Little Papers

My dad used to always say to me, "Do I hear little papers?" 

Apparently, as a very small child, I heard him trying to surreptitiously get a small wrapped candy out of his pocket during church one time, and that was what I had hopefully asked him. 

He must have found it funny because he repeated the question back to me ... for the rest of my life. Haha. (Along with occasionally exclaiming, "But daddy! I don't even want to be up here!" Which, according to him, I once insisted upon him arriving home to find me perched up on the counter eating out of the sugar canister.)

In honor of that, here are some "little papers" (though of a different variety than my dad had in his pocket all those years ago) that I've found around the house recently:

I love this. Hans, not to be left out by his sisters forever drawing princesses and the like, drew this very lovely Little Mermaid:

But of course he also draws things more in keeping with his own interests:

And he's surprisingly good at drawing things that look perfectly like a character from a show. We don't even watch Sponge Bob. And yet:

(Also note the strained "smile" he makes in nearly every picture we ever take of him.)

And his skill isn't limited to pencil and paper either. He made this Kirby (patterned after Ander's stuffed animal) out of those little beads that you iron:

He also taped this darling note on the front door the other day (as he waited for the kids to come home from school). It meant nothing to me initially. But once he told me what it said, I could see that it did exactly! Not bad for a little kid not even in kindergarten yet:

It has an A and H for Anders and Hans. And then it says, "Hans and Anders' club starting soon".

Here the fellow is in the midst of a long day ... at the office?

Some more artists?

Mette created an art museum in the basement recently. Along with about a hundred other things she painted this Mona Lisa (which my sister told me she wants to borrow to hang in her house for ... Halloween 😆):

Anders nicely contributed a quick version of Edvard Munch's "The Scream" to her museum:

And this little Penny note left with this fellow on the stairs. It means nothing to me, but probably means something funny to all of the kids. Probably from Avatar: The Last Airbender?

And some other types of notes that must be shared as well. This:

(We can only hope it was Anders--whose note this was--that ate the cupcake that sat on the circle. I haven't actually counted to see if all ten of my kids are still here lately. ... In any case, only those who have grown up in homes with multiple siblings can fully understand the absolute necessity of such threatening notes.)

And these notes. It appears Mette was planning something or other and eagerly inviting Summer. Summer's responses are ... less than enthusiastic (her responses are written in in purple and blue):

And two things that aren't actually "little papers" at all but are kind of funny.

First, Starling wearing Cabbage-Patch-Kid shoes (which she insisted on doing for several days:

And second, this chicken Jesse took a picture of on our back steps. His wing had caught on this stick in such a way as to make it appear he was wielding a staff of spear. Warrior chicken:

And that small sampling of things around here, sadly, is all I have pictures of at the moment. So we will end with these little black and white photos: