official kindergarten picture

old finds....

my mom found some little videos that have been on her phone since february of 2009....videos of me and eeli when i was 3 and he was almost 5.

silo's worm farm

silo's world

i came up with this while we were in duluth this weekend. we had to wait til we got back home to get the footage of the boat for this little movie my mom made, to help illustrate my silly little brain.......

cousin sofia

we had a lot of fun at sofia's birthday party. she got a pink dress for playing dress-up and a set of beautiful jewels (after she put them on, i told my mo, 'sofia looks really pretty') ... she is wearing her jewelry and dress in this little movie that my mom put together of sofia on her birthday. (appologies about the shaking film quality midway through...my mom was laughing)

so behind.....

i am (my mom is) getting so behind on this blog. the last 2 months have been spent in a cloud of sorts....which is why we're just getting around to posting this drawing that i made for my mom as a mother's day card. it is drawn on a really big piece of paper (the back of a super cool pentegram 2009 calendar that my uncle kai gave use for christmas) ..... and i filled the whole thing! you can of course see that it is another rendition of WallE and Eve ... this time with a big green tree and 2 suns!

My mom was most impressed (not by the fact that I created a speech-bubble in which WallE is saying Hello -- which is very impressive considering i didn't ask anyone for help with the spelling of anything in the drawing, but instead) with the way in which i drew Eve. She is moving .... do you see her moving? and, if you've seen the movie, my mom thinks it is most impressive that the WAY she is moving (illustrated in 2 ways) is clearly captured and representative of the movie. of course -- she is my mom, so she might be biased.

these are the days

when i can spend hours in the living room, in my pajamas, building and playing legos. i am 4 and i love being at home. summer is here and the count-down to kindergarten has begun. we've been to the school on 2 recent visits and while i have acted shy (and clingy) while we were there, i have shown other signs that i am intrigued and more open to the idea of going to school in the fall. i have even begun to tell people about it. .....so, these are the days that i will cherish for their simplicity: wide open and free and childish. milestone changes are only a few months away and we are all trying to savor our current reality.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY EELI

my mom's first movie...

SPRING has sprung

Last weekend my cousins came to visit and the weather was soooooo nice that I was over-dressed in this cardigan sweater when Sofia and I were chasing after bubbles that Kara blew for us.

You can see that the grass in the yard was already sprouting and just this morning Theodore Wirth parkway looked like green velvet with the uncut-fresh green grass.

We've certainly caught the spring-time bug and have started yard and house projects already. Here you can see Lussi playing hop-scotch on the patio .... as well as the first coat of paint that my mom put on the 2 walls of our "outside-dining room" (otherwise known as our patio) (She just finished the second coat today (the 18th) and will upload pictures very soon!)

And we've had super head-start on the garden this year! Brit has planted flowers in part of the garden this year and Papa has been sprouting things outside in the bins for several weeks already and has already planted several veggies into the main garden beds. Today I helped him plant cabbage and beets! I'm also really good at bringing stray-worms back to the garden beds....

These are broccoli sprouts that Papa planted from last year's broccoli plants .... just one of these sprouts can grow into a big broccoli plant, so he will harvest a couple for that purpose...

...and he and Mama have been eating the rest as sprouts on salads and as a garnish on pretty much anything! They think they're yummy - I'm still warming-up to the idea.......

one year...

it is hard to believe that a whole year has passed since this little girl came into the world! happy birthday, silla!

1x1x1 show @ Homewood Studios Gallery

I made this piece of artwork & my mommy framed it for my one month show at the Homewood Studios Gallery in our neighborhood. They have a special place in the gallery for the 1work x 1kid x 1month show and I was that 1kid for the month of March. I am on their website as you can see. My dad snapped a couple quick shots of the artwork and my 'artist statement' through the window one day when the Gallery was closed.

spelling, cousins & medicated chicken

i am obsessed with spelling words these days....sounding out what i am 'reading' and figuring out how to spell words that i'm thinking about. my parents keep reminding me that i will be going to kindergarten this fall and with every new word i spell or word i recognize written somewhere, i remind my parents that since i know how to read, i don't need to go to school!

we took a quick (24 hour) trip to duluth this weekend and i got to play with my cousins - who i haven't seen since christmas! (how can that be?!?) these were some random phone-shots that my mom took....of us sitting on the chair out on the rocks at grandma & grandpa's house ... and of me giving lussi's toy chicken it's medicine. (just got over ear infections that were causing diminished hearing.....i liked the medicine-clearly!)

'new' piano

my mom's cousin emily was giving away her piano and somehow the timing worked out perfectly and it is now i our living room! i'm excited about the possibilities. we'll get it tuned-up in the coming weeks and who knows what the future will hold after that!

seeing,drawing, expression....

