait, but I don't have a copy of it.)


Oh, and I threw in Elora's first attempt at portraiture. She says this is our family, and I am the purple one at the top. She was very excited at how that one came out, because she was able to draw two lips. We're very proud.

My funny little helper

It's been a while since I've shared some Saucy stories...
Lately, Elora, true to her age group, had decided she's my little helper. She wants to "help" with everything. She asks to do the dishes,


fold the laundry,


and help us with dinner on a regular basis.


Of course she doesn't like to pick up her toys anymore like she did a year ago. Surprisingly, she's not too bad at some of these chores. When she asks to help with laundry, I let her have all the washcloths and dish towels. On her first try, she folded the washcloths correctly without my help. I was certainly impressed! (I guess it wasn't her first try...she tried to help once or twice last summer as well):


With dinner, she loves to shuck corn on the cob, and help when we make chicken croquets. Her job is to take from daddy the dough balls-with the chicken inside- and dip them in the butter. Then mom puts them in the breadcrumbs and onto the pan.
The few times she helped with dishes, she informed me she was "washing the sponge," which meant she was rubbing the scrubber with the washcloth to get it all clean.

Here are some other things she's been doing lately..

4-11-08
Today I was singing a song from a movie to Elora. There was a line that went, "Who longs to kiss your lips, and hold you tight". She interrupted me and asked, "Mom, can I kiss your lips and hold you tight?" I laughed and gave her a hug.
Today Joseph was reading a science book to Elora, and telling her about sun flares. When I was putting her to bed, I told her not to get out of bed until the sun came out. She replied, "Mommy, when the fire comes down off of the sun I will be so scared!" I guess she wasn't quite old enough to understand the sun flares yet!

4-29-08
In the bath, I will sometimes put a washcloth over my hand and have it 'talk' to Elora. She calls it a dragon, and is always begging me to "make a dragon". The other day, she was noticing the tag on the cloth so I asked her what it said. She pointed to each word and slowly said, "Please. Make. A. Dragon."

6-7-08
Today Elora called me back to help her after she went potty. When I got there, she was leaning forward on the seat with the lid on her back. She exclaimed, "Look, mommy, I'm a turtle!" She thought she was pretty funny.

6-18-08
When we were outside today, Elora noticed a small white cloud above us and she pointed it out to me. After a minute she said, " Sometimes I fly up to the sky and I grab the cloud. Then I bring it down and I show it to you." What a great imagination!

6-20-08
In the bathroom the other day, Elora had pulled the toilet paper out everywhere. She usually doesn't do things like that, so I asked if she had had a hard time pulling a piece off. She hadn't, so I asked why she had made a mess like that. She explained that she had wrapped it all around her neck to make a 'silly scarf". Even though I was mad about the wasted paper, I couldn't help but laugh.

7-26-08
We've been trying to teach Elora that its not okay to be naked in front of other people. She was walking around naked this evening because she wanted to put her swimming suit on, but it was too late. Nothing we said would motivate her to get dressed.
Joseph was on the phone with his dad, and he asked Elora if she wanted to talk to grandpa. She said yes, but then she panicked and grabbed her clothes. She said, "Wait, I have to put on my underwear so Grandpa doesn't see me naked!"


8-12-08
At lunch the other day, Elora asked her daddy, "Why are you guys going to sleep?"
He was confused and told her we were not.
She thought for a moment then said, "You're going to drink your milk then go to sleep?"
It was then we realized that Joseph and I had mugs of milk with our lunch that day- not a usual practice- and she and Joshua only got milk right before nap time and bed time. Makes sense I guess!

Threes Tag

I got this idea from Tirzah.
Thought it was a nice little break....

3 Joys=

• Creating something and having it turn out just like I wanted, whether it be a photo, a drawing, or maybe a popular blog post that gets lots of comments!

• Seeing my kids learning new things about the world, or showing me how smart they are, or how funny they can be...so, I guess my kids. On a good day.

• Reading old journal entries. I haven't done this in forever (probably because my journal hasn't been so interesting as of late). Nothing can improve my mood like reading back on happy days, like my first date with Joseph, documented conversations I had with friends, or fun trips I went on.
  

3 Fears=

• Having a child with a major mental illness (A Beautiful Mind freaked me out because Joseph has close family members with that same illness)

• My husband dying while I'm still young (or a child dying while they're still young) . Or my sister dying because I talk to her almost everyday, and then who would understand me?

• Driving on a busy freeway alone. Even after living in the Seattle area for six years (and moving back to a much less populated area) I still won't do it.
  

3 Goals=
I have to have goals? These are gonna sound lame and not too ambitious, but currently they are:

• Be a more patient and loving mother, and a more patient and loving wife would probably be good too.

• Teach Joshua as well as I taught Elora, and give both of them more attention. (She knew her colors by 18 months for crying out loud, and could say at least a hundred things by 16 months. I better get cracking!)

• Learn how to better balance my time with family with time for myself. I am just now, almost five years into marriage, picking up hobbies and interests again apart from my family.
  

3 Current Obsessions=

• Photography (as you might suspect). Lately this has been my favorite art form with which to work. I already have ideas for Elora's third birthday pictures, and its three months away! I'm so excited for the leaves to change color...
  

