Sonja and I have been talking about painting together since I first moved to Southern California over a year ago. She came down here once specifically for that reason, but when we got to the studio we learned that many, many people consider Valentine’s Day a great day to go paint with their sweeties. Who knew? We didn’t get to paint that day, but I offered Sonja the consolation prize of our two-level Target. It must have worked because she’s still speaking to me.

Uh…you are still speaking to me, Sonja, aren’t you? (Just kidding. She totally is.)

We met at a studio midway between my house and Sonja’s beach house, which worked out pretty well. We ate lunch at Einstein Brothers, where we saw a woman come into the restaurant with a tiny kitten. Shortly after that, we saw the manager politely but firmly tell her that her kitten was very cute but was against health regulations and could not remain in the restaurant. Despite the fact that the worker who took my order gave me the wrong side and also the wrong toppings on my Tasty Turkey, I was impressed by the manager’s handling of the Kitten Situation and would totally go back there. I’m a sucker for people who follow the rules and have good manners.

Which, come to think of it, is probably why I’m friends with Sonja.

After lunch we took the kids to the splash fountain to play in the water. This was the same fountain we played in once when we met Brenda & Bug for lunch. That time I wasn’t prepared with a change of clothes or anything, and Annalie got soaked. This time I had a towel and a change of clothes, and Annalie barely got wet at all. Figures.

Eventually we did make it to the pottery studio. I’d never been there before, but this is a branch of the same studio I go to all the time right by my house. There are a few employees who work at both places and I was kind of hoping there’d be someone I knew working that day. No such luck, but it was kind of fun when one of the girls called my usual studio to confirm my membership discount. Taryn, who’s a sweetheart and is often working when I’m painting, answered the phone, confirmed my membership and added, “Tell Bethany I said hi!” That made me feel all loved and special. It’s so fun being one of the regulars at a place like that.

Sonja got to work painting handprint mugs for her parents, with a little help from Noah. He was quite bemused when we painted his hand and kept trying to squish the paint in his hand. But he was a trooper and cooperated well enough that we got two adorable handprints I’m sure his grandparents will treasure. (Above photo was taken after they were fired.)

Annalie painted a unicorn in record time and then she was done. DONE done. She was ready to go back outside and play in the splash fountain.

Luckily, Sonja and I had cleverly planned for this eventuality by waiting to paint pottery till my mom was back in town. Anyone who has been reading my blog for a while, or who knows my mom in real life, knows that she is the Baby Whisperer. (Forget that lady who writes the books. My mom is the real deal.) Kids of all ages, but especially babies and little kids, love my mom. She’s incredibly patient and listens to what they have to say. She walks slowly so it’s easy for them to keep up. She laughs at their silly jokes and tickles them and lets them snuggle on her lap all they want. She’s very calm and when she holds babies, even cranky crying babies, they almost invariably drift off to sleep.

Noah was no exception. My mom took Annalie back out to the fountain, which is conveniently located right next to the pottery studio, pushing Noah in his stroller. They stayed out there quite a while, letting me and Sonja finish our projects. Noah spent part of the time playing in the water and part of the time just relaxing in the stroller with a snack, watching Annalie run around, perfectly happy even though he couldn’t see his mama.

It was a fun day, and I’m glad we finally painted together! Now the only question is, when are we going to do it again?

This is the piece I painted that day. I’ve been meaning to paint it for more than a year now, ever since my friend Gloria mentioned in passing that she liked my dotty mugs and wouldn’t mind owning one someday. I actually painted a mug for her once but there was a problem with it once it was fired and I didn’t want to give a gift that had an obvious flaw. So I figured I’d paint another one. A few months later, I painted another mug thinking it might be for Gloria, but ended up selling it when someone asked if I would.

I’m glad now that I didn’t give her either of those mugs, because this is probably one of my favorite ones that I’ve ever painted. The colors are so summery and happy! I’m glad this is the one I ended up giving to my friend.

I’ve known Gloria almost my whole life. She’s a member of the same church as my parents, and over the years she’s taught my midweek classes, I’ve babysat her son and folded her laundry, she hired me for my first and second jobs and was my boss (both times I was a library page at the branch where she was the head librarian), and we’ve shared sheet music and laughed our way through many choir rehearsals together. She’s one of my real-life friends who reads my blog and often emails responses to my posts, and when we’re home visiting my parents’ church she always makes a point of coming over for a hug and a brief chat. She is thoughtful and wise and calm and full of grace, and I thank God each time I remember her.

