The Kentucky Headhunters meet Bug

Bug got to meet the Kentucky Headhunters on Saturday. She also got to check out the tour bus.
Here she is with Richard & Greg.


Here's Bug next to the tour bus. She thought that it was amazing that there were 12 beds in there....and TVs.
Here she is, wearing her new "dress"...

Bug is SIX!

Better late than never, right? Bug turned 6 a couple of weeks ago. We hit the road and made stops in Madison, Milwaukee and Sheboygan. Here are some of the highlights, in no particular order:

Bug got a tour of Smart Studios in Madison. It was VERY hard to not mess with any of the buttons or switches!
She had fun reading the names of some of the pedals at the studio. Here she is holding one that her dad built.

Among her gifts was a cool book about the states.

Grandma pulled off the big surprise...the girl was speechless when she realized that she got a SCOOTER!

We finally made a visit to the Milwaukee Art Museum. Bug enjoyed most of it...

While in Madison, we had to stop at Ella's Deli for lunch, ice cream and a carousel ride.

Also while in Madison, we went to Wild Child where Bug managed to find one last black hat/skirt. It went well with the Ramones shirt that we gave her for her birthday.

We went to Sheboygan, to the Paradigm Coffee House. What a cool place! We didn't tell Bug why we were going, just that it would be a "bigger surprise than the scooter". She was thrilled to see Garnet Rogers. She agreed that he was a better surprise than the scooter...Here she is with him and his latest CD that he gave her for her birthday. (He also opened the show with her two favortite songs)

Bug was able to read her own cards this year....what fun!

A little of this, a little of that...

Bug met the "big dog" next door. His name is "Zook". She likes him now and plays fetch with him. Their first meeting wasn't so great, though. He was a bit excited and licked her in the face. She had her chalk out and wrote "don't like my face" on the sidewalk. I asked her why it was backwards. She said that she wrote it that way so that Zook could read it. (I think she was trying to write it upside down...either way, it's pretty cool)

Bug just finished a 6-lesson karate class at the neighborhood center. At the end of it, they received their white belts. Bug's dad was able to get an hour off in the afternoon to join us for the final class. Here she is with the instructor.
Here she is with the entire class. They were all so excited that day.
We had surprise visitors earlier this month....all the way from Oregon!

Just a few pics to share.

Bug doesn't nap much these days...this was at 5PM one night. I let her snooze for 30 minutes. It was a good thing. I took the picture because I was pretty sure that she would deny being asleep (which she did).
Bug gets a bit fancy with her letters these days.

Here's an old one....makes me laugh whenever I see it. This was August, 2004. Bug was 2 years old and we were at Grandma's house. We'd just gotten off the train from California. Auntie Sharon caught her in a most interesting pose.

Bug in space!

Bug's dad has a co-worker who likes to take pictures of the girl and then have a bit of fun with them. Here's one from yesterday. (yes, she leaves the house like that....)

We've got a knitter!

Bug has always enjoyed playing with yarn and whenever I'd ask her if she wanted to learn how to knit she would say "When I'm bigger." Last Saturday, while at the local yarn shop, she saw a 5-year-old girl who was knitting. The next day, I got out some yarn and needles and knit a couple of rows for her. I then taught her a poem to remember what to do. (she loves poems)
She was so proud of herself!

Bug also confused her daddy last weekend. He was outside and she opened the door and shouted "Dad, I need the grass measurer!" It took me a minute to figure it out....she wanted the yard stick!

Fun at the Children's Museum

Bug and I went to the local Children's Museum on Saturday. We usually go on weekday mornings, when the climbing wall is not in use. We weren't sure if she was big enough to climb. She asked the guy if she was. He said "are you 5?" and she squealed with joy that yes, she was! Notice, she got to keep her hat on under the helmet. Does she look excited?
Once she realized that she shouldn't hang onto the rope, she did pretty well.


At this point, she got a little scared, so he brought her down. She was probably 10' - 12' up.
The giant teeth are one of her favorite things to climb on in the museum.

They were having a teddy bear clinic the day we visited. Bug got to help put casts on her new bear's legs.

Art/stories from last week.

Last week, Bug decided to draw a steam shovel. It's apparently digging for the "golden cup" on the bottom of the drawing.

This is an alien named Max.

While I was out of town for the weekend, Bug and her dad watched "Over the Hedge". I've not seen it, so I had no clue what this drawing was about when she brought it over to me last night. Apparently there's a skunk in the movie that yells "fire in the hole!" She found it quite amusing.

The girl made me cry.

A friend of ours died in a car accident last week. She was a local musician who was more energetic than any person I know. Bug had seen her band play nearly every month of her life. We went to the wake on Wednesday. On Thursday, Bug drew this. She said to me "This is Jane after she died."

