First Light 2008. Artwork by my son Alec. He's not as much into drawing and art as my firstborn, but he cranks out some pretty cool images when he is in the mood. And then he is done. Time to move on and learn something else... Here's the first products of 2008...
Fall finally came, and it almost feels like winter already. We were lucky to have some beautiful weekends with lots of sun and crispy weather, and we seized the chance to ride the Ivy Land Express, an original steam train about 30 minutes from our house, in picturesque New Hope, PA.
Particularly Alec loves trains, but Bella was enthralled as well, but this beast that seems to be alive, breathing and smoking. The fall colors and perfect autumn weather made for a great family event. Here's some pictures (via flickr)
Egg hunting, laughter, music, running around and general glee filled our house this past weekend. Isabella and Alec's cousins Natasha and Nolan graced us with their presence. A fun video experiment was one of the fruits of this wonderful weekend. Enjoy!
Spring has finally arrived in Central Jersey. The flowers are blooming, trees are about to burst, people have begun their sneeze-fest (allergies, bleh) and all children are just itching to go outside. Or jump around. Or make a real good mess. Or dance.
It was the dance category that prompted me to create a new feature to this site: Bella & Alec TV. Their first spontaneous, unscripted and unprompted (really) performance last Sunday morning was delightful. So much so, that we actually filmed it. And what good is all this if we can't share it with our family and friends?? So without further ado, and perhaps much ado about nothing, go check out Bella & Alec TV. Or would that be bellalecTV?
My daughter Isabella turned 6 in January. In ways she reminds me of me, but then in others, she's way ahead of me ;-)
Where I've always struggled to draw creatively, her art skills have been apparent ever since she started drawing and doodling. Since she was four, she has attended the Montgomery Summer Art School, and she's very comfortable illustrating. She'll whip up something very quickly if she feels like it - like a true artiste. Oh, and she likes creme de menthe ice cream, please?
In January, the Bahá’í period of fasting was fast approaching. She told her school friends about the four leap days just prior to the Fast, at the end of February. According to the Badi calendar, these days are called the days of Ayyam-i-Ha, and taking that it's an unusual name (Yamaha? Ayammewho?) nobody in her Montessori class believed her!
No worries, thought her mom and she. Let's present a story in class and show everyone a storybook to be written by mommy and illustrated by Isabella... And thus it happened. Multi-talented Nishat (her mommy) writes about it on her own blog Mysticlogic.
Geek Bonus: The link to her book uses Formatpixel which allows you to create gorgeous high resolution, page-folding, online magazines, similar to the Latitudes travel magazine tour of Italy (grrrr, Internet Explorer only, just to warn you). This would be a wonderful tool for a graphic arts class to get its feet wet with quality online publishing. The free account is limited to only one project at a maximum of 512k - which will not
get you many pages, but should be enough to get a flavor of the possibilities. Isabella's 16-page book just fit in the alloted 512Kb size limit ;-)
Pieter's Blog 
Spring has finally arrived in Central Jersey. The flowers are blooming, trees are about to burst, people have begun their sneeze-fest (allergies, bleh) and all children are just itching to go outside. Or jump around. Or make a real good mess. Or dance.
