Hannah & Zoe's Holiday Card Photo Shoot

Thanks for taking all these wonderful photos, Mommy!
We can't decide which collages we love the most - we love them all!

Pumpkin Carving with Boppa

This morning, for Halloween, Hannah, Boppa and Daddy went out to the patio to turn a pumpkin into a Jack-O-Lantern. Hannah got right down to business scooping pumpkin seeds and pumpkin "GUTS" out...

Scooping pumpkin stuff is fun! The seeds are really slippery, and they like to run away! OOPS! Hahahaha!





Next, Hannah drew a GREAT BIG PUMPKIN FACE with eyes, a nose, and a BIG SMILE, and some teeth....

We tried another pumpkin, but Daddy couldn't carve the Jackson Pollock Hannah had sketched out... so we went with Hannah's first pumpkin face...

Here is Hannah's first Jack-O-Lantern!!!

Later on, after dark, when the hundreds of trick-or-treaters walked through the haunted patio, they were greeted by Hannah's Jack-O-Lantern, grinning mischieviously in the night!

The lights and the sugar skulls were spoooooooooooooky!

Some trick-or-treaters were too scared to come and get a treat, but for those who mustered up the courage, Hannah and Boppa greeted everyone and handed out candy treats!

Hannah, after a long and wonderful night filled with haunted Halloween happiness, you brushed your teeth (to get rid of the sugarbugs from a tootsie roll) and you went to bed. Outside of your room, your happy Jack-O-Lantern kept a smiley watch over the patio for a few more haunting minutes...

Happy Halloween!

Princess Hannah

Hannah, you loved your blue princess dress from the moment you saw it. It has been tough to pry it off of you for baths, meals and bedtimes... You managed to keep it clean until your Parker School Halloween party today, and you looked great!

Easter Eggs To Dye and Hunt!

Hannah, you loved dying Easter eggs! You made a dozen beautiful colored eggs, and you only cracked two!

After your bedtime bath, you had a special treat before your bedtime stories:
your very own Easter egg hunt!
You had so much fun looking and finding,
that the Easter Bunny had to keep coming back to hide the eggs after you found them!

Thanks Easter Bunny!
That was fun!
See you next year!

Marci & Randall's Holiday Visit

Dear GrUnkel (great Uncle) Randall,
Thanks for sending these pictures of your holiday visit to Lake Street! Thanks for Hannah's rain-stick. Shaking it worked so well that a week-long torrent of rain flooded the basement only a few days later! Thanks also for the light-up-tambourine and the hand-fan! They are big hits! We can't wait to visit the snow in Tahoe with you and Marci soon!

New Year's Eve 2009 Picture Poem

New Year's Eve started out with a walk to Rossi Park...

...Hannah skampered, jumped, ran, rode, swung, slid, climbed, kicked, caught...

Until it was dark and time to move on...

From playing in the park to... pizza!
No snow in 'Frisco so instead you and Mommy make "Dough-men."

And walking home is full of fun;
every doorway, parking meter and person is a reason to smile.

You TRY to stay awake and say goodbye to "oHH niNe!"...

This picture says it best:
this eve is your dawn and your reaching and trying will never end,
but next that you conquer will be seen in two-thousand-AND-TEN!

Thanks for a wonderful 2009, Hannah!
Love, Mom & Dad

Merry Christmas!!

'Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mousey.... Well, that's not exactly true - the mouseys were definitely stirring, and so was Hannah, anxious to discover if Santa had decided she was naughty, or nice!

Happy Holidays!

Happy 4th of July!

Happy Father's Day

Happy Dada's Day! Thanks for taking me to Mountain Lake Park to watch the ducks and birds and stuff. I really love our neighborhood outings, especially when I get to ride on your shoulders, or hold your hand. I also love that you let me get there on my own terms. After all, as I'm sure you've noticed, I'm kind of an independent gal. Not sure where I get that from...

Also, thanks for helping me this morning make 'artwork' involving my new favorite material - GLUE! Besides being fun to paint with, it tastes AWESOME,.. but I hate it when everything starts sticking to my fingers! When do we get to go back to that Destination Arts place???

xoxoxoxox,
Hannah

Old Glory, How About That?

Hannah, there is one person I wish you could have met before she traveled on to other worlds: my mom's mom, your great Grandmother, Beatrice H. Brown. Most everyone called her Betty; I always called her Grandmom. She respected everything in the world, and in turn, everything in the world seemed to show her respect. She was born this day in 1917. I think you would absolutely LOVE her, as her favorite thing to say was "Now that's a curious thing," and your favorite thing to say is "How 'bout dat!" Perhaps you see the word like she does. I like to think that you do, or that you will... I do not have many pictures of Grandmom to share with you, but her personality shines throughout the few I do have. Here are a couple pictures taken in 1982, when I was eight years old and Grandmom was sixty-five. They are from a children's book written about my family maple sugaring in Vermont called Sugaring Time. When I read passages from this book and look at the pictures, I feel like she is sitting right next to me, turning the pages:

"One morning, the melting, earthy smell of spring up in the meadow suddenly turns sweet a few hundred feet from the sugar house. Steam rolls out the open ends of the house and smoke rises from the chimney in back. Being inside is like sitting in a maple cloud surrounded by the muffled roar of the fire and the bubbling tumble of boiling sap. Betty Brown and the children are there, their cheeks wet and shiny in the maple mist. This is their first celebration, except birthdays, since Christmas. Boiling time is like a party, a party that celebrates mud and greenness, sweetness and renewed life... Alice (my Mom, your Grandmom) scoops up cups of boiling sap and steeps tea bags in them for sap tea. The children drink it while sitting on logs, using up-side down buckets as tea tables. After they finish, Betty leans on her walking stick listening to the thrum of the fire and the wild din of her grandson Jeremy (your uncle) beating a raucous sugar song on the upturned buckets... [Later] Jeremy, lulled by the bubbling tumble of the boiling sap, is just the right size to fall asleep in his grandma's arms."

Every minute is a celebration to enjoy and ponder to your Great Grandma Betty. I say "is" instead of "was," because your Great Grandma assured us all that she would be embarking on greater adventures upon departing this world. I take her at her word. Perhaps she has been able to stop by San Francisco in between her adventures and catch a glimpse of you growing up. Again, I like to think so. Today, her birthday, is conveniently "Flag Day." It commemorates the adoption of the flag of the United States, which happened that day by resolution of the Second Continental Congress in 1777. In 1916, President Woodrow Wilson issued a proclamation that officially established June 14 as Flag Day; in August 1949, National Flag Day was established by an Act of Congress. Flag Day is not an official federal holiday, though on June 14, 1937, Pennsylvania became the first (and only) U.S. state to celebrate Flag Day as a state holiday. Title 36 of the United States Code, Subtitle I, Part A, CHAPTER 1, 110 is the official statute on Flag Day; however, it is at the President's discretion to proclaim officially the observance. This poster is from the same year Betty was born.

Happy Flag day! Happy birthday Grandmom!
To mud and greenness, sweetness and renewed life...
How 'Bout Dat!!!!