Annalie woke up at 6 o’clock on Easter morning. She came straight upstairs and got in bed with us. She has a star night-light in her room on a timer which clicks off at 7am every day. She knows she’s not supposed to get out of bed till that light is off, but she often games the system by coming upstairs and “cuddling” with us. Usually that entails wiggling and bouncing around and talking our ears off. Sometimes she tries to tickle us. That’s always fun when you’re half-asleep.

When we finally went downstairs and took Annalie to the kitchen, she spied her Easter basket and gasped, “Is that for ME?” Her reaction to gifts and surprises is always so gratifying.

After Annalie tore through her basket, we got dressed up and went to church (we think we’ve finally found a church home, yay! but have not officially become members yet), where Troy and I had our annual attack of the giggles at “Christ is risen/He is risen indeed.” The first Easter after Troy and I were dating, we worshiped at the church where I grew up in Omaha. As everyone filed out after the service, Pastor Jank greeted each person with, “Christ is risen,” to which most people would respond, “He is risen indeed.” Troy wasn’t quite up to speed on that exchange then, so when he shook Pastor’s hand his answer to, “Christ is risen,” was “Yes!”

After we got home from church, we took a couple of family portraits, one outside in the bright sun because for some unfathomable reason Annalie insisted on it, and the one at the top of this page on our upstairs deck. I didn’t expect either one to turn out, especially since we only took one each time. Miraculously, they both turned out. Well, except for the fact that the cats are both trying to escape in the deck photo, but that’s cats for you—always running away when you want them in the pictures, and butting in when you don’t.

After we changed clothes and packed the van with potatoes au gratin and some freshly-squeezed lemon juice for lemonade-making, we headed up to Brenda & Toby’s for Easter dinner. While we were waiting for the potatoes to cook, Troy and Toby talked politics and cameras. Brenda and I did kitchen stuff and chatted, and Annalie and Bug chased each other around and played with spray bottles on the patio. (Annalie said later, “The kids had a playdate, the moms had a playdate, and the dads had a playdate!” I agreed that was kinda neat, and she responded, “In fact, it’s great!”)

At one point Annalie decided that the pink fuzzy scarf and straw sunhat she was wearing would look better on Toby. While she dressed him up he sat on the couch quietly cracking up and Bug kept repeating, “No, that scarf isn’t for boys, it’s for girls! No no no, don’t put that on my daddy!”

We ate dinner, sitting according to the color-coded bunny placecards that Brenda and Bug had made, and greatly enjoying the ham and potatoes and asparagus and lemonade. Then it was time to hunt some eggs!

We walked to the park, carrying our baskets on our heads…

Stopped to play a little tetherball on the way…

Photo by Brenda Ponnay

Brenda and I hid the eggs in the field of an elementary school (there was a big family party going on at the park next door so we went with plan B) while the dads supervised as the girls played on the playground and chased bunnies.

Brenda and I did our best to find halfway decent hiding places, even though we mostly had a big grassy field to work with. But we did find a few spots that worked well, including along the railing of a ramp, in the openings of a chain-link fence, and in the ice plant!

It took the girls about one-fourth the time to find all the eggs that it had taken us to hide them, of course. That’s always the way it seems to work with treasure hunts. Then came the most important part of all: sitting down and eating as much candy as they could before their parents told them to stop.

It was a really fun day. We couldn’t have asked for more gorgeous weather or better friends to enjoy it with. Thanks again, Toby & Brenda & Bug, for sharing Easter with us!

More photos are in the photoset Easter 2009 on Flickr.

In the week since Christmas Day, I’ve written and addressed most of my Christmas cards, packaged up and mailed off almost all my gifts, and prepared and baked several batches of cookies and fudge.

I had planned to do all of this before Christmas, of course. But what with one thing (traveling) and another (three separate colds in two months), it didn’t get done. So I’m doing it now. Better late than never, right?

Some of the baking had to be done twice, because I accidentally burnt two dozen cookies. I may or may not have cried a little bit about that. They were my favorite apricot cookies, the ones I only make at Christmas because they’re a pain in the behind to make. They are also really, really ridiculously good. Which is why I was willing to make them twice.

