All Saints' Day

I spent a lot of time talking to the girls this year about why we choose not to celebrate our culture's typical Halloween.  They were incredibly intrigued with all the decorations and costumes, and eventually all the candy being marketed on every aisle.  They dress up so often anyway, and are certainly not deprived of treats, so they understood that they were not missing out on those aspects.  The big reason that we talked about is that, to us, it does not treat death appropriately.  This idea came up a lot because for some reason the decorations in the grocery store and around town seemed especially focused on death and gore.

Death has been a frequent topic for us this year, so it was natural to continue our conversations about what death means, how we feel about it, and how we remember those who have died.  On one hand, as Christians, we can laugh at "death" because it has no hold on us.  On the other hand, life and death are sacred and we believe they should be respected and honored.  

That led us to talking about All Saints' Day and All Souls' Day - Halloween comes from "All Hallows' Eve;" the eve of "All Hallows' Day," or All Saints' Day.  November 1 and 2 are the days on which the western church remembers those who have died in the faith.  My prayer book of the Daily Offices reminded me earlier this week that "although popular thinking tends to honor only the canonized saints, scripture names all Christians as 'Saints'," so I was already reflecting upon that when Elsa asked me if we could celebrate All Saints' Day.  I remember one of the churches I attended in the past lighting candles and remembering all those in the congregation and their relatives who had died that year, but beyond that I had no other framework on which to base a celebration, so we made one up!

We decided to have candles, a picture of each person we were remembering and thanking God for, flowers, prayer, singing, and apple pie (Elsa's request)!

Elsa wanted to draw a picture of each person we were remembering, and she picked a flower especially for each one from our garden.  We remembered Oliver:

My grandfather Myron, who died a week before Oliver,

Krupa, a little girl in India that I knew and loved who died about a month before Oliver:

and Mister Rogers, who did not die this year, but Elsa wanted to remember him too:

She set it all up - and even though she looks somber in these pictures she really enjoyed the whole evening - she was just concentrating!

We talked about what we remembered about and learned from each one.  We sang "For All the Saints" with a congregation on YouTube (during which Elsa danced and joined in for the "Allelulia"s).  We watched an episode of Mister Rogers.  We offered thanksgiving to God for those we miss and prayed the All Saints' Day collect from the Book of Common Prayer, and then ate apple pie (sorry, no photo of the pie, but it was yummy!).

I cried some when we prayed and sang, and thanked God for a new family tradition, especially one developed by my five year old!

Oliver-Krupa Memorial Fund

When I mentioned Krupa in the previous post about All Saints' Day, I realized that I forgot to finish and publish this post explaining what we chose to do with Oliver's memorial funds.  Better late than never, so here it is, and it will explain more why Krupa was and is dear to me.

To those who we knew send a gift, we thanked them with a note that read as follows:

"Thank you for donating to Margham in honor of Oliver Michael Dunham. Margham is a non-profit mission organization that supports local pastors, churches, and orphanages in India, and was started by Oliver's grandfather, Darrell Dunham. A few weeks before Oliver died, a young girl who lived in a Margham orphanage named Krupa died from complications from AIDS. We have decided to use the gifts from Oliver's memorial to create a special “Oliver-Krupa” fund that will be set aside and used for special and emergency medical needs of the children in the Margham orphanages. We feel so blessed to have had access to so many medical resources as we cared for Oliver, and your gift will be used to help underprivileged Indian children in medical emergencies or with serious medical conditions. Thank you so much. To learn more about Margham please visit www.margham.org."

I remember Krupa as a quiet but bright child who loved to dance and lead singing during the daily worship at the children's home.  I know her "family" at the children's home miss her dearly, but, together with them, I look forward to dancing with her one day before our Lord's throne.

 (Krupa is in the light yellow dress in the front row)

Mopping

How to mop the dining room:  

1. Select and wear favorite tiara.  Or even just the one that fits you best.

2. Select and wear coordinating fancy dress-up shoes.  They make a satisfying "clip-clop" on the tile.

3. Make sure you have everything you need in your handbag.

4. Wear your sunglasses, so then if you miss a spot you can't tell.

5. Move so fast that you give the appearance of working really hard.

Vicarious farm life

There is a part of me that loves wearing tall rubber boots and mucking about with farm animals.  A bigger part of me enjoys letting someone else get up before dawn to milk the cows and feed the chickens.

We've been getting our milk fresh from a small local ranch for several years now, and the girls and I wear our boots and live vicariously through our friend who does all the real, daily, hard work to run the place. Recently one of the mama cows wouldn't keep her baby, so they've been bottle feeding the calf, and the girls were delighted to help.

 

The mama cows are not quite as interesting, but there is one that is often more curious and friendly.

