Out of the cuckoo's nest

The last bird flew the coop this morning, so I'm trying to get back to "normal," whatever that is. It was great having all four kids around for Thanksgiving week. It's always a little hectic, keeping arrival and departure times straight. Our son-in-law wanted to do the turkey this year, so I reluctantly agreed. (Ha!) I have always done the turkey and it was really nice to finally turn it over to the next generation. Dinner at our daughter's was a delight. Our granddaughter enjoys having three uncles to spoil her. She beat the pants off everybody in her card-matching game. They started out thinking they would let her win and ended up getting tromped.

The Pooh tradition

We bought our daughter a great big Pooh bear for Christmas in 2003, just a month before our granddaughter was born. We photographed Jenna with Pooh every month to show her growth for the first couple of years. Now we take a shot every year or so. In this photo she is almost five years old and still loves her Pooh, whether hugging him or wrestling with him.

Now it's Daniel's turn. Mr. D. is about two months old in this picture, taken on October 23. He's a strong, happy baby (see, he's making a muscle). He was a pound heavier than she was at birth, and you can see the difference when comparing Pooh pictures.

Coming soon: Halloween pix, commentary on the new book, and "Oh, What a Beautiful Morning!"

Whatever happened to Nita Leland?

I'm still around. The sinusitis knocked me out for weeks and I'm still a little hung over from it, but at least functioning better now. I've been baby-sitting Daniel four days a week and what a cute little guy he is. I'll try to catch up with the blog over the next few days and see if I can get back to daily blogging. I'm still picking away at some book tasks, but nearly ready to wind them up.

The big news is that The New Creative Artist has been translated into Dutch and published in Holland. I didn't realize it had been acquired, so it was a surprise several days ago to receive a box with five copies. The cover is by Delda Skinner, a Texas artist whose work appears in the book. Foreign publishers often select different art for their book covers. This is always an exciting development. Three of my previous books have also been translated: Exploring Color (German); Creative Collage Techniques (French); the original Creative Artist (Chinese).