• Dr. Who. We Just started watching the newest version of this classic on Sci Fi a month ago. While I'd heard of it I'd never really sat through the show before this. I have since been researching all the back stories and all the characters in the current series online so that I can be caught up. I even watch clips of past episodes on You Tube to better understand what happened. The show is sometimes very corny, but I love it! I am such a nerd. (That would explain my dream that had elements from "Lost", "Star Trek the Next Generation", "The Matrix" and "Dr. Who".)
  

• Catalog Clothing. I've mentioned this in several posts. I haven't bought any yet, as we are as poor as church mice right now, but lately I have really wanted to update my wardrobe with some nice things. So right now I just look and dream. And scheme. And check for sales that might coincide with my having money.

Anyone who feels the need is welcome to do this meme tag as well.

A final word....

...I promise.

This is (probably) the last post specifically about the reunion. Hey, I took 150 pictures while we were there, and it was the most exciting thing we've done in the last six months. So I have to say a little bit more, okay? This might end up being a post exclusively for my sister, who may be the only one interested. Thats a risk I'll have to take.

Each reunion in our family consists of a mixture of planned activities and free time. The earliest ones (circa 1991) seemed to have had every minute planned because all of the kids were under 12 years old and they could get bored easily. Some later gatherings were conspicuously unplanned, as there was an abundance of teenagers who wouldn't have been happy doing crafts or relay races. There can be problems with an extreme in either direction, but I'm happy to say this reunion had the perfect mixture for me.

This year, many of the activities were centered around the three youngest cousins, those who were playing with Joshua in a previous post. We were late the first day, but apparently they were each given shields. They were told they'd have certain quests to complete each day, and when they were finished our Grandma (the queen) would give them jewels to put on their shields. At the end of everything, they were to be knighted. The clever thing was how all the rest of the family was included.



The boys had to trace people's feet for one quest; another was filling out a get-to-know you survey, where they had to ask people trivia like who had published their own comic, or who had gone skydiving. Their oldest brother and some of the youngest teens were enlisted to be their guides on the quest.

One day they got to treasure hunt with my dad at the park next door. They even got to help the three two-year-old girls make necklaces out of Fruit Loops. The girls were all excited about this activity and had a great time. Later that day, Joshua had an even better time eating all of them where they'd left them around the house!




Another afternoon, they had some relay races and other short competitions for the kids. Each little boy headed up a team of the teenagers and the twenty-somethings that aren't married. Everyone was a good sport, even during the water relay race when my brother Thain fell down and spilled his team's whole bucket of water, thus ruining their chances for the win. Poor Thain.



One cute thing they did was make little craft necklaces for all of the moms. They were out of those plastic beads that you put on a little form- like a circle or heart shape- then you iron it so that the beads all melt together. I got a cute little smiley face from one of the boys. A few of us were bored and made some of our own too. I made this one for Joseph:


Lovely, isn't it?

They had some activities separate from the boys' quest as well. The single girls and their friends (in age from 17 to 24) got to make small purses. One evening they had a white elephant gift exchange with everyone in attendance. Another afternoon they got all of the women together, and talked about how there are so many male family members so we deserved something special. We each were given a handmade bag full of girly items donated by different people, things like ankle bracelets, homemade wallets, fingernail polish, gum, and knitted bookmarks. Here is a photo courtesy of Kiera (my camera was being charged at the time.)


Then the boys got jealous, and took a picture to document the fact that they got nothing...except Joseph, who's holding a sandwich:


Something I sadly didn't get to participate in was geo-caching. My uncle brought ten extra GPS systems so everyone could go out looking for these geocaches together around the lake, which coordinates he'd loaded into the devices before the reunion. We were on our way when Elora suddenly got sick in the car and we had to turn back. We even had to make her a new cereal necklace, because the one she was wearing was now disgusting. (Don't worry, Joshua didn't eat that one!)

The remainder of our time was full of all the unplanned stuff that can be so fun. The aforementioned card games took place almost every night, either with everyone or in small groups..its become our one family tradition that we can't do without! (Sorry for the yellow photo..)


There were video games played by old and young alike (mostly the boys of course, though a few fiances did join in on occasion.)



And of course, all of the beach shenanigans. At first Elora wasn't sure she liked it:



But she soon came to enjoy her little entourage:

All of us got a chance to ride on our relative's boat, and even Elora and I got a tow in the inner tube being pulled by the boat. (Pictured previously).

Oh yeah. And here's Kiera, looking like Bono from U2:



Okay, now I'm done talking about it. Thanks for hanging in there! ( You just skimmed through this, didn't you.)

Joshua hangin' with the boys

At our reunion, there were only two other babies with whom Joshua could play. The first was James, Kiera's son. While he was the mirror image of Josh, the eight months age difference didn't contribute to a close buddy relationship quite yet.




The other baby was my cousin "Paul's" daughter, "Laura", who is just a month and a half younger than Joshua, her birthday being just a week after the reunion. They had a few moments together, but they were few and far between.



Luckily for Joshua, I have a few cousins of my own who are still fairly young: this family of four boys range in age from thirteen to just barely five. Josh was fortunate to spend the last evening of the visit with this cute kids, who were more than happy to entertain him. We got some great shots of Joshua having the time of his life...plus a few shots of his fake forced laugh, which is hilarious to behold.
(Note: Joseph caught all of these next snapshots, I was just the post-editor!)






Spending the evening with the 'big boys' must have inspired him, because ever since we've been home, Josh has decided he's ready to walk all over the place. Way to go Joshua!