Pictures from Spring '09

Finally got around to posting all the pictures I've taken this year so far on Flickr. Click each link to see a slideshow of that set. There is a set from our Christmas photo shoot, Ti'anna's birthday party, Passover & Easter, Ethan's birthday party, plus some miscellaneous stuff from spring and pictures of our new puppy, Hazel. You can see a video of Hazel after her first haircut below.

Thanksgiving Pictures 2008

New pictures posted from Thanksgiving! Sorry there aren't very many, but Tim and I had our hands rather full for photography. Someday I'll learn to plan a feast so that I have time to primp and mingle, but till then, I'll take what I can get! :) Enjoy.

The Blessing Box.

The Blessing Box:

Follow the daily instructions below. Have a box ready and determine where you will give the money that will be in your Blessing Box at the end of 24 days. This begins on December 1st, but you can start late!

Day 1. One out of 5 children live in poverty lacking adequate clothing. Give 2 cents for each pair of socks in the home.

Day 2. Are you thankful for the gift of electricity? Give 2 cents for each light bulb in your house.

Day 3. Most people in the world have never touched a computer. If there is one in your home, put in 50 cents, an extra 50 cents for a scanner and 50 cents for the printer.

Day 4. Most of the world’s population lives beyond the reach of medical care. Give 10 cents for each box of band-aids in your house…an extra dime if they are not flesh colored.

Day 5. Are you thankful you have a roof and doors to keep out the wind and rain? Give 10 cents for each exterior door your house has.

Day 6. Are you thankful for all your clothes? Give a nickel for each closet in your house.

Day 7. Are you glad you have indoor plumbing? Give 5 cents for every roll of TP in your house, counting all the stored away rolls.

Day 8. To people in refugee camps, even a thin sliver of soap is precious. Give 5 cents for each bar your family has…A dime for each soap pump.

Day 9. Do you walk to town to get a bucket of water for washing, drinking, bathing or cooking? Or are you blessed with faucets that bring precious water to you? Give 10 cents for each faucet you have and don’t forget the outside ones.

Day 10. What a blessing to be able to see and have eye doctors to help us. Give a quarter for every pair of eyeglasses or contacts in your home.

Day 11. Give thanks and a dollar for every child in your family and do a secret good deed for them today.

Day 12. How would you like to live in your car as some families do? Give a dime for every vehicle in your family.

Day 13 . Epidemics often follow natural disasters. Give thanks if no one in your house has been too sick this month to go to work or school and donate 50 cents.

Day 14. Did a blanket cover you last night? Give a penny for every blanket in your house.

Day 15. Was it cold enough to wear a coat today? Were you thankful for your coat? Give a penny for every coat, jacket or raincoat in your house.

Day 16. In some countries of the world, most people can’t read. Are you thankful you can read? Put in a penny for every book in your home….(Yes, for most of us this is an expensive one)

Day 17. By now you have received many Christmas cards from many loving friends and family members. Give a penny for each card.

Day 18. Most people in the world cook over an open fire. Aren’t you glad you didn’t have to chop wood this morning? Give 5 cents for every burner on your stove and a nickel for every oven.

Day 19. Aren’t you glad that you have people that love and think about you? Put in 10 cents for each gift under the tree that is for you.

Day 20. Unfortunately this is the time of year in which many people suffer loss in house fires. Give 10 cents for every phone in your house in which you can dial 911 in case of emergency.

Day 21. Many people in the world suffer excruciating pain from the lack of dental care. Have you ever been grateful for toothbrushes? Give 5 cents for every toothbrush in your house.

Day 22. Many children in the world barely get one meal a day. How many did you have? Give thanks and five cents for each meal and 10 cents for each snack today.

Day 23. Give one penny for every slice of bread in your house.

Day 24. Make a list of all the fruits and vegetables that you can name and put in a penny for each one on the list.

