Sunday, August 31, 2008

My Tiny Star Stuff


My friend Star is a fabulous creator of all kinds of art. A while ago I splurged on an original Lucy painting from her etsy shop. Shown here is the painting and the matching Lucy doll that she designed, sewed, and painted. She really is amazing! I already covet several more of her prints and "softies" (original stuffed animals). Ooh, and also her beautiful vintage-style cone puppets. I want, I want!

Sunday, August 24, 2008

Anika's Birthday


On August 23rd Anika turned eleven years old! Wow, that decade just blew by.
We decided to go to a book signing for her birthday since Rapunzel's Revenge, illustrated by our very own cousin Nate Hale (and written by Shannon and Dean Hale) was being featured at the Salt Lake Library. The authors did a little reader's theater scene from the book. Here is Shannon Hale sporting braids knitted by Nate Hale's talented wife Mindy.

And here is Anika getting our newly purchased copy of Rapunzel's Revenge signed by Nate.
If you have any boys in your family that you want to encourage to read, buy this book!

We also helped my sister Victoria clean house for my brother Jon's family to return to from Australia, went to a pastry shop, watched WALL-E, and had pizza for lunch and dinner. It was a very full day, so we saved the cake and ice cream for today.

When I downloaded these pictures I realized that some little fingers must have smeared the camera lens some time ago. Nice soft focus, eh?

Happy Birthday, Anika!

Thursday, August 7, 2008

My Daughter is Not a Vampire

When I was little we had a series of dramatized fairy tales called "Let's Pretend" on vinyl records. We listened to them over and over again. One of the stories was "The Frog Prince" and his princess was named Rosalie. That was my first exposure to the name. Over the years I continued to run across the name, though rarely, and I always liked it. And when, finally, I was in labor with my last daughter (all of whom were born past their due dates,) my husband and I decided we really had to pick a name. And Rosalie was the one we most liked together. So.

Now, you'd probably have to have your head in a bucket (in which case you probably aren't reading blogs online) not to have heard of Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series, which is about vampires. One of the vampires, a golden haired beauty, is also named Rosalie. Rosalie Hale, no less, which makes it even closer to home, as Hale is my maiden name. The series is wildly popular and I am glad for the author--we Mormons like to see other Mormons excel. But it still bothers me that people will assume that I named her after the book, simply because they never heard the name anywhere else. (I'll probably have to privatize my blog after this; this entry has too many googleable references.) Ah, well.

So that's my disclaimer. But here is the funny part. All of my other babies have grown their teeth in upper-middle and lower-middle pairs--like a beaver. But not Rosalie. In fact, she's got me a little worried.

Sunday, August 3, 2008

Kids in a Box

What could be more fun than playing in a big box? I don't know. Please tell me. Because it took about 45 seconds before three of my four kids in this box were crying. I had the baby in there as the others were climbing in and she started crying to get out. She must have known where this was headed.

Lissa is pretending that she wasn't crying. Did you ever see such a strained "cheese?" Hmm, strained cheese in a box--sounds like the kind of cottage industry we would produce.