A Momentary Distraction

Wes and Joan have taken the day off to go to Burlington to see their Aunt Ellie. Our love, thoughts, prayers are with her and her family as they go through this very tough time.


I hope that those of you who are thinking of Ellie throughout the day will be able to enjoy these pictures as a momentary distraction.

Hello again, Pond.


During the winter, skating on the pond became too much of a challenge. It snows everyday here in the NEK, so we soon abandoned our shovels in favor of the Lyndonville rink and waited for the snow and ice to melt before we could once again visit The Pond. We pulled on our mud boots and made our way over through the muck and mud. It was worth it. When we got there, two mallard ducks were waiting for us.

I wonder if these ducks are wild or tame? They were not bothered by our visit. In fact they came quite close to us as if looking for food.

I wonder if there will be ducklings soon?

Wayne looks about 6 feet tall in this picture.

Cole is also losing his "little kid" look. What is happening to my babies?

Heather finds last winter's hockey stick in the grass and works on her skills.
Cole and Wayne fly a kite. And you thought Superman was the only one who could fly!

A two person puppeteer team called "No Strings" came to Wayne's school earlier this week to put on a marrionette performance of The Hobbit during school hours. It was amazing.

This one is half costume, half puppet.

The dragon was very popular. I was there with Cole and Heather and I was a little worried that some parts of the show would be too scary for them, but they didn't bat an eye. One of the best parts of the show, I thought, was afterward when the two people came out to the audience with the life size marrionettes and had a question and answer period. They make everything themselves - the puppets, the costumes, the stage and backdrops, the script and the soundtrack. Just two people. They come from Randolph.

And Cole had some excitement in preschool this week, too. They've had an incubator full of eggs in their classroom and they have been very impatiently waiting for the chicks to hatch. Yesterday was the big day.
One chick, out of about 18, hatched. That was one popular little chick and the kids were very happy to have even that one little guy. They named him Fluffy Duffy.

That's all the news from Elijah's Place.

Now, vacation!

A Batman Comic Strip by Wayne

Wayne brought this comic strip assignment home from school. I thought it was cute, crazy pictures, misspellings, and all.

The weirdest creature jumps on to the top of the T-Rex skeleton and causes it to come alive.

The T-Rex attacks Batman.

But Batman uses one of his ingenious tools against the weird creature and the T-Rex.

Batman separated the weird creature from the dinosaur, but he has to finish the creature off and put the dinosaur skeleton back the way it belongs.

Gotham City is safe once more.

This House is Full of Chocolate

Our Easter festivities started yesterday. There was an Easter egg hunt at the Glover school. Heather was absolutely enthralled with the giant Bunny that was there.
Candy was scattered throughout the playground. Kids age 0 to 4 were in the first round...

Then more candy was scattered around and Cole and Wayne's 5 to 8 age group was let loose. Wayne was moving too fast for me to get a good picture of him. Cole ened up with A LOT of candy. Meanwhile, inside there were sack races, egg races, and egg dying and decorating.
Afterwards, we came home and decorated our own eggs.

Wayne got really creative with his eggs.

This was Wayne's Easter basket - a bag that straps onto the handle bars of a bike. Wayne is always trying to transport things on his bike, so I guess the Easter Bunny thought this would be a good idea to use for a basket. Tucked inside amongst the candy was a bike computer so he can also keep track of his mileage and speed.

Cole's Easter basket was a Titanic beach set. Tucked away in the candy was a pocket watch like the one his character uses in the Titanic computer game.

Heather's basket was also a pink camouflage hat.

Here she is with her basket from the previous day's egg hunt looking like an Easter version of Little Cindy Lou Who.

Cole discovers his pocket watch. Between the pocket watch and the giant lollipop, Cole felt that this was the "Best Easter Ever!"

Wayne explores his basket.

Heather tries on her hat.

Peter, Jeanne, Katie, Lizzy, and Joanie came for dinner. This is the kids table, although I'm not sure Katie and Lizzy count as kids anymore.

The "adult's" table. Jeanne brought ham, corn, and two chocolate cream pies. Yum! Joanie made a pear and blue cheese salad, and a fruit salad. I made au gratin potatoes, and roasted asparagus.

Some fresh air and exercise after a big dinner.

Wayne was determined to get inside this giant old maple tree.

And he did. I was afraid he would get stuck.

Heather climbed on some rocks.

Group photo of the kids.
Happy Easter everyone! Hope you had as much fun today as we did.

Top of His Class!

Wayne got his report card this week and it's the same old thing, all E for Excellent across the board, so this time I'll just share Mrs. Dunlavey's comments:

Now if he can just keep this up for the next 20 or so years.

