Memorial Day wet-n-wild

Our friends, The Wildes, invited us over for a Memorial Day birthday party for their daughter. They moved into our area right after we did 4 years ago and our kids have had always had a blast swimming or playing the Wii or sports. We enjoyed that day outside, grilling, and talking about ghosts (reference to our Williamsbury, VA Ghost-tour and to Don Wilde's ghostly experience in the Phillipines) amongst other engaging topics! Thanks, Wilde family!

No butterflies in concentration camps

Maddie's big debut in a Drama...

She was "Child #3" in this beautiful, poignant play in an inter-district competition.

Maddie's middle school performed their play, I Never Saw Another Butterfly, last Friday for parents and judges. It was a multi-district One Act play competition. She played a nameless child of Terezin (Czechoslovakia) who dreamed of making her bed (having a bed, again, one day) and of the simple things in life; it was a drama and Maddie performed so well!! She was the only 6th grader in the play and she took rehearsals very seriously. We found her a grey dress and white shawl at the Goodwill store and dirty-ed it up for the show. She was complemented by the director and stage manager as being extremely focused (she stayed in character even off stage) and driven and talented. Yea Maddie! It was so thrilling to watch her perform something like this. Here are some facts about the real children who inspired this play to be written:

I Never Saw Another Butterfly is the name of a one-act play by Celeste Raspanti. It is a true story about the life of the girl, Raja Englanderova, who survived Terezin. The play is a series of flashbacks in which Raja retells each segment of her life in Terezin, starting from when she first arrived at Terezin as a scared child and ending with a collage of voices in her memory.

The book at the top is:

"I never saw another butterfly..."

Children’s Drawings and Poems from Terezin Concentration Camp 1942–1944.

By Hana Volavkova (Editor) "More than 12,000 children under the age of 15 passed through the Terezin Concentration Camp between the years 1942-1944. More than 90 percent perished during the Holocaust. In these poems and pictures drawn by the young inmates of Terezin, we see the daily misery of these uprooted children, as well as their courage and optimism, their hopes and fears."

Here is the poem that inspired the title:

"The Butterfly" The last, the very last, So richly, brightly, dazzlingly yellow. Perhaps if the sun's tears would sing against a white stone. . . . Such, such a yellow Is carried lightly 'way up high. It went away I'm sure because it wished to kiss the world good-bye. For seven weeks I've lived in here, Penned up inside this ghetto. But I have found what I love here. The dandelions call to me And the white chestnut branches in the court. Only I never saw another butterfly. That butterfly was the last one. Butterflies don't live in here, in the ghetto. Pavel Friedman, June 4, 1942

Then I saw this today in book of photographs of Israel.

Today is Yom HaShoah, or:

Photos of Israel: El Aksa Mosque in Jerusalem with the Wailing Wall in front of it. A huge symbol for Palestinians behind a mecca for Jewish prayers and rituals. Holocaust Remembrance Day -- Israel honors the memory of the Six Million who were killed by learning about their heroism in the face of inhumanity, and exploring the roots of anti-Semitism. Also during this day, tens of thousands of Israeli high-school students, and thousands of Jews and non-Jews from around the world, hold a memorial service in Auschwitz, in what has become known as "The March of the Living," in defiance of the Holocaust Death Marches. One of the most powerful experiences I ever had was when I spent the day at the Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem (January 1988, BYU Israel Study Abroad). I saw wall-sized photographs of mountains of murdered Jews, heard Hitler's voice over the radio as he denounced these good people, and read millions of names in a giant card catalogue system on the top floor. I remember writing many pensive thoughts in my journal that night...I felt like I was in a funk for a few days and my understanding of the world had changed.

Catch a leprechaun?

Last night Maddie made a Leprechaun Trap and set it by our fireplace.

You can see there is a rainbow around the sides and at the top; there is a little cup of "gold" rocks to lure the little guy in; there is a lot of green and sparkles of silver on the orange path to the cup of gold. She has a blue plastic tupperware type container above it, with a string, ready to DROP down and capture the greedy little guy when he tries to get the gold nuggets. She put lots of cotton balls in the holes of the blue plastic container, "to look like clouds" and in hopes of helping bring him closer.

