Beach Trip #1 | St. Stephen’s Beach

 

Easter Monday turned out to be a perfect day.  Sunny, but not too hot.  We went to the beach with our friends and their two girls.  The water was still a bit too cold for my liking.

 

But the kids did not mind at all.

 

This time, we did not get as many clams as we did the last time.  Instead, we got seaweed.

 

Seaweeds make pretty bracelets.  One little girl thought so.

 

Our friends brought along a pretty body board.

 

Josh and B got rides up and down the beach.

 

What a life.  Chatting away as somebody else hauls you around.

 

Josh did his share of pulling.

 

Hosted by Cecily and Lolli

 

Zoë did, too.  Well, she tried.

 

She then decided to water the sand instead.  Much easier.

 

It was a wonderful day.

 We will be back again.  Soon, I hope!

 

Art… by Josh

It seems quite a while now since Josh made a drawing that’s not Star Wars-related, not battle-related.  It’s almost like he’s lost interest in drawing anything else.  So it was a very pleasant surprise that he came and showed me this:



Zoë had whispered to me while he was drawing that Josh was making a drawing for her.  He wouldn’t show me what he was working on while he was doing it.  All he asked was if elephants and giraffes live in the plains of Africa.

Hmmm, not sure how, apart from the “elephant” in this drawing, how the question factored in at all.  Josh explained to me that he always has a mountain and a boatman in his drawings, because of KungKung’s watercolor painting that hangs in our living room.  Josh really loves it and refers to that as “The Famous Painting.” {It’s a painting of Yangshuo, Guilin – with a lone boatman and the beautiful shrouded-in-mist mountains in the background.}

My Little Man

Where do I even begin?  Words are not enough to fully capture all his Josh-ness.  He in equal parts amazes me, humbles me, frustrates me, brings out the fierce mama in me, melts me, makes me laugh out loud.  Most of all, though, he just makes me feel so blessed.

 

{Josh taking a photo of me taking a pic of him.}

 

{Nowadays, he brings a book wherever he goes.}

 

{Josh was born with this serious look on his face.  Really.}

 

{I love this little man to bits.}

 

Spending Time with Josh

 

Josh is on a combined spring/Easter break and because Zoë’s school only has a short Easter break, I had been spending plenty of one-on-one time with my little man.  I am really glad for this, because I feel that I don’t get to spend enough time with him now that he doesn’t come home from school until 3:30pm.

 

First day of his break, I had to take the car in for a tune-up.  After we left the car at the garage, we took a short walk over to the library less than five minutes away.  We took our sweet time, though.  Both of us had our cameras out and were stopping to take photos.

 

{A sign propped up by the side of the road offering to buy used electronics}

 

{The stairs to an overpass.  I call this the Olympics stairs.}

 

{Another one of the orange flowers that I love.

This time the tree from which this flower fell had a sign attached to it that says “Bombax ceiba (Tree cotton).”}

{It’s not a total concrete jungle… there are still some trees.}

 

I definitely will be doing more of these walks with Josh.  From the garage, we stopped by to get some groceries, went to the library, took the bus home.  We repeated the process in reverse order that same afternoon when we picked up the car from the garage.  It was definitely a Josh-and-Mommy day and I thoroughly enjoyed our time together!  We had interesting conversations, played some fun guessing games, and just had a really nice time overall.  It absolutely felt like I had a little man for a companion –one who’s fun (and funny!), refreshing, interesting, and sweet (in his own Josh-way).

 

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Scavenger Hunt Sunday | Lawn & Garden

Happy Easter, everyone!

 

1.  Lawn and Garden – This amaryllis was growing in my friend’s garden.  Isn’t it gorgeous?

2.  Playtime – We had a get-together at my friend’s house on Thursday for an afternoon of fun --decorating Easter eggs, followed by an egg hunt (using plastic eggs), then ice lollies for the kids and afternoon tea for the grown-ups. 

 

3.  Guess What This Is – This was not a shot I meant to take , but I really like how it turned out somehow.  Could you tell where or what this is?

{I took this shot at the new aquarium at Ocean Park.

I was hoping catch a shark or a ray swim by, but I got this diver instead.}

 

4.  Reflection – I love the reflection of the sky and the trees on Josh’s shades.

5.  What’s Inside – Zoë's favorite Disney princess is Cinderella, so KungKung and PoPo got her a Cinderella doll for her birthday.  It’s one of the dolls that she had encircled on the Toys R Us leaflet that we got in the mail.  Out of the many, many things on that leaflet, she circled only the Disney princess dolls. {Sometimes just to keep her busy while I do my stuff, I’d give her junk mail and a pen and tell her to put a circle around the things that she likes.}

Do head on over to Ramblings and Photos

and check out other entries for Scavenger Hunt Sunday.

With Curls

I’d been braiding Zoë’s hair lately.  Sometimes I’d braid portions of her hair and then tie everything back into one ponytail.  If we’re in a hurry, I’d just make two small braids before pulling back the rest of the hair together in a ponytail.  But sometimes she’d sit patiently and let me put several small braids in.  {One of the many reasons I love having a daughter!}   At the end of the day, before her bath, we’d take out the braids and this is what she’d look like…

 

 

 

The streaks that you see on her hair are natural, okay?  We didn’t put highlights in.  I need to point that out because I was asked by someone once about the name of the color we used to dye Josh’s hair (!).   For some reason, both her hair and Josh’s hair are much lighter than Chris’ or mine, although Josh’s hair has gotten a bit darker now that he’s older.

 

 

I prefer her hair straight rather than curly, but I think she’s sweet either way!