Cole and I have a meeting this afternoon with Mrs. Dudley, the kindergarten teacher, to get him registered for next year. It looks like he's going to have a very small class - they only know of about 5 or 6 kids so far who will be starting kindergarten in the fall. They better get ready to learn all about the Titanic.

Birthday Highlights

This house was a dangerous place to be on Cole's birthday.

The Titanic was sinking. Dinosaurs were hunting. Pirates were attacking. The Beatles were singing. Luckily, there was a superhero or two around to save the day.
While Cole was at preschool, I frosted and decorated his cake.

Edible dinosaurs on the side.

It's hard to make plans for Cole's birthday. It seems like every year someone is sick and whatever plans we've made fall through. When he turned 3, he was very sick with the flu. Last year, for his 4th birthday, Julie and Estelle were in Glover. Both Estelle and Heather came down a terrible fever that seemed to go on and on forever. We had to postpone and replan his birthday dinner when everyone was feeling better. So this year, we kept it small, and just invited a couple of friends, Dante and Fintan, to come for hamburgers and cake and ice cream.

We had a few of the jello "drinks" left over from Cole's preschool birthday/April Fool's celebration. So we decided to try them out on Dante and Fintan.

Fintan was thirsty.

Hmmm. What kind of juice is this?

I need to tell you something about Fintan. Wes planned a little treasure hunt for the kids with hand written clues on little pieces of paper which were hidden around the house. Fintan was easily able to read the clues all by himself. And he won't even be five until August. Home-schooled.

Dante is a big Beatles fan. It seems like he knows every word to every Beatles song ever recorded. He and Wes had a great time singing and playing guitar. Wes has a new friend.

Time for the cake. Cole covered his ears when we sang the birthday song, but at least he did not run crying from the room. After our traditional birthday song, Wes and Dante sang the Beatles birthday song. By the way, that Spiderman costume belongs to Dante. He was very nice to let Cole wear it for his birthday. Cole loved it.

Finally the gifts! Cole had been telling everyone all day, "I hope you didn't get me clothes. I don't like getting clothes presents." He was very excited to open this gift from Wayne. Wayne had made a ship out of paper. It's not the Titanic, but some sort of freighter that carries an airplane. Cole loved it and gave Wayne a big hug.

This is the greatest hat! It's not a very good picture but it says, "Titanic." Sylvia, D and F's mom, made it.

A motorized Titanic for the bathtub.

A poster from Julie, Thomas, and Estelle. The best kind - it shows both the Titanic and the iceberg. Thank you, Julie.

Fintan checks out some dinosaurs that Cole got from Gramma and Grampa. Thank you, G&G.

A playmobile Pirate set from Joanie.

He also got a couple of video games and several books. All in all, a lot of loot!

Thank you to everyone for your phone calls, e-mails, singing, and wishes. He enjoyed all his gifts. He loved the birthday cards from Auntie Di, Billy and Chris, Grampa and Gramma, Grammie, Lisa, and Dan, Peter, Jeanne and the girls. He was tickled pink with the birthday money and feels very rich indeed.

I was very glad that he was finally able to enjoy his birthday on his birthday. When he went to bed, I asked him, "Did you enjoy your birthday, Cole?"

He said, "Yes. I loved it."

I'm Not Foolin' You - Cole is 5 Today!

It's hard to believe that my little April Fool's Day baby is suddenly 5 years old.

We've got a lot planned for today.

First of all, cupcakes for the whole preschool class.
If you look closely, you'll notice that one of these cupcakes is not like the others. It's actually a toy plastic cupcake for our pretend kitchen. I'm going to tell Miss Denise to give that one to Cole as a little April Fool's Day prank. Too bad it's a little smaller than the real ones. Don't worry. When the jig is up he'll get a real one.

And I made a little fruit punch for the kids to drink with their cupcakes. Yes, all poured and everything. The trouble is, when the kids try to take a sip, nothing will come out of the cup. It's really jello. That's my old stand by prank. An oldie, but a goodie. Cole does know about the jello/juice prank and he's very excited about it.

Stay tuned for more birthday updates. There's some friends coming over and there will be a cake with dinosaurs. We did the Titanic last year, so this year I thought we'd go with Cole's other interest, dinosaurs.

Heather was mildly sick again yesterday. Potting training is going nowhere with her, but on the other hand, she does know enough to yell, "I need da bowl! I gotta fwo up!" You can see she's been through this a few times this winter.

Happy April Fool's Day.

And Happy Birthday to Cole!