My mom helped me make the first batch. I basically ordered her to help me, because these cookies are so much easier to make with at least two people on the assembly line. Baking isn’t really her thing but she kindly helped anyway. (I didn’t really have to order her. I just said, “Pretty please?” and she said, “Of course!”) When the first sheet of cookies was out of the oven and cool enough to eat, I presented one to her to try. She took one bite and said, “Oh, wow, these are good!” I asked her if she understood now why I persist in making these annoying cookies every year. She laughed and agreed they were worth it.

And I did reward my mom for her help with Christmas cocoa. Last year I made hot cocoa for Annalie on Christmas Day topped with whipped cream and sprinkles. She remembered it for an entire year. A day or two after Christmas she announced that it was "time for Christmas cocoa, with whipped cream and sprinkles!"

My mom and dad went back to Nebraska a few days ago. It was really nice having them here for Christmas, but I know they were both ready to go home. My dad has traveled more in the last couple of months than he normally does in a year! He really is a homebody and we appreciate that he was willing to fly out here for Christmas. And even though my mom misses us when she’s not here, I know she was ready to go home and hug my brother and go to her own church and see and my cousins and their kids again. But while they were here, we enjoyed it.

We always open one present before bed on Christmas Eve. Annalie had it all planned out which present she wanted to open: the very first wrapped present that showed up under the tree. It was a Cabbage Patch Kid doll from my mom, with blonde hair and a pacifier just as Annalie requested, named Greta Deena. Annalie was thrilled. I was just glad she opened a present she could actually take to bed with her, since she opened it a few minutes before bedtime.

Annalie gave us all a little Christmas present by actually sleeping in the next morning till 8:30. When she got up, we let her look through her stocking and open one present right away. Playing with those presents kept her busy while the rest of us cleaned up the living room a little (so it would look pretty for photos later) and got ready for church.

Don’t we clean up nice?

I know not everyone goes to church on Christmas morning. Some churches we’ve belonged to over the years don’t even have a worship service on Christmas Day; they just do a candlelight service on Christmas Eve and figure that covers all the bases. I grew up going to church on Christmas morning though, and I like it. There have been times over the years when I’ve skipped Christmas-morning worship and I always miss it. Getting dressed up and putting off the present-opening frenzy till after we’ve prayed and sung Christmas songs and celebrated the Lord’s Supper in the bright morning light puts the holiday in perspective for me, makes it a truly holy day.

Then we go home and change back into our jammies before we rip into the presents.

I think it’s safe to say we were all happy with our gifts this year. Annalie made out like a bandit, only child and grandchild (on my side) that she is.

Troy loved the Nebraska plate that Annalie painted, of course. Annalie was so excited when he was opening it that she was dancing around and giggling. She did such a great job of keeping the secret for weeks!

I was pretty much spoiled this year too, mostly with photography equipment. My friend Joe sent me Scott Kelby’s Digital Photography Book, which he no doubt ascertained I needed after our camera class a few weeks ago. Troy gave me a really nice tripod (no more haphazard piles of DVD cases on boxes on stepstools on chairs for me!) as well as a flexible tripod for my point-and-shoot and a nifty pocket reference for the Nikon D40 that will slip right into my camera bag. I also scored a couple of lens protectors, a polarizing filter that I’ve yet to try out, and a new lens! The Nikon 50mm f/1.8 D is a really cool lens that lets you shoot in low light without a flash for some really technical reasons I sort of understand but couldn’t explain to you if you paid me. Just trust me when I say that it rocks. (There are a bunch of groups on Flickr dedicated solely to photos taken with this type of lens, if you want to see what it can do.)

I took this photo of Annalie with the 50mm lens. She got a little make-up compact in her stocking and made herself beautiful.

What’s the matter, Annalie? Are you tired of having your photo taken? Ah well, I can’t say I blame you. You were quite patient with us pointing cameras at you all day long. Before I wear out anyone else’s patience with my zillions of photos, I’ll end this post. I think there are a few more on my Flickr in the set Christmas 2008, if you can’t get enough. Just one more here, the Christmas card we sent out this year:

Thank you so much to all of you who have read, commented, and emailed in the past year! Even though I write with my family and friends in mind, all of you folks who live in my computer make this blogging thing extra fun. I hope this is the year you get into grad school…meet your true love…run a marathon…finally quit that job…paint a masterpiece…or whatever it is your heart desires. May 2009 be the year we all find out that we are capable of more than we ever imagined. Happy New Year!