Lucas and Cousin Liam

Art Table

Jesse mimicking his big brother again, this time at his little art table. Jesse climbed up there on his own (he LOVES sitting in little chairs!) where I found him happy as can be.

Lucas made the swirls on the paper but Jesse made a few red marks of his own. What a big boy!

Preschool Picnic

The end-of-the-year events are in full effect at Lucas's preschool. His class finishes in 2 weeks, and he's told me that he already feels sad to have to say good-bye for the summer!

This past week was the school-wide picnic at a local park. Here's Lucas with a few of his pals Erin and Jacqueline. His good buddy Thomas was to the side (I think Lucas is looking over at him) pretending to be Spiderman or some other superhero so he was too busy to get in the picture.

Thomas (with the orange hair) kept doling out snacks for the kids to share. He would run back to his picnic blanket to grab from the stash and bring it back to his buddies sitting on the ground to distribute the goods.

Big-time cuteness!

Soccer Pals

A little stretching after practice...

Lucas with Surya (5 years old), one of the main reasons Lucas looks forward to soccer practice each week! The boys play and laugh and support each other so well. (Um, can you guess who really needed to use the restroom?!)

Lucas with Coach David, who Lucas thinks is the bomb:

City

Lucas building a city:

I had to keep making block towers on the side to detract King Kong from terrorizing his brother's handiwork:

5th Ave Festival

This week marks our 4th year here in Brooklyn. We're always reminded of this anniversary by the 5th Avenue festival taking place at the end of our block. This was the very same festival that prevented our moving truck from arriving at our apartment on our one-way street on a hot and exhausting June day (I was a few months pregnant with Lucas).

This weekend the weather was gorgeous and the boys were in a great mood to attend the festival. Here's Jesse doing his best to get out of the stroller after spotting a balloon within reach:

Abuela makes him a happy boy and buys him one:

Now he's willing to sit there pretty much all day as long as that balloon is in his hand.

Lucas's favorite: the bouncy castle.

When it's time for the next group of children to enter the bouncy room, the kids are asked to leave through a side hole and climb up a ladder to finally exit down a slide. When I arrived on the other side to meet Lucas, I could hear him saying "I'm too scared to go down that slide!" I thought, "Uh-oh..." and yelled, "You can do it!" and waited to see what would happen next...

A split second later he found the courage to do it but he still looked a bit stunned going down:

Wait a sec, that was really fun!

Lucas did the bouncy castle twice, so we all hung around and enjoyed watching and talking and snacking. The only person who can pull Jesse away from his balloon is his Tio Maquin:

And Liam is partial to his Tia as well. ;)

Papi was in Tennessee participating in a friend's wedding all weekend, so Abuela flew in from Kentucky to rescue me with her great help and company and delicious cooking. Thank you, Abuela!

Hanging Out

These were from a month or so ago.

I found him pretending to call Erin, one of his best friends from preschool:

I just can't resist the belly pictures with this cutie:

I LOVE watching Lucas care for his brother!

Rub-A-Dub-Dub...

...Three cousins in a tub!

Memorial Day 2009

Another Memorial Day spent at Prospect Park. We always walk away wishing we could live closer to this amazing park.

"He did it." "No, He did it."

Jesse and Liam snacking on a pumpkin muffin before Maquin stops by to visit. As usual, both boys vied for his attention or at least to be the one held in his lap.

I wanted to catch a photo of Lucas talking to his friend Karin (age 6?) but as you can see below, Jesse was making his way towards that blue popsicle, so I had to intercede. But I think the conversation between the two boys went something like,

Karin: [Random change of previous subject...] "Lucas, what's your favorite animal?"
Lucas: "Umm... my favorite animal is... the octopus! Because... it's purple and has eight legs!
Karin: "Oh yeah, that's a good one!"
Lucas: [I reminded him to ask Karin about his favorite animal...] So what's your favorite animal?!"
Karin: "The lion! Roar!"
Lucas: "Cool."

Just before Papi tackled Jesse and Lucas tackled me.

We all spent a lot of time rolling in the grass and playing with balls and chomping on great picnic food.

Jesse ate through that watermelon all the way down to the green rind.