My parents have not been able to get enough of my drawings lately. I've been making some pretty elaborate drawings for a while now (come on mom, remember the one I drew for Brit's graduation card?!) but .... lately there have been some concrete references to my drawings that have allowed them to see HOW i am seeing the world, as well as how i approach communicating it. Take this drawing of a Turtle, Elephant and Tiger -- Well, I told my mom that I wanted to draw an elephant and she looked up some pictures on google-images and I picked this one to draw from. (photo by: Elephant Country Web) See, I drew the elephant straight on (because of the picture) and the turtle and tiger are more of a profile (because of my mind filling in the visual definition)
Here's one of a BIG Silo and a Small Silo -- that is as much about the drawing as it is about spelling and writing out the letters and words.







And..... this is a cool project that I made a couple months back at the Family Saturday event at the Walker Art Center. It's called a dream box. We were each allowed to pick out one toy (i picked that funny alien looking guy in a red vehicle) and then we were each given a box, one piece of paper, and a mystery bag that contained a whole bunch of random disconnected things.... like how dreams contain a much of things that don't really belong together. It was our job to make a scene/story out of all of these elements. This is my box (my mom helped with the installation of the window, and the gluing of some pieces - but I told her where everything should go.) It was one of several really thoughtful projects that I've done at the Walker. I love it!
Well, one day I decided to draw my dream box.... and this is what I came up with. It's all there...... in its place...bigger than the box itself. (the A-block, the window, the alien in his car on the rug, the puzzle pieces, the things stuck to the wall and the cork ... textured and all!)

a Good & Happy Valentines Day!

behind on the updates.....

i'd like to say sorry for not posting for over 2 months....but really it's my mom's fault. i think she got a bit overwhelmed at the end of last year - with emotional stuff and work stuff and simply being pulled in too many directions sort of stuff. plus, i've been staying home during the days this year (actually, i've been home with my parents since the weekend before christmas) so she's happily adjusting to that, too. -- i love being at home. actually i've always loved being at home, even as a baby. i am comfortable at home and able to explore and chose to do many sorts of activities throughout the day - like playing legos, drawing, doing workbook activities, crafts, playing music, playing learning games on pbskids.org, baking scones (with help, of course) ... or simply playing with all of my toys at once. here is a picture of one of the things i was playing recently - with black bear giving monkey and caymen and my paper-craft fish a ride on his back. ---i promise i'll get my mom to post more of what i've been doing on my blog again real soon. (like, for example: pictures of my hair cut!)

i miss you already great grandpa

HALLOWEEN

Happy Halloween everybody!

We originally had some BIG & FUN plans for Halloween to spend the afternoon with Maeva, eat dinner at her house and then go trick or treating down in the Bryn Mawr neighborhood like we did last year (with Eeli.) HOWEVER, after my mom and I spent the entire day Friday on the sick couch, and went to bed super early so that we could try to kick this cold before Halloween, it is a wonder that I got to celebrate it at all. But, I did - because I woke-up this morning feeling a whole lot better - My mommy, on the other hand, is still coughing up a storm. So, we stayed home and opted for plan B: hand out candy and go trick-or-treating around the block with Papa.

My mom still managed to do some festive things with me today, though ... like carving our pumpkin! This is the drawing that I made for our jack-o-lantern. My mom translated my design to the pumpkin so that she could carve it out. The inspiration behind my design: "it is a scary face, because Halloween is a little bit scary."

My mom tried to translate the multiple layer eye with one portion of it not being cut all the way through... it kind of worked out. (I must tell you that my parents were probably more excited about this pumpkin than I was. My dad kept saying it was his favorite pumpkin of all time.)

We put the pumpkin in the window so that kids would know that we were home and handing out candy. And then I set-out in my bat costume to gather some candy. (btw: My mom did attempt to make me a ghost costume out of a sheet, but it was pretty much a catastrophe - not a good thing to attempt when not at 100%.) I had a whole lot of fun. Thank goodness I got better in time for trick or treating. When my mom asked me what my favorite part of Halloween was, I told her, "Getting this piece of candy" -(Junior Mints)- "I don't know what they taste like....."

halloween-a-comin'

i am so excited for halloween that i've been wearing my bat costume as much as my mom will let me. we haven't carved our pumpkin yet, but this is the kind of face i want it to have: a scary-halloween face. my mom thinks i'm silly.

on sunday my mom & auntie phon and i went over to st. paul to my cousin marin's house and then we all (her mom and dad and baby brother mason) piled into their 7-passenger vehicle and drove down to grand avenue for BOO BASH.

they had an animal petting station and a few other "special" event-things - but marin and i were most interested in trick or treating to the different stores to get candy. we had fun, even though some of the places ran out of candy by the time we got there. marin was a little bummed that we didn't get to go the jumpy-houses (i've never really liked them, so i didn't care) ... because they were "closed for swine flu" (or at least that is what we were told - by our parents......) ;)

we even got a little free face-painting done. nothing too elaborate, or extravagent - but it was free. i asked for a bat - because i was dressed up as a bat.

for the last couple weeks, i've been telling my mom that i want to be a ghost for halloween (like the real halloween - trick or treating - not boo bash) and she really has been fine with it, because, well let's face it. a ghost is a pretty easy costume to put together! but yesterday in the car, on the way to ma-tu's house, while i was (of course) wearing my bat costume, i just thought i would let her know ... "mom, it's ok. i can be a bat for halloween. because, we should be happy with what we have, right?"