Just for fun

Enjoying some watermelon during our 30+ hours without power post-hurricane

I promised some random videos - here they are!  The first includes the various incarnations of Juniper's current favourite song... our musical rendition of Sandra Boynton's book Barnyard Dance.

This second video is just a montage of some of the games and other things Juniper has been amusing herself with these days.

And finally... here is what Juniper looks like after she inevitably takes out her hair elastics.  Her hair is getting out of control!

Half-naked mad scientist!

Naming Ceremony

The guests of honour, chatting it up before the ceremony.
I'm pretty sure I overheard Patrick saying:
"... and then I TOTALLY body slammed the guy!" 

As I said in the previous post, one of the biggest August highlights for me was the naming ceremony.  It started out as an inkling of an idea that we thought would be nice for Juniper, and grew into a wonderful event to celebrate all four little friends who have spent so much time together in the last year: Juniper, Calla, Patrick and Isabella.  Unfortunately, Isabella was sick and couldn't make it, but she was there in spirit!

A lot of work went into pulling this off (mostly because of all the little things Clark and I decided to do for it), but it was well, well worth it.  For instance, here is a dress that I made for Juniper, front and back.  

The design is, of course, a Juniper bush.
I felted it onto the front after it was made.

Check out the pigtails!
Seriously, do you get any cuter than that?

So what is a naming ceremony?  Good question!  We basically just wanted to be able to celebrate the kids; to welcome them into the world, and into this wonderful little community that they have become a part of. Each family prepared their own special "presentation" of sorts for their respective child, and then we all did a few ceremonial things for the kids, and had some readings.  Here is a look at the program:

This is a picture of me explaining all of the ceremonial things we set up on the table.  We had Juniper incense burning, as a means of cleansing, purifying and protecting the physical and spiritual bodies, and banishing negative energies. Next to that was a sweetgrass candle, used to welcome in good influences. Each child was passed through the smoke of the Juniper first, and then the sweetgrass candle. Also, all three kids had their own special blessing stones. Each stone was passed around to everybody at the ceremony, so that they could bestow blessings or well wishes or positive energy or vibes, or whatever they wanted. The idea, of course, is that the kids will have these stones for the rest of their lives.

Sidenote: Kerry and Clark and I (and of course, Juniper and Patrick), went to Crystal Crescent the day before the ceremony specifically to let the kids choose their blessing stones. Juniper, however, found it difficult to stay on task.

Juniper's final pick

The day was absolutely gorgeous - sunny and warm and green and lush.  The kids were also champs - for the ceremony itself, the potluck afterwards, and then the extended hangout after that!  Here are a few pictures from the day:

Tawnya, Jeremy and Calla

Kerry, Kenny and Patrick

Our wonderful guests: Carroll and Stephen, Jane and Mike,
Kata, Bill and Barb.  My mom couldn't make it at the last
minute, but skyped into the whole ceremony from Newfoundland!

For anyone who actually took a good look at the program, you'll see that there was a "Tara, Clark and Juniper surprise".  Out of everything we did in preparation for the ceremony, this "surprise" was far and away the most time consuming, but I'm so so so happy it came together.  For months, Clark and I had been working on a board book - a story about the four kids and the adventures they dream up. We bought blank board books, and labels to stick in them. Then I wrote the story, and Clark did the illustrations, and we both filled in the colour.  It was way way way more work than we had even anticipated, but hopefully it will be one of those things the kids will be able to look fondly back on one day.  Here is an example of one of the pages - this is the Juniper example.

And that was basically it!  We had a scrumptious potluck afterwards, and then later that evening, we celebrated Barb (and my mom)'s belated birthdays with some ice cream and cake.

Juniper, relaxing with a hand-picked carrot, post-ceremony

Stay tuned - I'll hopefully have some random videos up before long!

August highlights

I'm a little shocked, but August has now come... and gone.  The heat snap is over, and fall seems to have settled in for real this time.  Although I am later getting around to this post than I had meant to be, it seems somewhat fitting to pay a little homage to August and all the highlights it entailed.

One of the biggest highlights was our naming ceremony, but I think it deserves it's own post.  So I will leave it out for now, with promises of a full report in the next couple of days.  In the meantime, here are a few pictures and short little explanations to go with them.

Here is Juniper sporting her birthday card and adorable apron from her auntie Zsofi. "Wouldn't this picture have been more appropriate with her birthday post?", you ask?  Touché.  But the reason I thought I should include it is because Juniper decided - I kid you not - to make this my desktop photo.  I'm not entirely sure how she accomplished it, but she saw my computer open, and with a few well-placed keypad strokes, changed my desktop from flowers to this particular photo of her.  True story.

Once upon a time, I thought that innocent little Juniper would pretty much never be allowed to have sugar in these early couple of years.  However, I quickly realised that she would absolutely not put up with being denied the opportunity to share whatever Clark and I were eating.  Sunny day ice cream?  You'd better believe it.  Don't worry - she didn't get her own cone - we all shared this one. 

Here is Juniper, taking care of Calla, as usual.  One of Juniper's most endearing qualities is how keen she is to interact with everyone - especially kids - and how attentive she is to their needs.  She loves to share whatever she thinks someone wants - in this case, obviously Calla really needed a ball :)  And while she truly is like this with most kids she meets - even complete strangers - she is especially attentive to Calla.  Case in point:

Seriously - how cute is this?

We love getting visits from Theresa - especially Juniper, who gets loads of attention.  We see Theresa enough that I sometimes forget to take pictures, but I'm glad I got this one - I think it is especially sweet.

Though this may seem silly, I'm proud to say that Juniper has mastered the concept of smelling - rather than just eating - certain things.  Here she is, trying out her smelling powers on a pretty yellow flower in the back yard.  She also feels she needs to "blow" her nose every time she becomes aware of a tissue box.  I'll have to catch that one on video at some point, because it is truly adorable.

This picture and the next one (and opening picture on this post, for that matter) are all from an adventure we took one day to Economy Falls, and then to a Gem and Mineral show in Parrsboro.   Clark and Juniper were very brave, and went for a dunk in the icy waters, as you can see:

Here is a shot from a hike that we went on with Tawnya, Jeremy and Calla, in the Salt Marsh Trails. Who did we encounter but a very rotund, happy seal sunbathing just off the path.  Check it out!

See that cigar-shaped mass by the water on the right?  Seal!

And finally...

I thought this shot was amazing for any number of reasons.  It is actually from the naming ceremony day, but I couldn't resist tagging it on to the end.  Patrick is SUPER into eating that block, and Calla is realtively unimpressed with yet more fawning attention from Juniper.  And there's Clark in the background, trying to get a shot from behind, but I think mine was way better :)

Stayed tuned - I promise to post about the naming ceremony post haste.