Bug's latest work

Bug has been working on her writing/spelling lately. Here she is, hard at work.


In case you can't read it, this one says "Spiderman is happy." (because he caught a bad guy, according to Bug)

This one says "No one is happy in this picture." (I only help her with spelling in this book if she asks for help.)

Finally...an update with PICTURES!

I finally managed to find a way to post pics again. Bug is still drawing every day. Here are a few recent drawings.
She doesn't usually look at something and draw it, so this one is rather special.

Next up is a chameleon that "got hurt and had to go to the hospital."

Finally, we have Arthur. She's been watching him on PBS and drew this before going to bed one night.

She's still into putting together silly costumes, as you can see.

I think that this photo sums up Bug's Christmas experience. Can she be any more excited? I don't think so.

We have moved.

No photos for a while (until we have internet access at the new house), but I just wanted to post an update.

We're slowly getting settled. We have beds and a table to eat at, so things are good. Bug is thrilled, as the first night we were there we got SNOW. We've had 3 snowstorms in the 11 days we've been here. Oh, and ICE, too. Did I mention that our shovel was 90 miles away for the first storm? That was cool. We now have a shovel, ice chopper and ice melt, so we're ready for anything.

Bug hasn't spotted it yet (and I've only had a brief glimpse), but we've got a bunny in the area. We see fresh tracks every morning. When we got home last night, there were even tracks on our steps. Bug found that quite interesting.

We're off to see the Holiday Train today. That's always fun. Bug's only missed it once, and that was last year. Hopefully it won't be too cold.

The Holiday Stroll

We are in the midst of moving to another town/state. A friend from our hometown visited the new house today and brought me and Bug back to our hometown for the annual Holiday Stroll. It was chilly, but fun. Bug and I started by having some chili. Hard to eat with mittens on!


The girl was READY for the wind.
The highlight of the night was seeing Santa. Our first glimpse of him came when we spotted him riding on the firetruck at the end of the parade. Yay!

I hadn't told Bug about one last surprise. After they lit all of the Christmas lights downtown, they also lit a tree on the bluff. Then they had a short, but cool, fireworks show from the top of the bluff. Very fun. She was thrilled. We also ran into Aunt Peg and Cousin Ben (who just shot his first deer!), so that made the night even more fun.

Keep us in your thoughts...

Bug's dad & I, that is....You see, Bug has entered the "made-up joke phase". Here are the jokes she told me this morning, before I was even out of bed:

Q: What looks like a window and has a shade?
A: A rotten egg.

Q: What tastes like chocolate and looks like shade?
A: Math.

Q: What looks like skin and has clothes?
A: Blood.

Q: What is a nose and has glasses and toots?
A: Bones.

Q: What can you watch and has very sticky tape?
A: A fox tooting.

So, you see what we're going through? These are all followed by lots of laughter from Bug.

Some videos that you must see.

We've got some friends who record CDs and tour, sharing their wonderful music. They just put up some live videos and I think that you should check them out. They are called Patchouli and we love them.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=5cFsEWaB7CA

http://youtube.com/watch?v=FWxR1ua33L4

http://youtube.com/watch?v=YXqQURhk_0g

http://youtube.com/watch?v=U1w1Nt8XOfs


If you like them, check out their website and see if they're playing a show near you.
www.patchouli.net

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

Bug LOVES the movie, The Nightmare Before Christmas. A couple of weeks ago I came across a pattern to make a Jack Skellington doll. (the main character from the movie) She loved it. While working on that, I also came across a pattern for a mask modeled after Jack, as well. She saw a picture of it and said "Oh! I can be Jack!" I found a cool jacket at the Salvation Army and we were done. Easy, but scary, costume. She walks around in it saying "I'm Jack Skellington, the pumpkin KING!"

New friends

Yesterday I was out with my knitting group, finishing this Jack Skellington doll for Bug.


When I got home, I found out that she and her dad made a "new friend", too. First it was to be a robot, but soon became a crash-test-dummy. If you look closely, you can see the face that Bug drew on it.

Now she's a writer...

While helping Bug get ready for bed last night, I spotted two sheets of paper on her floor. I assumed she'd been drawing, but then noticed that they were covered with letters. As I looked more closely, I noticed that they were, in fact, covered in words. They seemed random, to me. I asked Bug what they said. (which is when I found out that while her spelling isn't bad and her letter formation is pretty darn good, her sentence structure is non-existent)

Story #1, according to Bug, says:
Poop is a mess.
Pee is a mess too.


Story #2:
No Nan was mad and he was mad.
I need to go to potty.