A few weeks ago Elsa commented thoughtfully, after spending a few quiet moments observing the pigs, that "pigs have such busy lives.  They sleep and eat and get in the water and lie down and get up and snort and run around and smell each other!  They are so busy!"  Sheesh, their routine makes my day look lazy!

Among the dogs and cats at "our" farm is an obnoxiously friendly cat that has been named "Annoying" by the grown-ups and who is the delight of every child that visits.  He even got smuggled home with one of them and had to be driven back!  Elsa loves it when he jumps in our car, but thankfully we've caught him each time!

And when we have had our fill of throwing acorns to the pigs and Nora stepping in fresh cow paddies, we drive the 15 minutes back to our house in town, take off our boots, and are thankful those who do get up in the morning to do the milking.

What happened at the Pumpkin Patch

The girls have been bouncing off the walls more than usual lately, so I was just as excited a they were to find that the pumpkin patch we went to this year has a HAY JUMP!!!  This is nothing incredibly special or organized, just a pile of hay and some bales to jump off from.  And it was FREE!  and Mommy didn't fuss, because it wasn't the furniture!

Nora and Elsa both discovered new skills that day - Nora finally figured out how to join the family in making not only a funny face, but a DIFFERENT funny face in each photo:

Well, I'll give her credit for trying in that last one.  And Elsa figured out how to whistle!  All on her own!

The best part (for me) was that she was so happy about it that she actually gave me a REAL smile!  She is a pro at those fake five-year-old photo smiles, so that was pretty exciting for me.  Joel is rather proud of her whistle and has been helping her try to do different notes and tunes.

Kitty love

Tabitha Twitchit is a very, very happy cat.  She purrs and paws the ground every time she just even sees us, and when we pay attention to her, which we do regularly, she flops down and rolls and stretches to make sure we've scratched and petted every spot.  She especially loves rolling on the rocks (I think it's like a big back scratch) and having her belly rubbed, and Elsa is happy to oblige her at every opportunity.  

Super-girl

"Mommy, I'm super-girl!"

"What does that mean?"

"I have my boots on and I can step from this rock to this one."

"See?!?!...watch me...

... I got it!"

new girl in the class

Nora has graduated from "tag-a-long" to being an official ballerina in the little ballet class our friend teaches out of her home.  She loves it, and Elsa is excited to have her fully participate.  They are both so serious during the lesson!

backyard studio

Elsa is becoming quite the artist.  She insists on only using blank paper and a plain pencil (a friend gave her a huge ream of printer paper for her birthday and it is almost gone!).  The other day she asked for a place to sit outside so she could draw the trees.  It took me a while to situate the chair just right for her liking (I suppose artists do tend to be perfectionists...), but we finally succeeded.  

THREE

Our little Nora is now three.  It got a little confusing because we celebrated early while my mother and grandmother were still here, so when her actual birthday came I had to do some convincing that she really, really was three now.

The highlight of her little party was her favorite gift.  I asked her earlier what she wanted for her birthday, and she said, after a brief pause to think, "my blankie and my pooh bear and my dollie and my pillow."  She was completely serious and had no other answer when I asked if there was anything ELSE she wanted.  So we bundled up her blankie, pooh bear, dollies and pillow from her bed into a large gift bag, and, as you can see, she was delighted!  Oh, my sweet little girl.

Don't worry, she received and was delighted with several other lovely (and new) gifts, including a little doll quilt that Elsa had sewn all by herself with Nana's instructions.

We went easy on the fancy "cake" - she was completely happy with frosted rice krispy treats.

Happy Birthday little one!

We escaped completely... for a week anyway

So what did Joel and I do while the girls were at the coast with my mother and grandmother?  We were on a cruise to Alaska and, as Princess Cruises advertises in their motto, we escaped completely.

It was wonderful.  The weather was perfect, the sights were amazing, the wildlife cooperated, the pools were warm, and I didn't have to cook or clean anything.

If you want to see the full album, there are about 200 photos in this web album, otherwise I'm posting my favorites of my favorites here in a few posts.

This is actually the view of the Olympic Mountains from Joel's uncle's house before we boarded the ship in Seattle:

The "plaza" in the ship was three stories tall.  They had a variety of performers and activities there, including a lovely string quartet.

It was also the location of the International Cafe, where we could get salads, sandwiches, and our favorite desserts anytime we wanted!

One of the reasons for the cruise was our 10th anniversary!  Unfortunately this is the only photo we have of the formal nights or any of the evening activities and entertainment.  We had such a great time that I didn't think to take pictures!

And what cruise would be complete without a pastry buffet extravaganza?

But we weren't there only to eat dessert, and I was terribly excited to see several humpback whales our first day at sea: