Suddenly September

It's been slightly over a month since our last post, and I suppose we are due for some chastisement...but without a camera, it's just not the same. Someday we'll get a new one.

A lot has happened since early August. We did a puppet show for the Teddy Bear Picnic at Hogle Zoo. It's always great to be back at the Zoo, of course. This past Friday, we performed again at the Timpanogos Storytelling Festival. Although we missed Caitlin, who recently left to pursue her graduate degree in puppetry, and Sean, who left not so recently to pursue non-puppet-related graduate studies in Europe, and Patrick, who left for New York some time ago, we were glad to have Dave with us again. We couldn't have done it without him. It was a well-received show, and the finale, "So You Think You Can Dance (Like a Puppet)" was a smash hit.

On www.maxedoutpuppetry.com, we recently released "Los Pantalones de Antonio," a short that we have been meaning to do for some time, since Sean and I came up with the premise at a practice way back when. Go check it out--and while you're at it, if you have a facebook account, you can join "Friends of Maxed Out Puppetry" if you want. We have a couple of things we filmed when Caitlin was still here that we'll be releasing in the next couple of months. Hopefully by then, we will have managed to film something else.

Laurelin started school with unbridled enthusiasm, the boys with thinly veiled distaste. Well, it was more like open hostility.

Although Isaac is trying really hard to have a better attitude, and so far he's been good about starting his homework right after school without being reminded.

It was really nice at the Storytelling Festival this year, the kids were finally all old enough that we could all sit together and listen. No one ran off, no one got whiney, I even got to sit next to Rus. I had just as much fun watching their faces and reactions to the stories as I had listening to the stories themselves. The Storytelling Festival always makes me think of my Aunt Sissie, she's a wonderful story teller.

Gwen and I have enjoyed having some just her and me time while the older kids were at school. We've been to the zoo twice, and she's been a great helper at home and while going shopping.

The other day the subject of addictions came up. After talking about it for a minute Xander said, "I'm addicted to fruits and vegetables!" I laughed and Gwen (in her "I'm the youngest child and I never want to be left out of anything" tone of voice) said, "I'm adopted to pears!"

We watched some old video footage of one the puppets interviewing Laurelin shortly after we had returned from Hawaii. She was 4 years old and it was amazing to see how much younger she was, and yet how much still herself she was. I was talking to her the other day and I swear she got older just during our conversation. Speaking of older, on Friday Isaac will officially be into the double digits. How crazy is that? We're going to go down to Orem to have a cousin birthday party, instead of doing a friend birthday party up here. He can be so sweet. Yesterday Rus was going to take all the kids to the library and I was going to stay home to catch up on a couple of things. Isaac gave me a hug and said he was going with Babbo, so that I "could have some peace time to rest" because he loved me. He said "Get as much rest as you can!" Sweet boy. Well, I'll stop babbling now. Have a lovely week!