This sums her up

At almost six, Beatrice is sassy, edgy, dramatic, funny, at-times sweet as sugar, helpful,  and at-times tough as nails. She's pretty much sick of being photographed to death, so I get crazy facial expressions through the lens.  This photo speaks volumes to me, with the perfect irony of hands-on-hip "freshie" combined with I-need-two-blankies insecurity.  She's on that scary bridge between babyhood and big-girl-hood!  She's singing pop songs one moment and doing baby talk another. Wants to watch PG movies, but still loves Curious George, Daniel Tiger, and Raffi more than anything. Wants to read independently, yet wants me to feed her dinner.  Either pretends she doesn't know me during drop off at school or insists we go through the whole ritual of kissing hands, kissing lips and "huggies."

While playing Legos, Anthony and I asked her tonight "Who is Beatrice Foronda anyway? Give us some words that describe you, Bea."  With no hesitation:  "American..... Vietnamese..... American-Vietnamese...... loud, loud dancing girl." 

Poet Laureate

Chocolate is a Valentine

with roses always sweet in time.

When Valentine's Day comes for me,

I love you certainly.

Thought of and spoken word for word by Beatrice, inspired by the lucky Jay-Jay, who bestowed upon Bea a lovely bag of V-Day goodies.

Today was the Fire & Ice festival downtown, and String Tinkers had a Hawaiian theme going on inside.  Lots of fun.  More snow falling. The movie FROZEN feels like real life this winter. Minus a talking snowman or pet reindeer of course...

Beatrice had fun looking at the ice sculptures, and it felt like a Quebec Winter Carnival out there.  She made a new friend, Rianna, and the two spent the whole afternoon together while Rianna's mom and brother played uke at String Tinkers.

Stella and Lily popped by to watch their dad carve a ukelele:

We walked by The Complex's pointe sculpture and she got to join in on the photo:

and here we are this morning enjoying the latest batch of fresh white stuff, and some killer popsicles (aka lollipops, arrows, spears, and bows (as in violin):

Here's the violinist:

The only good thing about all this snow is how happy is makes my daughter! That and the calories burned from shoveling.....

Two More Days off School

Another foot of snow dumped yesterday, with more to come tomorrow. I am so, so, so done with winter.  Today was nearly 40 degrees and the sun came out and it felt so good!  Here's the little Valentine in the parking lot of Petco, where Sula got prettied up for the day of love:

I Guess the Groundhog was right....

Two storms combined for almost a foot and a half of snow this week, resulting in a day and a half off of school.  One family member is thrilled:

The non-humans are not thrilled.  Atticus went out today for the first time in many, and man was he ticked at me!

Guess where that snow in her hand is heading?

Mischievous grin...

At least we have the Olympics to distract us for a couple weeks, and hopefully glimpses of spring will be here when we're done with Sochi! Until then, here's a sugar cube "snow castle" which we built this afternoon so we could feel winter even inside the house:

After school, at Jay Jay's, before dance, with Sparkles

Chuc Mung Nam Moi!

Yesterday was party day at our house.  Lights were strung,

lanterns were hung,

the kitchen smelled of steaming pho, 

the guests got in their fanciest attire,

a rousing game of horseshoes was played,

the guest of honor Sparkles (nee Excellente, nickname Sparks) took part in the action,

a dragon cake and egg rolls were two special parts of the feast, 

one guest went over the top in her red and yellow, even highlighting her hair, 

this little dragonfly came down all the way from New Hampshire,

the weather even made if feel a bit like the start of spring,

and the littlest guest made peace with Buddha.

Must be Tet!  Welcome Year of the Horse 2014!