The Mad Artiste

Jasper isn't the only one who enjoys expressing himself artistically - my creative side is also starting to emerge, especially at daycare, where we get to do lots of art activities, like painting with spaghetti. Mommy liked this picture that one of my teachers took in particular. She says that you can "feel" the concentration on my face even though you can't even really see my face...

And here are the results of mine and my new school-friends' (abstract) expressionism...

Mine is the one in the upper right hand corner - what do you think?

Self portrait

We drew self portraits at school today...

What do you think of the resemblance?

Hard to tell the art from the artist, huh?

Weekend

I hope you all had a good weekend. I sure did. After Mommy and I shared some quality time together on Saturday morning (which we do every Saturday morning by going to get her a much needed cup of coffee and then a trip to Fairway), we packed everyone up and headed over to DUMBO for the DUMBO Arts Festival. Once we got there, Everett was itching to go to the playground at Pier 1 at the new Brooklyn Bridge Park while I couldn't wait to get down to the festivities. So, we split up. Everett seemed to enjoy himself at the playground.

For those of you who haven't seen Everett is a little while, he's making a little bit of progress in the walking department. While he does enjoying pulling himself up and standing by himself, lately, he's started to show interest in cruising around while holding on to something. Thankfully, I think that we still have a little while to go before he's off and running.

Meanwhile, Mommy and I were watching one of the craziest performances ever - Acrobuffos: Waterbombs! If you can't tell from the title, it involved water fights and water balloons and other crazy stunts. Like blowing up a plastic glove while it's on your head...

and gladiator water balloon fights!

I was mesmerized.

Afterwards, Daddy and Everett headed home while Mommy and I went to Chinatown to meet my new cousin Nathan for his one-month red egg party! He's the son of Phyllis Biu Yee and Jeff Biu Coufou. Since I'm used to having a younger person around the house and helping out, I did what came naturally - I helped 6 Yee Pau feed Nathan his bottle. I liked meeting my new cousin but I was sad that my Everett wasn't there to meet him too.

After all the activity yesterday, I thought that Mommy and Daddy would just want to lay low today...but no. Today was the 36th annual Atlantic Antic! It's pretty much the biggest street party in Brooklyn, drawing over 1 million people. You may remember that we went last year. My favorite part of the event is the annual NYC Transit Museum Bus Festival with 6 newly restored vehicles on view. We even got to ride on the bus that Ralph from the Honeymooners drove! Check it out!

What a weekend! I'm beat!!

P.S. Apparently FLOTUS has been reading our blog. After we visited Stone Barns last weekend, she decided to play copy-cat and brought a whole delegation of first ladies to visit last week!

Balls!

Do you know what my favorite thing in the whole wide world is? Playing with balls! I play with all of my balls all day long. I start in my crib when I first wake up and Mommy and Daddy toss a few balls from my collection to get me started...

Then as soon as I'm up and about and out of the crib, I attack my ball basket to get the rest of them out...

I also like to have at least one or two of my balls close by when I'm eating, getting my diaper changed, and of course going out for walks...

I love all kinds of balls - big balls, small balls, green balls, orange balls, baseballs and footballs...

And just when I thought that playing with balls couldn't get any better, Ah-Boo brought me this!

But the one thing I hate about playing with balls is when my big brother tries to get in the way - you see, he's not as enamored with ball-play as I am, and I think can't quite understand why I like to sit in my room all day playing with all of my balls instead of sitting in his room all day playing with choo-choos like he does...

So every morning, when I wake up first and Daddy lets me out of the crib, I immediately rush to my ball basket and get in as much play time as possible before Jasper wakes up and, well, see for yourself...

Learn your lesson - if you're going to bother me when I'm playing ball, then you just might get a finger stuck in your eye!

Crocs

I had to get a new pair of slippers / indoor shoes for school, and decided that - what else? - Crocs would be the perfect thing... but after four consecutive pairs of blue ones, I decided to go in a different direction this time...

What do you think?

Farm Hands

I know. I know. Jasper and I haven't been good about keeping up with the blog lately. With the start of school and transition to daycare, we've had our hands full. Plus, we have a visitor who we've been having so much fun with - Ah-Boo!! She's back visiting for the week and keeping Jasper and I quite busy and happy.

On Sunday, Ah-Boo had to leave us so we decided to go on a family adventure up to Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture in Tarrytown. Long time readers of the blog will remember that Jasper visited the farm a while back. After seeing how excited I was to visit the zoo last weekend, Jasper wanted to the farm and show me more animals. First we went to check out the sheep and got to hear them go "baaaa."