After you've accumulated all this, on Christmas, count it up, and donate the equivalent to a charity of your choice. Merry Christmas!

Costumes, 2008

Ti'anna and Ethan decided they would like to dress up as the Pevensies this year for our Harvest Festival, and of course I readily agreed. I ended up getting too late of a start (like that comes as any surprise) and so had to fudge on a lot of details as we raced right up to the last minute (we were actually almost an hour late for the party!), but thanks to several pots of coffee, two relatively sleepless nights, and my very sweet and helpful sisters, we got them done well enough to wear in time! Thanks to Izabelle for a great job drawing/stenciling the tabard, and to Hillarie, who lovingly handstitched the sleeves onto Ti'anna's bodice while I worked feverishly to make/attach the skirt. We did these solely from photographs, and had no patterns whatsoever to work with. I will be glad to do a full post on how I created Ethan's awesome armor if anyone is interested in reading it. More pictures can be viewed HERE. Aren't they just toooo adorable?!
The costumes!
The originals as they appeared in Prince Caspian.

Pictures from the road trip.

We all went to Nebraska by car in late September to visit Tim's family in Scottsbluff. We had a lovely time, spent 4 of seven days in the car, drove over 48 hours with no major complaints, and saw a huge swath of the United States in its autumnal glory. Didn't get a picture of the continental divide, though, as the time we passed it in the light, we were too busy gawking to remember to snap a few shots.
Click here for our favorite pictures from the trip!

Looks just as silly on people, we think.

From the 1974 Disney documentary, Animals Are Beautiful People

Animals gorge themselves on overripe fruit that has an alcohol-like effect on them, and even seem to suffer from hangovers the next morning. We've never seen a monkey with a headache before! :)

Our new friend.

This is Amy. She is the tiniest variety of dwarf pet hamster available, called a Roborovski. They hail from the Gobi Desert, and they are very fast! Fully grown, she will only be about two inches long. So far, she seems to like corn, strawberries, and broccoli very much, and enjoyed a special treat of Heart to Heart Kashi cereal tremendously. Her favorite pastime is running on her wheel and hiding from Ti'anna and Ethan. :) Hopefully she will get used to us more soon; we are just doing our best to make friends with her and help her feel more comfy in her new home. We named her Amy because a creature that tiny needs a very tiny name. (We had originally thought to call her Bumbleberry, but agreed it was too big a name for her.) She is a bit sweaty in this picture from Dad's hands, as she is VERY quick, and difficult to hold on to unless we enclose her fully in our hands, so we don't hold her very often. Watching her play and eat is entertaining enough! We also bought her a ball, but it only works on the hard flooring in the kitchen and hallway. She's really too tiny to move it very well, as it is designed for a standard hamster which are more than double her size and larger.

Art du jour.

"I came up with this piece of art from three things: one was China, the other was a person from Guild Wars, and the last one just came out of my head. The China parts are the wings, which I made to look like Chinese writing on the wings, and the pink I made on the shirt is like the Chinese fighter in Soul Calibur III. My favorite character in Guild Wars [a video game the family plays together- Ed.] is Gwen, so I gave her hair like Gwen's, and I made the green folding cloth skirt also like something from Guild Wars. The purple background is from my imagination, and its a mixed up fairy. It makes me feel like I'm in a magic place when I look at it, and I made it for my mom and dad." Dictated by Ti'anna.



EDIT:

Not to be outdone, Ethan brought this to me shortly after he realized that there was hope of worldwide publication involved here. I present to you Ethan's rendition of the celebrated, mythical, strikingly derivative Chinese Gwen Fairy! Huzzah for art!

Tiny photographers.

