A pair of pretty pictures

Coming full circle

They always said they would dance at my wedding. Now they can also say they've played with my daughter in the same park where I used to play with theirs.

I babysat Jessica, Marcus, and Bradley for the entirety of my adolescent years. They're all now at least a foot taller than I am, and the oldest, Jessica, is on a worldwide adventure after having graduated from Harvard. Yes,
I officially feel old.

Now that they're grown and have lives of their own, Jessica and Marcus weren't there (too busy touring India and France, respectively). But Bradley was home and says he remembers that I always made them eat their salad.

I remember putting endless amounts of tiny braids in Jessica's hair (secured by elastics I was supposed to be using on my braces -don't worry Cindy, they were fresh from the package), drawing The Little Mermaid about a thousand times, the "three bites rule" and that Bradley wouldn't eat pears unless I took the skin off. Oh and Goodnight Moon, always Goodnight Moon.

I started babysitting for the family when Jess was just three years old, Bradley wasn't born yet, and I was pre-high-school-growth-spurt, so my mom had to go to the door to warn a skeptical Cindy that I was not nearly as young as I looked -she's just short, really short.

I'm glad she took a chance on me and proud to have been invited into their lives. If my daughter grows up to be half as fantastic as any of those three kiddos, I know I will have done my job well. Baci a tutto! --Amy

Pretty girl, pretty light

We got rid of the shade on our front door and put a coating on it to make it like frosted glass. It's west-facing, so when the sun sets, we have a giant soft-box on the front of our house. Yummy.

Lovering Ave., Buffalo, NY

While we were in Buffalo last month, Uncle Tom, Sophie, Joe and Grandpa Chuck stopped for a photo op in front of the house on Lovering Ave., where they lived when the boys were little.

UPDATE: From Grandpa Chuck, "Upstairs porch is where Tom somehow climbed on the outside and got his head stuck between the lathes. It was wood then and wider openings. I climbed over to rescue him since if he took one step back he would have hanged himself. He was screaming. The next day I put up chicken wire on and above the railing to keep him in."

The black and whites were both shot at the Lovering house.

Salsa

Or as Sophie says, "More 'spicy' please."
Admittedly, this was some pretty mild salsa, but glad she enjoyed it.

Sophie riding Houdini

Nice of the pony to match his halter to her outfit!

Using her hands again

This week's art project is especially neat. Sophie's handprints made the sun and a fish during "ocean week" at school.