Then, the Jasper choo-choo train was off to the next stop...

to the turkeys! They were all just milling about inside one of the barns. As soon as Daddy and I walked over, they flocked to us to check us out.

Jasper, on the other hand, did not enjoy spending time with the turkeys.

A few minutes later, the turkeys were let loose and led up the hill to pasture. Good thing we moved out of the way!

In the next barn, baby piggies were sleeping. They split their first couple of months between the barn and the pasture. Aren't they cute?

Jasper loved watching the piglets. They reminded him of his friend Swinka Peppa.

But where were the piggies' Mommy and Daddy? Why weren't they with the little ones? We went off on a hike to find them. After walking up to the top of the hill, we came across 3 big pigs! I think that it was 2 Mommy pigs and 1 Daddy pig.

After all the walking around, it was time for lunch. We found a nice shady spot in the grass to rest and eat. Jasper had a cheese sandwich cut in the shape of a train while I got to eat some puffs. That doesn't seem fair. Can't wait to go back to Stone Barns again when I'm a little older! Then maybe I can help out and actually do some farm chores.

There's No Place Like Home...There's No Place Like Home...

That's right people. TORNADO. IN. BROOKLYN!! Not just one, but it's been confirmed that 2 tornados touched down on Thursday - one in Brooklyn in our neighborhood and one in Queens - AND a macroburst with winds up to 125 miles per hour! The storm didn't last long but it caused some damage. The biggest loss were many of the beautiful trees in our neighborhood. Like this one across the street from our house. (Pictures from Gothamist)

Let's just say that it's a good thing that our car wasn't parked a couple of spots down...

Here are some other pictures of the storm and a video. And where were we during all of this action? Well, Jasper was on the toilet and I was chewing on something. Mommy was stuck on the subway underground somewhere between Manhattan and Brooklyn. Good thing she was running late coming home from work because otherwise she might have been walking home right in the middle of the storm!!

School!

Like I mentioned yesterday, the new school year has finally begun. I say "finally" because it was a really late start to the school year here in New York because of some holidays last week, and also because I've been waiting ALL summer to be able to go back to school.

And Monday, I finally did, and it's just as great as I remember it! Of course, some things have changed, like my teacher, who is now Edi, instead of Beth. I loved Beth last year, and I already love Edi just as much (and even told Mommy so after my first day of shool.) And since I'm going to school every day now, not just twice a week like last year, there are new friends in class too. We've been getting to know each other and learning each other's names every day by adding our pictures to our "wall of flowers" each day.

I also have a new cubby for all my stuff...

And Mommy helped me make a new treasure box for my personal items (you might remember the box Mommy helped me make last year...)

But some things have also stayed the same - while there are new friends, there is also an old friend - Leonie, who is also in the full-time class with me!

And best of all, after-school playdates are back! Not only that, but while Leonie and I hit the park together just about every day, we're also able to catch up with some of our friends who stayed in the part time class. Today it was Ariana and Ella. Here I am with Leonie and Ella - the three "Euro-migos" - riding our scooters to the park.

Why Euro-migos, you ask? Well, Leonie's parents are both German, and she speaks German with them; Ella's Mom is Czech and Ella speaks Czech; and of course you know all about me, don't you? :-)

Brooklyn Book Fair

So now that Everett has told you all about our day at the zoo on Saturday, let me tell you about my day on Sunday, or at least the morning part, when Everett was taking his nap. We had a special visitor for the day - Ciocia Olga - and she took me to the Brooklyn Book Festival (you might remember that Everett and I also went to the Festival with Ah-Boo last year.)

Like last year, there were lots of publisher showing off their latest book, and all kinds of cool displays to look at, like these Stormtroopers guarding the DK Books booth.

But the coolest thing we did was meet the author Thaddeus Rutkowski. As you might guess from his last name, his Daddy is Polish...

And as you may or may not be able to tell from his picture, his Mommy is Chinese! Just like my Mommy and Daddy! Mr. Rutkowski was so happy to meet another Polish-Chinese-American guy like me that he autographed a copy of his latest book, Rough House, for me. I asked Daddy to read the book as my bed time story, but he said that I can't read it until I'm older - or "much, much older" as Mommy said. I have no idea why - can you figure it out?

Anyway, Ciocia Olga must have had so much fun with me and Everett on Sunday that she accidentally left her wallet at our house when she went home to Delaware, so after school today I walked over to Staples across the street to overnight it back to her. I'm glad I know how to use computers now so I could take care of the paperwork.

Afterwards, I figured that since the new school year has started, I ought to look proper and get my outgrown summer mophead of hair cleaned up, so decided to visit my favorite barber.

Wait, did I just mention that I'm back in school? More about that tomorrow!