A near photo-less but awesome week

Our nephew Jaden graduated from 8th grade this month, so as a present we flew him up here for 6 days.  We all had a blast, visiting the Boston Science Museum, hiking Purgatory Chasm, heading to the KNIGHTS exhibit at the Worcester Art Museum, going to the dam, putting together loads of Legos here at the house,  and celebrating at my brother's 50th birthday party.  Hours after he left, Bea and I headed to the annual Asian Festival which ended with an incredible Lion Dance Competition! But nearly all of these awesome events were done without a camera.  I am in such a photography slump!  The weather was spectacular and I coulda-shoulda-woulda gotten awesome shots, but instead you'll have to settle for this one during tonight's bath time. She's taken to bathing with goggles:

and this one of Bea making of coat of arms at the Worcester museum,

and modeling it for one decent photo of her with her cousin!

and just one blurry one of her eating Vietnamese shave ice next to the big drums used for the lion dance:

Meanwhile, there are some big changes around here since I'm on vacation.  Since Anthony moved his studio to the attic, the former studio is now a playroom/guest bedroom, meaning 99% of the toys that used to be in our TV room are now gone, and the changing/storage table is finally gone from our bathroom.  Bea is finally, finally (fingers crossed) done with nighttime pull-ups and we're adultifying the house a bit all around. Maybe I'll get out of my slump and take some pictures before we head to Maryland in two days....

6.1 is tons of fun

Anthony and I have both remarked how awesome "six" is many times in the past month or more.  Beatrice had a strong end to the school year and has been so very happy, helpful, and just plain fun to be around. She has also been a real trooper despite being plagued with pretty bad spring allergies. She's on meds twice a day and has throat lozenges for the near constant throat clearing she's doing from time to time.  Fortunately, it seems to be improving, finally.  The big excitement in the house is Daddy's new studio, which is our finished attic space.  He painted one wall with dry erase marker, so he and Bea had great fun trying it out:

 

Her creative side seems to be expanding every day.  When left to her own devices this weekend, she all of a sudden showed us her new bathing suit, designed out of two Target bags:

She had a major milestone when she spent about six hours with newly retired "Uncle John" the other day.  He has tried for so long to "break in" with this girl, but of course the fact that he is a man and that he wants her to like him so badly are two major deterrents, but oh the fun they had!  They went to the park, gardened, drew, and had a picnic hot dog lunch:

 

This past weekend was her annual ballet/dance show.  They couldn't wear their costume to the show, nor were photos allowed, so the only pictures I have are from The Complex's Facebook page, which showed these from dress rehearsal and the final practice at the studio.  The show was just fantastic and Beatrice was in three different dances:

 

One of our sweetest moments ever happened when I was driving her to the show on the second night.  I asked her if she felt beautiful in her white tutu?  Yes I do, but not as beautiful as I always feel when I'm with you.  Speechless.

 

Here she is this morning, getting ready to go to the airport with Daddy (I have two more days of school) to pick up her cousin Jaden, newly graduated from 8th grade, and spending the week with us.

 

This girl is trying to hard to spell and read everything lately. On her last day of school, Anthony asked how her day was.  "I will spell it for you!  G-U-D!"

 

So the summer is off to a roaring start for her.  She's enjoying working on her first grade summer packet, participating in the library's summer reading challenge, and in between all that trashing the house with her building of tents and cities and putting on plays and puppet shows and writing in her secret diary, drawing, singing, and living loud and large every minute of the 14 or so hours that she's awake each day.

 

 

Happy Father's Day!

(asked in the midst of playing "monster" with Anthony) Beatrice, what do you love most about Daddy?  He's the best Daddy in the whole world. He never scares me, but he actually do....bye-bye.

Bring on the dioramas and science fair projects!

Most of the time when Bea is begging to use the iPad, it's to watch Design Squad.  This morning she watched for about 45 minutes, then raced to me with a list of items she needed to make a game.  She then propped the iPad up to watch the show again as she went to work, completely on her own for over an hour:

Oh the joy some old cardboard and orange duct tape can bring!  I'm hoping if I let her go to town on projects like this she'll be brilliant at it by the time school projects come around and I won't have to do a thing! (I'm not lazy, I just truly wouldn't even know where to begin since my claims to fame for school projects were an atom built out of toothpicks and marshmallows once, and the science fair project I did on "air power" with a straw, a string, and a balloon.  and I think that was 6th grade.  How embarrassing!)

in the paper again...

3rd weekend "down south"

Memorial Day weekend was the party in Queens, last weekend was blast of a tea party/bridal shower for Mary Elizabeth and Sam in southern CT, and this weekend we headed back to NYC to celebrate our 10th anniversary of our first date, which just so happened to be in Manhattan. Bea came along and it was a spectacular weather day.  We drove to Stamford and checked into the Hilton, then got on MetroNorth into the city. We started on 5th Avenue and visited the Lego store and FAO Schwartz, then took the subway to the East Village where we roamed around until dinner time at a fabulous Filipino restaurant.  It was just a perfect day.  We returned to the hotel in time for a pre-bedtime swim and whirlpool, and I think Beatrice is convinced she'd like to live in a hotel permanently.  She just loved, loved, loved every bit of it.  The heavy drapes darkened the room so much that we all slept in past 8:00, which was  a HUGE treat for me, especially after my International Week at school just ended and I was simply exhausted. This morning we ate at the hotel restaurant and headed home.  Beautiful weekend.  There have been so many things I've wanted to photograph or document, but I just haven't been in a picture taking mood for some reason.  Too much work I guess, and my own work has been far too busy with the end-of-the year upon me, but it's all good.  A couple of things worth noting.  Beatrice is in a huge copycat phase, which is driving Anthony and me insane but is kind of funny too.  She also had her 6-year physical and she weighed in a 36 lbs and 42 inches, the largest growth spurt she's had in one year since we got her.  She actually moved from the 2nd percentile to 4th!  One of her favorite phrases comes when I make a request/demand of her, she replies "okay my little.....and the finalwords range from "Miss Foronda" or "tutu head" or "cupcake" or any other number of descriptors.  Always makes me smile.  Her reading is coming along beautifully and she is writing words along with her sketches all the time now.  I'll have to scan one in at some point for posterity.  Last week she saw the assembly at my school with Russian dancers and the next day she had her headscarf on, her blanket turned into a sarong, and was dancing around like a Ukrainian candle dancer.  No pictures though. Tonight she was running around in her bathing suit under the hose and I decided to turn it into her bath.  At one point she had a full shampoo suds head and was running up and down the driveway.  I do wish I'd gone in an gotten the camera for that one. Six is a lot of fun and I am very much looking forward to the summer with this little lady.  For now, here she is filling a bucket of random Legos, and getting a pre-train cherry gelato at Grand Central before leaving the city: