Congratulations Jellybean! :)

I got an e-mail from my Mom a while back telling me that she had started taking clown classes!  I am sure that I am with most of you when I had never imaged my Mom becoming a clown!  But she was very excited about it and seemed to be loving the classes.  The grandkids have loved it too - they have their very own personal clown for a Grandma.  And clowns have to practice face painting and ballooning a lot so the grandkids have been more than willing to help her practice!  Ava even got to go to a Saturday morning class with her a while back when she stayed with Grandma and Grandpa.  All of Mom's classes culminated in her clown graduation Sunday and we made a trip to Huntington to attend.

 I have learned a lot that I never knew about clowning through this process.  There are different types of clowns - hobos, white faces and aguste clowns.  Who knew??  Mom decided to become an aguste clown, meaning that she has some flesh tone on her face - but apparently the flesh color has to be painted on even.  And clowns are supposed to have long sleeves and long pants and wear gloves.  And no multi-colored clown hair.  Lots of things I never thought about - but my life is so much fuller now that I know!:)
Ava loved helping her get ready Sunday after church.  I found that it is quite a process and it takes about 1 1/2 hours for Grandma to become Jellybean!  And there are many steps and layers to the makeup process apparently.

 The finished process!  And there was even time for Jellybean to paint a rainbow on Ava's face and jellybeans on her hand!  Blaine was napping during the whole clown transformation so I wasn't sure how he would react when he woke up, but he just smiled and laughed at Jellybean.  Ava has become very into clowns now - and claims that she is almost a clown!  She went to class, can twist up balloons and even painted a jellybean on Daddy's hand - that makes a clown.

 Jellybean graduated with a class of 8 other clowns.  This group of clowns are all now fully comissioned clowns with the Joy Pleasers clown ministry.  I am still hearing about all of the clowns - Paddle Pete, Pom-Pom, Felicity, Tootsie-Lou, Oralee, Srpinklez, Splat, BaLue and of course, Jellybean!

Jellybean and her biggest fans!!!  Ava, Blaine, Aubrey, Samantha and Cody love having a fun-loving clown Grandma!  Congrats and best of luck with your clowning ministry Jellybean!