Mr. Wonderful

Keaton began his fabulousness at an early early age and was an early trend setter. This photo, taken at Kashana Graddy's first wedding, has him pairing his beloved cowboy boots with ever appropriate prep-school jacket and little-boy white shorts. He was The Man. Keaton often dressed himself and had Very Definite Ideas of how he wanted to dress. Part of it was having two older, twin-like sisters who loved to play dress-up and who sometimes incorporated him (at the tender age of 2 to 3 years) into their tea parties.

It was at this time that the Great Toe Polish Incident occurred. As has been mentioned earlier, when a little boy who begins to show serious Calvin and Hobbes tendencies, silence from him for longer than 8 minutes means serious trouble.

One of my favorite stories of him is from when he was 5 years old and his teacher at school challenged the children to dress up for the Halloween party and try to STUMP her so that she could not guess what they were dressed as. WELL, Keaton had it ALL figured out. He was going to dress up as a pickle He brought me a sweatshirt and jeans to sew buttons onto (the pickle bumps, you know) and then he painted them green. The kid is FIVE!! Pure Genius. She was stumped.

So now, Mr. Wonderful has made it through grade school, middle school, Jr. High and into High School where he continues his fashion sense (his "lucky socks" for Church Basketball) and pure enjoyment of dressing up. Perhaps it is his own delight at life around him. He cannot help but see the joy in living and it infects all of us. There is the Heroic Keaton and there is the What Will I do Next Keaton. I am glad that we have Mr. Wonderful all to ourselves this year.
I have to squeeze these last two pictures in here because I LOVE them and you will too. Thank you Keaton for choosing this post. Perhaps we should do this every once in a while and give good natured kudo's and memories about one another. It is nice. "I like it" said The Horse from Ren and Stimpy.

KEATONAL!

Some self-serving prompt, eh Keaton? Anyway, just glad you did one.

Hey! Did you notice! I finally got our picture and heading to be centered! Small thing, yes, but it always bothered me, and I just got around to cracking the code to fix it.

So... what is my favorite thing about the wonderful and marvelous Keaton Z. Sumner? Well, he is silly, which is good. Also, he is a good sport. We teased him for years, but for some reason he still likes us. :] I'm glad we can be friends. You're a pretty cool guy. Also cool about Keaton? The hair. It's a plus. Especially when it's so fresh and so clean clean! (I don't even get that reference. ppthb to me)

That pic up there is from when we had that webcam on an old computer. I used to find Keaton in the background of several of my pics and made this icon from one of them. ;]

This one is from Fiddler on the Roof. Keaton's goofiness begins to emerge...

Other random Keaton memories: The nail polish in Utah... the plays and musicals... "When there's Keatons at hoooome!".. Didn't Nicky used to say something like "Keaton is a wheaton"? Fighting over Pokemon Photo Shoot or whatever it was called... Keaton using my tweezers to dip Oreos in milk. Keaton's excellent intro blog post that has yet to be followed up on!!!

I keep thinking of not so flattering memories- so in an attempt to save both Keaton and myself some embarrassment, I'll end there. Oh, here's one: I NAMED YOU! :D (the Keaton part anyway.)

Anyway, Keaton, we love you. Hope you know that. I mean look at that picture! What's not to love?! :]

DFTBA* little brother.

Love,
Liberty

*DFTBA is nerdfighter speak for Don't Forget To Be Awesome. And that goes for all of you!!

Recent Liberty-lings.

Hey team!

Right now I'm siting in Psy class (Intro to Learning- the classical/operant conditioning kind, not the how-to-be-smart kind) and am choosing to write my blogpost now. (edited and actually posted tonight when I should be studying for a test. go responsibility!) :D
Anyway, recent pictures I like... Brandon and I bought 3 posters recently during the allposters.com sale and got them framed all nice.

This one, Hokusai's "The Great Wave off Kanagawa" is hanging over our couch in our 'nicest' frame.

We also have Van Gough's "Almond Blossoms" in our bedroom:

And the 'tank man' from Tiananmen Square is in our dining room.

Of these three, I probably like the Great Wave the best. Partly, I'm sure, because its frame makes it look the best, partly because of the great colors and partly because it's just a pretty awesome picture in general. Tiananmen Square is probably my next favorite. Brandon and I both wanted to have this somewhere prominent, and we have it in a silver frame. I just like what that photo means. Against all reason, one person chose to resist. That's the kind of moral stamina I aspire to. Almond Blossoms is nice, but I don't like it as much as the other ones. I think that's because it looks so obviously like a poster- in part due to the cheapest frame we could find, in part because the brush strokes are so pronounced yet so 2D.

Here they are in our home, so you have a smidgen more of an idea what they look like- all taken at jaunty angles to avoid glare. (click to view larger size)

There are also several photos of Brandon and I that are my favorites- you can see them all in my facebook profile pic folder here.

In other news, school is wearisome. I only have one more semester left after this one, and I can feel it. I need to conduct an Honors Projects in order to graduate with my honors certificate, I'm taking a class where I need to write a grant, and I'm balancing 3 jobs and an internship at the Boys and Girls Club as well. Working at the club has been very fun. Challenging, oh yes, but I enjoy it. There's a lot more yelling than I'd like, but when you have a ratio of like 1 adult to every 10-20 kids, that's what you get. Learning their names has been the hardest, but I'm doing better. It's hard to have any sort of relationship with kids when you can only call them 'hey you'.

Brandon and I have purchased fabric to make our Halloween costumes- we'll probably end up working on that during our fall break next weekend. I'm gonna be Strawberry Shortcake (the old-school chubby lady version, not the new current-stereotype-appropriate edition) and we're making Brandon a Matrix trench coat. We'll see how that goes. The success of it really hinges on making time to get it done.

Anyway, love you all, sorry I don't talk to any of you very much, but I think of you often and wish you all the best. I'd write more but, well, I have that test I need to get to work on. ;]

Love,
Liberty