We've set up a photostream for the kids, since their camera-wielding has quadrupled in the last few months, and they are generating a metric tonne of photos. Many of these are actually pretty funny/endearing. However, they have requested the right to post the pictures they find to be best, so please keep in mind this reflects the artists' tastes. Mom and Dad retain the right to veto that which we deem totally unrecognizable (due to blur, lens flare, over/underexposure, or just plain nonsense) but what you will see is nearly unadulterated Ti'anna- and Ethan-ism. Enjoy! All these pictures are taken by the two of them, and totally unedited. http://www.flickr.com/photos/tianna_ethan/

Here's a few of my favorites:

My sister's wedding.

A few select pictures from Helen's wedding to Mr. Shawn Coons, March 22, 2008. Tim and I took all of these ones. Let me know if you'd like copies of any of them, and what size. :)

Mobile photo archive, EXPUNGE!

I dunno where that title came from, it just sounded like something a Japanese kids' show hero would shout, inaccurately translated. But seriously, we just switched cell phones, and I had to transfer all my old photos off of the old one, so I decided to post them on Flickr. These pictures range from late 2005 to last week, but I only had a tiny amount of space on my phone, so only the ones I really loved survived over the years. Enjoy! They take up the first page and part of the second.

Here's a few of my favorites. But click here for even more!


On the beach in Port Townsend while Dad is working. There was a musician playing homemade instruments, one-man-band style, just outside the frame.


In Applebee's, on a special day out with Mom.

Laksa, all the way from sunny Singapore!

http://www.youtube.com/v/IxSwi8hHXQg

Eric and Angeline (our dear friends in Singapore!) have sent us a kit for preparing a traditional Singaporean dish, Laksa. I think I thoroughly botched it, since several of the ingredients aren't available in our locale, but even if it wasn't quite just like what it is supposed to be, it was wonderful, and quite unlike anything we've ever had. Like a visit to a tropical island, right in the middle of late winter! Our hearty thanks for sharing, guys! *hugs* DELICIOUS.

http://www.youtube.com/v/R90weJw-3es

How do you ask...

...for a bathroom in China, if you don't speak Chinese? Is there a hand gesture or pantomime considered polite? Does saying it over and over in English get you very far? How long will you last until you run for the nearest bushes in desperation? What if you didn't realize that bushes were a necessary modesty?

http://www.autistics.org/library/dontmourn.html

This may be the most beautiful, inspiring, poignant piece of literature I have ever read regarding autism. How perfect that it was written by someone who has been classified autistic. This has been the battle cry I've been searching frantically for the words to since I realized Ethan was different. It sums up perfectly how I feel, and yet is still laser-like. Enjoy.

New pictures!

New pictures on Flickr! Clicky!
(For those unaccustomed to Flickr, this link will take you to my main photostream. I recommend selecting a set from the three listed on the right hand side of the page, like Ti'anna's 6th Birthday. When you get there, if you don't want to click on each picture successively, you can select "View as Slideshow" from the upper right-hand corner, which pops open a handy little dialog box. Click on any picture while they are playing for a closer view.) Enjoy!

Of special note: Ethan as a blur in a group picture (ah, art imitates life). Mom absent from all shots (life imitates art). Ti'anna holding a camera (she imitates me). Inverted glass pie plate holding a cake (pan imitates cake stand). That is all.

Christmas-ish, 2006

Our card reader for our camera has been on the fritz as of late-- so not only have we not been using our camera much, we also haven't been able to get the few pictures we've taken from camera to computer. Sorry for the delay. Don't forget you can click on each picture for a larger version if you need to!

Our newest family member!

Our kitten. We think her name is most likely going to be Cleo. But there's some voting for Chloe. And a half-hearted vote for Sweetie. (Swiftly vetoed by the powers-that-be.)

We'll keep you posted as the election rages on.

UPDATE:
The kitten is, in fact, male.
Where's the complaint department? The pet store assured me it was a female, I was VERY clear with them. *sigh* Ah, well. We've all been calling him a "her" and the name Cleo was finally settled upon when we discovered *ahem* the true nature of the creature. Ti'anna was looking through a cat care book and pointed out to me the "three dots under the tail" from the section on how to differentiate your kitten's gender. Cleo has three dots, sure as day.

