Christmas Cookies December 20

We had Olivia's School Buddies over to make a little something to entice Santa down that chimney. Good friends, Great parents. This thing could have been a fiasco, but everyone seemed to have fun and no 3rd degree burns or massive clothing changes due to frosting.

Close Encounter of the First Time

Olivia meets The Big Man for the first time.
Thanks to Melissa's coworker Jon Mitchell for the hospitality and Christmas party last weekend, December 19, 2008.

Noel

Noël by Anne Porter

When snow is shaken
From the balsam trees
And they're cut down
And brought into our houses

When clustered sparks
Of many-colored fire
Appear at night
In ordinary windows

We hear and sing
The customary carols

They bring us ragged miracles
And hay and candles
And flowering weeds of poetry
That are loved all the more
Because they are so common

But there are carols
That carry phrases
Of the haunting music
Of the other world
A music wild and dangerous
As a prophet's message

Or the fresh truth of children
Who though they come to us
From our own bodies
Are altogether new
With their small limbs
And birdlike voices

They look at us
With their clear eyes
And ask the piercing questions
God alone can answer.

Happy Birthday Mommy

Mommy flips her personal calendar again tomorrow morning.
Olivia commemorates with the annual Birthday Card. Shhhh.
She'll see it in the morning. Many Happy Returns, Mommy.

The Ladies of the House

Happy Thanksgivings always take place in the kitchen.
The womenfolk rule this kitchen in Fort Dodge.
Olivia has much to learn about cooking from all of these ladies, and I look forward to trying the results.

Four Generations at Thanksgiving 2008

These are actually in reverse chronologic order, but it funnier this way.
Especially Great Grandma Kleinhesselink and Olivia in the last one.
B-B-Big...B-B-Bad...Big Bad Thing! Right over there! Just behind you! To your right!

Cousins

The only thing more interesting than Oma's lap...Cousins!

Happy Second Birthday from Daddy

Now you are two.
The number says you are an Engine.
Legs and arms and fingers are pistons moving.
The number says you have a length of days experience.
Enough that you know what you want.
Enough that you will tell us. All of us. When and how and what you want.
The number says that sometimes you take a nap,
And sometimes the nap takes you.
But
It doesn't say that you would tell me how you feel a few weeks ago.
And why you feel that way.
I wasn't expecting that.
Nor how important it would be for me to tell you about your Day before you go to bed.
Or how much I enjoy watching you through the window at school before you know we're there.
Or watching your mother hold you.
Thank you, Little Girl.

Deforestation

First haircut: 11:00 October 4, 2008.
Gayle did the honors, under heavy protest from the very tired subject.
Olivia requested that she be described here as The Victim.
Maybe next time she can use the chair?

Olivia and I had The Talk this weekend

About where Cookies come from.
Not the Birds and the Bees, but the Butter and the Sugars.
I believe she took my meaning.
And she now has a deeper understanding of what motivates
The Cookie Monster.

Happy Birthday Kathy

Now let us sport us while we may,

And now, like amorous birds of prey,

Rather at once our time devour

Than languish in his slow-chapt power.

- Andrew Marvell

Nana

We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths;
In feelings, not in figures on a dial.
We should count time by heart-throbs. He most lives
Who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best.
- Philip James Bailey