Alex the photographer...

Recently Alex has been very interested in the camera.  She keeps asking to use it and then runs around the house for an hour snapping shots and immediately admiring them on the little screen.  She is almost always impressed with her work.  Frankly I am too... here are a few examples from last night (only a few... there were a bunch).  Some of these are pretty interesting...

For art's sake...

Alexandra has not historically been a big drawer.  Mostly lines and geometric shapes and big dark smudges made with markers pressed too hard.  Lately though, she has started to draw actual scenes... without prompting.  Three examples from this week...

Left:  A recurring theme lately... multicolored flowers holding up her name.  She draws this daily and I have yet to tire of it.

Top:  I first thought this was random shapes, and I loved it.  Now I am convinced that it is an angry ninja... winking.

Bottom:  I did not see her draw this, but I did hear her.  She drew this scape as she sang an original song about how the flowers love the sun and asked it to draw them a rainbow.  And then sang each color and why it was great.  She's great.

Getting the business...

Michele has been warning me for roughly five years that the way I talk to Alex is going to come back to bite me in the butt eventually... and then...

INTERIOR SUBURBAN HOME - EVENING

A loving father toils in the kitchen preparing dinner while his five year old daughter plays quietly in the next room.  He hasn't heard any sounds for an alarming amount of time.

FATHER

Alex honey, what are you doing in there?

ALEX

(With the sass of a sitcom teenager, presumably wagging a finger)

I'm minding my business... you should try it some time...

END SCENE

No one to blame but myself.

Bigger girl, bigger bike...

Alex got a new bike for Christmas, but the lovely Michigan "spring" we are having has not left a lot of room for riding.  But we finally got out and she is loving her updated ride!

She still has old-school-slam-the-pedal-backward-brakes, but also is starting to practice with the hand brake... though she usually forgets to let go when she wants to start moving again.

She is fast.  Last year we had to institute the "stop at every corner and wait for me to catch up" rule. 

She is very good about this.  But I'm pretty sure I will have to get a bike of my own soon just to keep up...

Alex is on the road again...

Alex enjoyed riding her tricycle last year... in fact so much that she had two of them. When the weather finally broke this spring she rushed to sit on them and begged to go around the block. Upon relenting, we couldn't help but notice that her tiny little knees were quite close to giving her a tiny little black eye every time the pedeals went round. Time for a new bike. A big girl bike!

She was in love from first sight and couldn't wait to go. She is still trying to figure out how the brakes work (when she was going too fast on the tricycle she just bailed out) and has to focus on not watching her feet while she pedals, but overall got the hang of it pretty quick.

And, the bonus is, we get around the block, to the park, or wherever about twice as fast as before.

I second that emotion...

Alex and I were home alone all day Tuesday because she was rockin' a wicked fever. We got bored in the afternoon and started talking about emotions and non-verbal communication. I busted out the camera and just started shouting out emotions, (happy, puzzled, sad, shocked, angry, indifferent). I have no idea which of these pics is which, but I do know it's adorable.

Spring in...

We weren'y sure it was going to happen this year, but the weather finally turned. Check out how good Michele's garden is looking already...