Anyways, after another week of debating names--
Final votes came in:
Ti'anna: "Taggerung"
Ethan: "George"
Dad: "I don't care, what's wrong with Cleo for a boy?"
Mom: "How about Pigwidgeon? Or Crookshanks?"

Finally it was settled-- Dad said, "Look, guys- we all already think of her/him as Cleo, short for Cleopatra. Why not just change his name to Cleopatrick?"

And so it was.

A day at Third Beach, near La Push, WA

Ethan's 4th Birthday

Ethan chose chocolate for his cake, and Ti'anna chose the decorations and helped arrange them. We went outside after cake and blew bubbles! Thank goodness for the sunshine that day!

Inchworming along...

Ethan continues to astound me. It becomes more clear to me every day that what makes him different is a disorder, not a simple delay. Watching him advance at such a phenomenal rate in specific areas is helping the ways in which he is "behind schedule" feel like so much less of a burden.

He is speaking now- albeit at a skill level common to a child a year or two younger than him- and his speech is by turns cryptic and astonishing. (ie: ten lines of gobbledy-gook, punctuated by a precisely articulated quotation from a favorite movie, and followed by more gobbledygook) Speak to him slowly, and clearly, and in a sing-song voice- or even better, in phrases from his favorite shows and computer games- and he is (finally!) capable of following multi-step commands. He regularly expresses "theory of mind" (such as attempting to console a downhearted Ti'anna with the lion's share of his portion of dessert!) and is adept at reading facial expressions and body language, and reacting to it appropriately, though he lacks the language skills to describe what's taking place or how he feels about how someone else is feeling.

Perhaps the most astonishing to me is his growing command of written language. Somewhere along the line, all that endless repeating of the alphabet song, and watching us type and read, he discovered that letters represent sounds. Without direct and intentional instruction from anyone, he has learned to identify over 200 words- spontaneously. He loves to look through books and make up nonsense while tracing his finger along the lines of text and shouting out the word he knows when he gets to it. Last night, he was doing this to a recipe I was working from. Upon a closer listen, the mumbled nonsense surrounding the shouted, "E-G-G, egg! mumble, mumble, C-U-P, cup! M-I-L-K, milk! mumble mumble, O-R-A-N-G-E, orange!" turned out to be real words contextual to cooking. When I listened closely, I could make out: pumpkin, cake, bread, stir, mix-mix-mix! Although none of those words was on the paper, it proved to me that he was drawing the connection between what was on that page and what I was doing, even though I've never read a recipe to him. However, I let him help me make pumpkin muffins frequently, and I always have a recipe printed out in the same format sitting on the counter when we make them as I had out last night. Hmm.

Yesterday, he exhibited the first sign I've noticed that he's not just memorizing- he's actually working new words out based on words he knows. As we were getting him dressed for bed last night, we were yammering at him about his pajamas- "Pajamas, jammies, jams! One foot in, two feet in, hold still you! Jams on Ethan!"

He began repeating the word, "Jams!" He said it in the cutest way, with just a smidgen of a lisp at the end of it, and we giggled and said it over and over to get him to say it again. Then he started saying, "Spell, jams! Jams, J..." Here a brief pause. "Jams. J, A... F-- M, S! Jams!!!" he exulted. We were both dumbfounded.

"Did he just sound out a word?" I asked Tim. Tim looked at me with a smirk.

"Sure sounded like it."

So he can't tell me how old he is. So what? Who cares that when I ask him to "gimme five" he slaps my hand five times, and gets so into it that he has to go all the way to ten just to complete the pattern? (No matter how many times we demonstrate the "right" way for him!) I think its awesome. The victories are only that much sweeter for the trials that proceed them.

Happy Birthday, Ti'anna!

Ti'anna turns FIVE!
(click on the picture for a larger view)