Well, this morning, Nick raced to see what happened: the "cage" had fallen, but the little man had apparently escaped by shoving a rock through the small hole on top where the string was coming through the cage; he had tried to take a Miley Cyrus lip gloss of Maddie's, but what luck left us (or he did) was a little box of Milk Duds. The kids were excited, especially Nick. Maddie did the whole set up for him.

While living in New England, St. Patricks' Day was a BIG holiday; the Irish & Italian Catholics have kept this tradition alive and now every Sunday before March 17th, most cities have a big parade. At school, on March 17th back in 2004, when Maddie was in 2nd grade, the class left for P.E... When they returned they found green glitter all over the room and some chocolate gold coins around the room. She was soooo excited!! She asked me why the leprechauns had never come to our house... (?????) and so she has started creating the tradition (for Nick and for fun; she loves to have lots of fun traditions) in our home.

Nick's class party

I went to Nick's 2nd grade class to help with the holiday 'stations' set up for the kids. He has 15 kids in his class (nice size!!) and his teacher is wonderful! He has learned how to write stories, give feedback, graph, do a survey, publish a book, rocks (igneous, metamorphic...), historical persons & their achievements, use quotations in written dialogue; that is off the top of my head. His teacher sends home a weekly sheet with questions we can ask him about each subject to help him tell us and explain what he has learned that day. She is awesome!

Making a giant cotton-ball snowman. Pin the nose on the snowman.

This is goofy of me, but I love hugs from this kid! Notice the troll Santa earrings I have. I LOVE them and they drive Ted crazy. He has a fear/creep-me-out feeling about trolls and gnomes. So I always get them out in early December and set them up in the bathroom by his sink to greet him. :)

Nick frosting his sugar (3 circles=snowman) cookies

Crazy, typical Nickel face...

Even in the crowd of his class, Nick will hug and kiss me. Ahhh, I'm treasuring every moment of it.

Merry Buckwalters

December 2008

Santa comes early!

Meet Jada Rose!

Nick is soooooooooooo (infinity) excited. He has asked for a dog for 3 years! Our friends needed to give this beautiful boxer to the right family... They gave us the dog house and 'Santa' brought a bed/pillow, treats, food, collar, name tag, and even a silver dogtag for Nick which says: I LOVE MY DOG NICK BUCKWALTER TAKE IT EASY! (Nacho Libre quote that Nick and Ted love to use daily)

Here they are out in the backyard on Dec. 23rd. We had hoped to share the holidays with our new dog, so Santa brought her early!

Here she is with pink polka-dotted collar and harness for our walks

She is very loving and puts her paws up on our legs when we kneel, as she "hugs" us. She sleeps with Nick every night, right next to his body; he prefers to now sleep on the floor next to her. By morning both of their heads are on the pillow. For real--photos to come...

Christmas Cookie Fest

Every year we have friends & neighbors over to frost about 80 sugar cookies; the same recipe my mom used that we made and frosted as kids. We do this as a family every Valentine's Day, some Easters, all Halloweens, and every Christmas. We usually have at least a few friends over since the batch is soooo big! We even have a turkey cookie cutter so maybe we'll have Thanksgiving turkeys this year!

Here is the first wave of kids, our neighbors who play football or basketball daily with Maddie and Nick.

Here is Parker, our favorite 4 year old who told me that I could be his girlfriend. He poured about half a bottle of sparkly sprinkles on his cookies, just like Nick used to do.

Nick's best buddie, Garret, came; then a new family from church with 4 girls who loved their first time doing this. Good sugar cookies (with real flavor!) and homemade buttercreme frosting (with a touch of almond or lemon extract) are my all-time favorites!! We have to invite people over and make plates to give away or I'd become horrendously sick from eating 30 cookies. I probably do eat half of that in a couple of days and enjoy every minute of it. I'm addicted!