Stockholm Art Fair

We spent last Saturday at the Stockholm Art Fair. It's always fun. The weather was perfect, the music was great. Bug was thrilled that they had added to the play area.

Here she is on the spinning rings of death. (Bug is in brown)
With her buddy, Yata.

Our former neighbor, Angela, had this lovely piece on display.

Check out the title....

Bug goes for a spin. DON'T JUMP!!!

Bug was happy when she realized that she was big enough to push the other kids this year.
Will she do it?
A new skill was mastered...Bug had never tried this before. I helped her one time and that was it. I'm not sure how many times she did this in the 5 hours we were there...but it was a lot.

Summer update.

Here are some random pics from the summer.
First up, Bug found this metal model car kit on sale at Hobby Lobby and NEEDED it. She could hardly wait to get home and put it together. I think her face says it all.

Bug's dad found this huge moth the other night. We haven't identified it yet, but will keep you posted.

We found a "build your own robot" kit for $5 the other day. Bug was thrilled, as you can see.


Here she is at the "candy parade" in Maiden Rock. Always a fun time.

Last weekend, at the Anderson Center, she discovered that she's finally tall enough to climb onto (and jump off of) the "big rock" all by herself.

LOUD squeals of joy erupted from our house when I brought in the mail and there was an autographed postcard for Bug from......BILL NYE THE SCIENCE GUY!!!!!

Again, at the Anderson Center, with friends...getting a pottery demonstration from our former neighbor, Angela. We miss her.

Walking to the Children's Museum, hand-in-hand with her friend Kaz. (anyone surprised that she found a long-haired boy?!)

Bug is staying busy with art classes this month. She also had a cooking class that she really enjoyed. We've got next week off and I'm looking forward to it.

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."