Rome Perspectives

Rowan's:

It's been a long time since anyone has wanted to take my picture as much as Rowan does.

He (and Niamh too) has loved spotting all the SPQRs

Niamh's:

Niamh likes to take photos while walking. Sometimes they look like this.

But a couple hundred others look like this.

Mine:

Rowan and Niamh each received a camera for our trip to Rome, and they've been a big hit, as you can see (a brilliant idea from Dana). We've been here since Saturday and have a couple more days left before we go home. Too exhausted at the moment to write more, but there's sure to be much more to come!

Cloudy Morning on the Lake

Taken with the iPhone, processed using Pro HDR and CameraBag.

International Festival de Ballons

Yesterday we took Rowan and Niamh to the Balloon Festival in Chateau D'oex. Muriel stayed home with a babysitter...it was SO nice to travel without a baby. Wow, what a difference! So incredibly easy--even with a five and three year old. The kids are all so close in age, I think it's been five years since we've done any sort of trip without a baby.
The infamous Chateau D'oex weather let us down though. Thankfully when we arrived it was only partly cloudy, and a big bunch of balloons were just preparing for lift-off. But after that it clouded over, and we only saw two other balloons go up. By the time we left it was snowing.



I'm glad we went though. Niamh was her usual...let's say, three-year-old self (enough said), but Rowan had a blast playing in the snow. I only wish we had brought a sled, as there was a hill behind the center of the festival that was filled with children sledding.

More pictures are up on Flickr! The iPhone and my Nikon were vying with each other for my time. Secretly I just wanted use the iPhone, but I figured I would probably regret it later if I totally ditched the Nikon.

Hands and Fingernails By Niamh

Niamh's Balloon

Ballons!

Today we went to the Festival International de Ballons in Chateau-d'Oex. Pictures and info will come later, but here is what Rowan expected to see.

Forget the DSLR

The following pictures were taken this morning around town with my iPhone.






Trendy, but oh-so-fun!!! Lo-Mob is my new favorite app.

Baby Mischief

For the 578th time, I am SO glad we do not have wall to wall carpeting anywhere in our apartment.

A Note on Rowan's Recent Artwork

This is how our table often looks these days.

Since the beginning of January or so Rowan has spent a good chunk of every day drawing, which has been so fun for Pat and me to watch. Before starting school last fall, he really did not draw except for the occasional person and a lot of scribbling. Which always made me feel a bit remiss in my parenting. I really had no idea how to teach him (I can't draw), or if I should teach him (isn't this something kids just do on their own?), and though we have a plethora of art supplies I'm just not able to sit down and do much artwork of any kind with the kids very often.

But slowly, slowly, his drawings have become more and more detailed. Last week Rowan had his friend Sebastien over to play. When they asked to do some drawing I readily agreed and got down all the necessary supplies. Looking at their finished pictures I realized that their trees were the same. Their flowers were the same. They had been coloring in their windows the same way. The houses had the same general shape. This is something I have noticed with the artwork he brings out of school too--it looks almost identical to every other kids' artwork. It seems there is little creativity in his class. Is this how it is in all schools at this age? At all ages? Is it a good way to do things at the beginning? On the one hand I feel like creativity is being squashed a bit, but on the other hand, Rowan loves drawing now. And coloring! Something else he didn't do before last fall.

Which brings me to the Ed Emberely drawing books he has fallen in love with. Auntie Katie got the kids one for Christmas, and then I picked up another two for them a couple of weeks ago. They are fabulous!! Rowan (and me too!) has been drawing trucks, trains, farms, deserts, etc., and having so much fun with it. I am not at all opposed to drawing books...so I don't know why it irks me a bit that all the children in his class at school are obviously getting pretty specific instructions on how to do their art projects. It's not all that different from what goes on with a book on how to draw things.

A Very Slippery Slope

On Sunday Niamh and I took the train to Geneva with our friends Sandra and Alyssa and saw the Disney Princesses on Ice show.

Niamh has only seen two of the Disney princess movies, and though she'll sit through parts of them and seem somewhat interested, it's really Rowan who likes Snow White and Sleeping Beauty. Not the princesses, mind you, but the stories. Anyway, I had originally bought Rowan a ticket too, but he had a birthday party come up and could not go. Which actually was a good thing. I'm sure the loud volume and the dark arena would have terrified him.

In fact it took a lot of whispered persuasion to get Niamh to stay once the lights went out and the music came on. After that she did pretty good in spite of her complete indifference to the show itself.


So, Niamh's favorite parts of our afternoon? Hanging out with Sandra and Alyssa, the popcorn (I finally had to tell her no more. I was sure she was going to make herself sick), and the new magic wand she got after the show. There are a few more pictures up on flickr if you are interested!

Swiss Train Pics

Here are a few web sites with pictures of Swiss trains.

http://davids-railway-photos.fotopic.net/c1797347.html

http://railportfolio.fotopic.net/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/trams-lisbonne/sets/

http://swissrailways1948-70archive.fotopic.net/c1803723.html

http://www.flickr.com/photos/johannes-j-smit/

We're in the Shoe Phase

More Artwork

A bee, a ladybug, a spider with her web, a caterpillar, and a snake.

More artwork

A giant and four people in the United States.

Doodle Jump, I Love You

There's a new member in our family. Didn't know we were expecting? I was a little surprised too! When I got an iPhone in December I was certainly not expecting to love it as much as I now do. Nor was I expecting to be vying with Pat, Rowan, and Niamh for time with my little toy. I probably would not love it so much if I hadn't received a couple of iTunes gift cards for Christmas (thanks Pat, Ann & Mike!). I'm not really into music or movies. I don't like audio books. I refuse to read books on an electronic device. So I started browsing through the thousands of different applications. And of course was sucked in.

I think my favorite (and yet, also the most pointless) app right now is Doodle Jump. I've logged an embarrassing amount of time playing that game. But I do have a variety of pretty cool and yet practical apps like SBB Mobile (my phone IS my ticket!), a English-French dictionary, Skype, and a Fromage app (c'mon, totally practical living in Switzerland), to name a few. I may, in fact, have gone a little app-crazy.


I even got several apps for kids, which Rowan and Niamh both love. The one they are playing here is DinoMixer.

Oh, and there's the whole phone thing. Yeah, sometimes I use the iPhone as a phone.

Learning to write.

An example of Rowan's school work.

Dress Up Fun

When I learned that H&M sells Batman costumes year round I couldn't resist going to Lausanne almost immediately and getting him one.

He is having fun with it, but doesn't love it as much as I had thought he would...perhaps blankets and rain boots are better for the imagination.


I contemplated getting Niamh a Superman costume (H&M only carries two superhero costumes), but she doesn't really care about superheros and ultimately I got her another fairy set. She has actually been begging for months for new slippers and a magic wand, as the ones she got for her last birthday were too small/broken.

There were a lot of tears when only a few hours after this picture was taken her new magic wand got caught in a door hinge and the end broke off. It was deemed unworthy and thrown angrily to the ground. However, the next day she grudgingly agreed to continue playing with the damaged, but still functioning, wand.

More artwork

A scene from Saint George and the Dragon.

Snowy Wednesday Morning

We were greeted on Wednesday morning with yet another blanket of fresh snow over Morges. It was the perfect day for it since both Rowan and Niamh have Wednesdays off from school and we could go out first thing to play in it. We saw a lot of dogs being walked, but not one other child the entire two hours we were there. Which is so odd to me--we weren't out that early in the morning!

Two Is Better Than One

I've been experimenting this week with putting Muriel's hair into pigtails. I'm loving it, as Niamh's curly hair never did this when she was a baby!