Easter - 2014

 

 

 

 

Easter 2014

It was a fun Easter this year - lots going on that was festive and celebratory...

Family, friends, decorating eggs, making chocolate, hunting for eggs, eating jellybeans, dancing, playing outside (the weather has made a turn for the best), Pippi the new puppy, gathering spring flowers,  and all around good and needed cheer.  Uncle Paul came from Buffalo, Uncle Claes came from NH, cousins, my sister, grandma, grandpa, mormor and our friends all rounded out this holiday.

Best parts:  Kids joy at baskets and egg hunting, Lea as the Easter bunny, dancing! (the macarena, the polka, and especially the chicken dance.) 

 

 

So Busy

Our life is so busy right now we should start to see parts come flying off - like what happens to a rocket ship at top speed.  I just want to state this so that in the future we will know why there is only one post so far for April.  Unheard of!   But, true all the same. 

My Streak of Tigers

This is the term used to describe tigers who move together.  And here are my two tigers who do move together- united, unbelievably loyal, loving, and wild boys.  They had their faces painted recently and each chose to be a tiger.  The artist was smart enough to make a slight color change to show they are both tigers, but different from one another.  This is so true for my boys.  One is wildly extroverted and one more quiet and internal.  Both absolutely beautiful and kind.  Both kinesthetic and graceful like a cat.  Both connected to those they love in powerful ways.  This probably describes them more than anything, they are big hearted creatures, absolutely roaring through this life.   

Holi - A Hindu Celebration of Color

I took the boys to a celebration of Spring on Saturday.  The Hindu holiday of Holi.  It was an  amazing experience to be sure.  Bright powder pigment - a rainbow of color - is smeared, tossed, and dumped onto other folks, a ceremony of joyful fun to celebrate the return of Spring in all it's colorful glory.  The boys had a blast.  I admit I was hesitant at first, but if you are there, you inevitably get pulled into the celebration.   All of us needed triple showers in the end, and Anders white t-shirt is no longer white...and neither is Kuba's hair.   You can see Anders, Kuba and I in the pink boxes in the aerial shot.  This shot is before I got "into it," and before I took Kuba's hat off.  I should've left it on!

      

 

Rube Goldberg

    Never enough, never tired of watching closely. 

Water and Ice

  

  

 

This winter has been water and ice.  Mostly ice.  It's March 11 and we are expecting another 20 inches of snow tomorrow, soon to be more water - or ice.  Lake Champlain is frozen from Vermont all the way to New York.  It hasn't done this since 2007.  99% solid ice.  And Lake Champlain is the 6th largest lake in the United States.  That means it's been mighty cold.   

It's been treacherous walking, exciting to look at, and impossible to wait out.  Spring is here in about 9 days and we are not even close to the great thaw.  Our barn door is frozen open, and stray cats have come to howl there.  Racoons have devoured one chicken - our Emily gone on a late night, dinner to a family of four masked looters.  The chickens are finally brave enough to come out and skid across the crusty snow.  Our driveway gate is frozen in place.  Ice everywhere.   

The boys have skied a lot, sled down sheer ice hills, and carefully picked their way down icy sidewalks while I have been thinking our luck will surely run out before an elbow or wrist is broken in a fall.  We have a household bet going on the date our driveway (which is covered in 6 inches of ice still, maybe more) will finally be free of its last trace of ice.  I put a bet in for the end of April.   Everyone put a dollar in the jar - all of us hoping to lose.  And despite this unusual science experiment of a winter, we have noticed the beauty.  Ice is remarkably beautiful.   Even so, we have had enough and are ready now for the return of the equally  beautiful and much warmer green. 

Famous

We had an amazing conversation the other day, Kuba and I.  We were driving somewhere....maybe to my mom's house and our conversation rolled onto the topic of being famous.  Don't ask me how we ended up there. I asked Kuba if he was going to be famous for something, what might he be famous for?  He thought very carefully for a moment and then said,  "Definitely my drawings, or my sketchbook." 
And then a nano second later he recanted, saying "NO, NO!  That's not it!!!   
I know what I would be famous for.....my love!!!!!     
I would be famous for my L O V E!!!! 
Yes, that's what I'll be famous for.