"I celebrate myself, and sing myself." ~ Walt Whitman

You had been teaching your little sister this song and all of it's actions since last summer.  You learned it when when you were away at camp, training to be a camp counselor. You had learned this song to teach the other children, there. It seems that everyone loved it, including your little sister, Mac. The two of you were so connected, but this song somehow brought you closer together. She would ask you to sing it constantly. She sang it with you and even when you were gone, she would sing it without you! She just loved it! And you loved knowing that that she did. The two of you were practically inseparable!

"The Great Pumpkin will appear and I'll be waiting for him! I'll be there! I'll be sitting there in that pumpkin patch... " ~ Linus (Charlie Brown)

On October 30th, you girls carved a pumpkin with me.  Jilly could hardly wait to get her hands full of pumpkin guts while Mac had second thoughts after she saw what the inside of a pumpkin really looked like.  But you were both brave pumpkin carvers!  You seemed to enjoy the planning of the pumpkin carving the best.  Triangles were in every part of the face.  Afterall, what is a pumpkin face without a billion triangles!  So after the removing of the guts, the drawing took place, followed by the carving and poking.  Both of your tiny fingers were the perfect size to be removing the tiny triangle eyebrows.  But lighting it is always the best part :-)

"My long two-pointed ladder's sticking through a tree toward heaven still." ~ Robert Frost

On Thanksgiving weekend, your father and I took you apple picking.  It was your best pick yet!  You were so incredibly excited to climb every ladder you could find.  You and your father raced to see who could fine the most - apple picking came second ;-)  When you got tired of running and stayed long enough on one ladder to place your hand on an apple, you picked it and screamed with success: "I did it!"  And you had.  You always did.  Later that afternoon, we drank apple/pear cider (with no preservatives added).  You were a little hesitant at first but ended up drinking three glasses in the end and asked for a fourth.  We decided to buy a jug.  You guzzled that too.

"Hey Smalls, you want s'more?" ~ The Sandlot

Robert and Jillian were with us on this August weekend.  We decided to have a campfire in our backyard.  Dinner included hot dogs over open fire followed by s'mores!  None of the three of us had s'more before, only Rob and Jilly.  Everyone of us had a photo taken of their very first bite - your siblings included.  We laughed.  We had so much fun with all of the stickiness and sweetness!  It was a blissful evening :-)

“You've gotta dance like there's nobody watching, love like you'll never be hurt, sing like there's nobody listening, and live like it's heaven on earth.” ~ William W. Purkey

It was the summer of 2011 when you Robert, took both of your sisters out to the front yard with a large package of new chalk.  You took time with them outside while I was cleaning.  This was something that you often did as a favour to me so that I could get some work done around the house on the weekends.  This time you took a particularly long time with the girls.  Within an hour's time or so, all of you came running in to find me so that you could show me what creation you had developed in our front yard.  You had taken both of the girls and had them lay down on the pavement and traced their bodies (and they traced yours).  Then you coloured the traced bodies in with a variety of colour and printed the words: "Dance like no one is looking."  And that was always you Robert, marching to the beat of your own drum.