The Artist Formerly Known as BeJewelia

Yay! Kassi made me a calendar of pictures over the year and in the process must have uploaded a jillion photos that were otherwise lingering on our other camera.  So I have come across some oldies but goodies, that may seem out of season when posted.

A couple of silly things.  Today I sorted my iTunes by the most number of times played.  Most of our tunes average around 22 plays.  So I was curious what would be the big winner?  Any one of my Lilith Fair ladies?  Prince? Supertramp?  Nope.  It was "Baa Baa Black Sheep".  By a mile, at 120 plays.  Followed by about a hundred other kiddie tunes.  Waaaah waaaaah.  And incidentally, the first non-kid song that appeared was Pink's "Leave me Alone".  Huh, who knew I was such a big fan?

And now for what you tuned in for:  Pictures.  We don't really let Julia color yet.  But she is a weasel with the markers and keeps heisting them.  We do however call her "Bejewelia".  Quite frequently.

Our big art project right now is a making a truck pinata for Sam's birthday party.  Sure we could buy one, but where is the fun in that?  Plus, they don't make pink truck pinatas.

Happy New Year 2012

 For New Year's Eve this year, we celebrated every tradition we could think of.  We made Chinese Dumplings (pot stickers) and had all hands make at least one.  Ben's Aunt Laura was in town visiting for his parents' 50th Wedding anniversary party.  She was game enough to join in the fun.  Btw, we learned this from our briefly mentioned weekend in NYC. 

I love this picture of Aunt Laura & Samantha

Papa got into the fun too -- didn't even complain about the festive hat we had him wear.

Julia was a vision in her party headband of choking hazards doom.  This girl really likes to eat tissue.  All kinds of tissue.  Even when connected to cardboard and tinfoil.

Samantha's super party gear.  Auntie Wendy made the dress!  She made dresses for all the girls for Christmas.  Rock on Wendy!

Let's see, Chinese Pot Stickers, 12 grapes: 1 for each month for good luck to be eaten at the stroke of midnight (or at 6:43 as was for us...but how are you supposed to eat the grapes and kiss your honey?!).  We also had lentils for financial luck (little coins) and pickled herring, for the Polish...but we don't really know why and my group is begging me to give this one up.

The next day, we went to our friends' house which always ends with a kids group hug/sumo wrestling fest.

Never has an Easy Bake Oven made such a delicious and beautiful creation on its first try as this.  Elliot created it herself:  brownie cake with cream cheese and whipped cream frosting with sliced strawberries and cocoa on top.

And finally, who can resist a picture of a sleeping baby, bottoms up in the afternoon!

MLK Weekend

I just saw somewhere that someone said, "If you have a blog and you only update it once a week, you are not a blogger."  Well, ha!  I am a blogger and I only update, as you know, sporadically.  Then again, I have a full time job and am not trying to make this my living.  Just trying to let the relatives feel closer to our village.

So its the MLK long weekend here.  I wish I recorded dinner last night when Elliot asked what MLK is all about.  It was a cute conversation but by the end, we almost needed to write some letters to him (why do I have to include all the details, like oh, he was killed and the killers went to jail...forever --which isn't where I was going, but they kept asking pesky questions!).  

This does remind me however of the self-portrait Elliot did this fall.  It had a little write up.  I remember when they were talking about descriptive colors for hair and skin (peach coconut!) and such as a unit in kindergarten.  I thought the whole class had to write it on their self portrait after reading Elliot's.  Ben and I were quite surprised when we read what she told the teacher to write about her:  

It says, "Important things about Elliot are that she has light skin, she has a mom and dad and two sisters and she likes art and she has 9 cousins, 4 grandparents.  But the MOST important thing about Elliot is that she has light skin and is special!"   

But no, actually no other kid mentioned skin color - it wasn't part of the fill in the blanks.  More like, "I like to ride bikes" and "I went to Texas".  I wonder what the other parents think when they read it.  So Beth, I hope Alice will invite Elliot over to play in her underground railroad sometime.

Happy New Year 2012!

Wow.  So, I emporarily stopped being a blogger.  Not really intentionally.  More over technical difficulties in actually accessing our Blog.  I won't bore you with the details, and I am not sure it is really even fixed yet, since I felt like I had to hack my way into my own account here.  But that is not what you come here for.  You come for the goods.  The gals.  The Pictures.  So let's get down to it.  Looks like our last post was (gasp!) around Halloween.  Since then, lots of good stuff has happened:  Ben turned 40.  Some of the Chicago family came out for Thanksgiving.  Julia turned into a little toddling person.  Christmas was festive.  John & Peggy celebrated 50 years of marriage.  We rang in the New Year with everyone else's traditions.  Now we are gearing up for two little February birthdays: Sam will be 4 and two days later, Julia will be 1!

Samantha now likes to wear ALL her dress up dresses at once.  And particularly likes to be "The Golden Princess" after all those Moody Street Circus shows we took in.

Julia discovered and instantly loved bagels.

 Elliot & Samantha spontaneously busted into dance in the Burlington Mall.  People gathered to watch.

 We made some shortbread peppermint bark.  To distract the kiddos, I asked each to unwrap a candy-cane. not so easy for little hands.  I was joking when I gave one to Julia.  But it did not stop her.  She weaseled that thing into her mouth and sucked it through the wrapper.  And that is how she swiped her first candy cane.  I somehow thought it was less of a choking hazard with the wrapper on...

Elliot's fashion continues to amaze us.

Ben and I had a fantastic "Food and Fashion" weekend in NYC.  One of the nights, we got to work in the kitchen of the French Culinary Institute.  We made pot stickers to show the girls.  The focus was not really on cooking, it was more of a cocktail party, but we jumped right in.

Backing up to Thanksgiving when the grandmas got into the action of Wii Tennis.  Quite competitive!  And the kids watched with rapt attention.

 Grandpa & Sammy in the Boston Community Garden.

 Julia Julia Julia.  She is such a little smiley peach.

 Merry Christmas!!