This is my absolute favorite thing that Jesse has been doing for a few weeks now. You ask "Donde esta...?/Where is...?" and he puts up his hands like, "Yeah, where is he?!" Most every day he wakes up from his nap and puts up his hands like this and babbles "Ata-ta-tah?" and I know that he's asking "Where's Lucas?!" When I ask him where his Papi is, he goes to the front door and knocks. Here I'm pretty sure he was looking for Maquin:

So I asked, "Where are Maquin and Tata and Liam?" And he turns to look towards where they last were.

"Over there!!"

But first I'll do cute things with my head. (Okay, this one was taken earlier, but it's still cute in this sequence.)

And I'll chomp on things I find on the ground.

Mwah-hah-hah-hah-hah!

His Own Camera

Abuelo recently gave his old digital camera to Lucas to be able to take his own pictures regularly. It came with a small disk so it holds just a few shots. Every now and then I download them to see what comes up, and here's the last collection recently taken from a while back ago. We've noticed that Lucas is becoming more intentional about what he chooses to photograph. (Trains, blankie and his brother and Papi are clearly the important things in his life that made the cut!)

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20-Ft Tall Puppets

I realized that this post has lots of pictures but very few of the boys. This event was too fun to pass up sharing so here they are anyway.

The Greenwood Cemetery, one of our favorite local places to visit, holds a springtime event in collaboration with the Puppeteers' Cooperative called "Greenwood Awakening." It's part cemetery tour (through story-telling), part theater and puppet show, and lots of parading through the beautiful grounds and interaction with the performers and musicians. It was amazing!

First they started with the story of the little green parrots that every cosmopolitan area seems to have and that reside at the cemetery's entrance. The band led the parades or skits with an eclectic mix of music. A large group of children played the part of the green parrots throughout the entire performance, either leading the parade through the cemetery paths or disappearing behind graves and hills and reappearing later to contribute props to the various skits.

Our first stop was the gravesite of Henry Bergh, founder of the ASPCA. Using a toy piano and funky percussion instruments, they told a bit of his story with cat and dog costumes. We couldn't hear very well because the puppets scared the bejeezus out of Lucas (and half of the kids present, for that matter) but it was really fun to watch.

Here's the creepy dog appearing from behind the grave. The song and dance by the cat was even more eerie but well done. You can see the red steeples to the building entrance in the background where those green birds hang out.

The sky was overcast and the weather warm but breezy. The sound and feel of the wind blowing through the trees contributed to the whimsy and magical feel of the event. Papi and I probably appreciated the event more than the boys but they had a great time nonetheless.

We were led with music and marching up and down more paths to the gravesite of the dude responsible for the construction of the Erie Canal. The narrator likened the construction of the canal in its day to the modern space program in terms of technological advancement and scope. The bouncy-floaty astronaut puppet walking down the path towards us was Lucas's favorite! (Our sense was that the Puppeteers had these 20-ft tall puppets available and that the writers/organizers did their best to fit them into the stories of the famous people interred there.) Then they held up a huge sign with a popular song from that era and we all sang along.

A civil war monument decorated with over-sized flowers and lots of storytelling. A woman sang a beautiful, soulful solo of a war song while we watched on.

The boys did amazingly well through all the storytelling and stopping at the various gravesite performance stations. If they became a little restless, we just let them out of their strollers to run around and explore or have a snack before moving on to the next part.

We heard songs played by the band from musicals written by Bernstein as we passed his grave and many other famous people here and there. At this gravesite below there was a Minerva statue with her hand held up and out. After hearing some stories, we were told that she was pointing to the Statue of Liberty behind us (if you click on the pictures to enlarge you might be able to see the statue in the little peak of the bay between the trees and the gray buildings.) As we were told to turn around to have a look, we saw Lady Liberty herself floating up the hill coming toward us!

There was lots of oohing and aahing as she got closer and bigger and while the music crescendoed...

And more story-telling about the cemetery residents, both funny and sad. (The saluting Minerva statue is to the far left.)

Then an invitation to join in on a big group dance!

This was basically Jesse's expression the entire time: mouth hanging wide open and fingers pointing at the larger-than-life puppets.

A split second later the puppet bent over towards Lucas and I to say hello. So neat!