Look, Francine, I sewed!

My dear Patrick has always wanted a green santa hat. I actually began sewing one last December, but that was back in the days when December didn't mean holiday cheer for our family. Instead Thanksgiving heralded the beginning of a month of working 16 hour days. Joy. Yeah. Pure joy. So the half-finished hat actually moved with us into the yurt.





This year, we have time to have a festive tree, make a gingerbread yurt, come up with darling homemade gifts for one another, and .... make a green hat for the man of green hats.

Family Hands, Four Forty-seven pm Wednesday, November Nineteenth, Two Thousand Eight

For the next seven days I'll be posting photographs only. I'm feeling quiet.

Extra fun from school

Our homeschool program just moved into a marvelous new facility and expanded its library. This week we borrowed a nifty electronics kit. It has been a nice way for Patrick to get in on the learning fun. It has all the pieces that come in a regular electronics kit, but they all just snap together, making it manageable for Isidore's little hands. Naturally they bypassed the simple stuff at the beginning of the project book and went right for the laser gun, followed by the the space battle.

I hear the school also has telescopes, so we might plan a few heavenly lessons next month.

Cozy

The kids and I blew in the door from an exciting but very chilly day at our home school program's new site oh so glad to find Patrick had lit a fire in our wood stove. He had water simmering in the kettle and plenty of wood for the rest of the evening. I spent a few perfect minutes rocking by the fire with my book, my tea and my slippers, listening to the rain on the roof.

Thank you, my dear.

Patrick's Blog

Patrick and I now have dueling kitten photographs. You'll have to look at his blog to see the superior shot.


www.patrickworksphotography.blogspot.com

Stuck in Lodi

This blog is coming to you today from beautiful Lodi, California. Patrick is working on a national (!) advertising campaign for the KOA. We are staying in one of the darling little cabins they offer while he shoots all day. The kids will be modeling for some of his shots around the pool and playground later in the day, but for now they are enjoying a very large television and real cheerios. I am going to ignore the internet for the rest of the day and read the entire newspaper.

Cheers!

Mr. Misterio

When Isidore was born my darling Auntie Deedee crocheted him a beautiful soft blue blanket. He has slept with it just about every night since then. As a newborn we swaddled him in it and called him the blue burrito. A couple of years ago he started calling it his woopee. For several months now it has been doing double duty as a super-hero cape. Daily he ties it around his neck and leaps off the couch to assault his sisters, as any brother ought to. His super-powers are awesome.



But, incredibly, they just got much, much stronger.



On Friday at the farmers market we were in line for churros. Yum. They have become our Friday evening market treat of choice lately. I felt a little tug on my hand. Super-boy had spotted some capes for sale at a nearby stall. Mean old mom pointed out that he had a perfectly wonderful cape already. Didn't he love his blue cape? I went back to my churro purchase.



By time I was taking my first bite of deep-fried goodness Isidore had been transformed into Mr. Misterio.



Patrick confessed that as a little boy he had always wanted a real cape. Not a pillow case or a homemade cape, but the real deal. So when Isidore of the crocheted-blanket-tied-around-his neck-cape tugged on his hand, there was no hesitation.










That night Patrick's old friend Eric came up for a visit. When Mr. Misterio put on Jimi Hendrix, Eric brought out his guitar. Mr. Misterio gleefully whipped out his own ax, recruited Aliana for piano, Patrick on the harmonica and Elizabeth on the ukulele. They had quite a session.







Apologies to Rory for the foot on the piano, I swear we don't do that all the time. And yes, that is a lampshade on Aliana's head.

King of the Clutter Busters

I'm a bad partner. Really. Here's the story. We have been rearranging and cleaning the shop this week. A lot of junk is gone and it's much easier to share our working space with three kids now. They have a nice chunk of floor space for drawing, legoes, school work, and watching movies. It's in a corner of the back room so we aren't trekking through their games on the way to the bathroom.

Naturally during the course of the super-fling-boogie we broke out the clutter-buster crowns. Yesterday we were still going full tilt when we had a family wander in asking about a portrait. I grabbed Patrick and they talked for awhile about locations, wardrobe and times. Eventually the family departed and only about ten minutes later did Patrick realize that, yep, he was still wearing the crown. If I were super-wife, the story wouldn't go like that. No, super-wife would have thought about a projecting a professional image and noticed the handmade paper crown on her husband's head. She would have in fact removed it before she asked him to talk to prospective clients. She would have done this even on a Friday afternoon at 5:17 after a very long day spent sneezing and dusting and telling the kids to stop fighting and then sneezing some more. She also probably wouldn't have tripped over a half-eaten bagel and a lego spaceship on the way to the backroom to summon Mr. Photographer Guy.

Yeah. So. I think we might not get that portrait job. But it was awfully fun to share a real-live belly laugh with King Clutter Buster. I'm pretty sure super-wife didn't have that in her appointment book.

I really do thank my lucky stars daily that I have the opportunity to spend my days at work with my family, even when it's really damned hard.

Brown shoes and pretty dresses

Elizabeth has been referred to as "the carbon-fiber girl". She possesses amazing strength (of will) but packs it into a very small package . She began speaking in full sentences about five minutes after she was born, but has remained rather small for her age. We have gradually become used to hearing her try to use sophisticated reason to argue for three year old goals like having a larger helping of chocolate pudding than her brother. Along with the iron will, the shortest member of our family makes up for her diminutive size with a well-developed sense of fashion. This is NOT something she has inherited from me. On the other hand, Patrick can make the whole family laugh when he asks one of the kids to get his brown shoes from the shelf. This chore can involve many trips to the shelf for the poor kid assigned to the job.

"No, not those. The other brown shoes."

He has many, many brown shoes.

This is actually how we keep the children in such good health; lots of fresh vegetables and running back and forth to the closet for dad.

Elizabeth recently gave up pants. There is no arguing with the will of a three year old girl when it comes to what she is going to wear. Dresses and skirts it is. And clickety-clackety shoes. She also changes outfits approximately seventy-eight times in each twenty-four hour period, along with her mood.

So, we have a running deal now. Mom or Dad puts up the cash for a new dress from time to time, and the curly haired one is required to model said frock in the studio before enjoying a meal involving ketchup or any recreation that exposes the pristine garment to dirt. After the clean dress is recorded she is free to get back to life and be a dirty little ragamuffin girl.

Famous

Patrick is famous again. Isn't he cute? Nice sneakers, too.

Our small town paper is actually the smallest newspaper to ever be awarded a Pulitzer Prize. There, now you know.