Trip for President

Yogi and Trip are talking on the phone right now about Trip being President when he grows up.

"Trip!" said Yogi. "You can't make all the rules! I know more about Congress than you do!"

Question of the day part 2

"How are angels different from those flying babies with bows and arrows?"

Question of the day

"Daddy, why do you have to open your mouth to talk, but not to chew?"

Yogi just asked "What is claustrophobic?"

"Does it mean being afraid of Santa?"

Happy Easter! New videos and pictures! Fencing and more...

Finally, new videos and pictures of son #1!

Here he is at fencing class:



Yogi said to me that in fencing you're supposed to hold the tip of your sword up so you don't accidentally hurt someone.

"It's the way of the blade," he said.

Click the link below to watch more on the family YouTube channel:

http://www.youtube.com/sylvainfamily

And some great pictures...

Yogi loves to play with the PhotoBooth app on the computer. This is a self-portrait:


Glasses were a gift from Granny Deb:


Yogi and John are writing a book together about a boy named Bobby Blinx. Here they are working on the first draft on a Sunday afternoon:


We have endless photos so...Coming Soon: A Flickr account to make perusal easier!

New Years Eve 08

We have two family traditions for New Years. One is a New Years Day Brunch which we have been doing for 4 or 5 years and which we are really looking forward to. Then we have a new years eve ritual that we stole/invented/cobbled together last year. It goes like this:

We bath
We write down things we want to give up for the new year
We take turns smudging the house with sage as we ring a bell 108 times to dismiss the 108 human weaknesses.

This year John is giving up Selfishness, Procrastination and Lazyness and Impatience. Shelley is giving up Impatience, Reasons for not exercising and meditation, things and clutter and perfectionism.

Yogi did this for the first time this year (giving rise to some impatience in John!) and he said he wanted to give up:

Anger
Impatience
Agitation
War and Destruction
Pain (for other people and me)
Selfishness
Buying Things I don't need

Cool!!!

We've had a couple trips to the snow and Shelley and Yogi made a ginger bread house that collapsed under the snow. Vids and story coming soon..

Right Shelley?

The family that votes together

Well we all went to the polls together, Shelley, John and Yogi and we all voted.

Well Yogi didn't vote and he's a little upset about that. Trying to explain why he can't vote yet was difficult. It really doesn't make much sense that kids have no vote. Yogi will be paying for George W. Bush's policies for a long time.

After we came home I said to Yogi: "I want you to remember this day. It's an important day in American history."

He said: "Of course I remember this day. It's today!"

Thank you G-Pa - Yogi loves Lego Batman for Wii

Tooth Care

School Starts!

Yogi started his 5th year at Play Mountain Place Tuesday (his 2nd in Primary Group in Mountain Yard.)

The pics below are from his first year (2004) and his 2nd year.

Ready for Little Nursery. The first day ever!

First year of Big Nursery.

Yogi's first visit to the dentist

Yogi went to the dentist today for the first time. He's on the phone right now with Granny Deb, telling her about it. "It's not a he...and she's very nice."

He got his teeth cleaned, x-rays taken (no cavities,) and his back teeth sealed to prevent decay.

Yogi's birthday is coming

Yogi is going to be 7 next week! Hard to believe. It feels like it's gone by so fast, although looking back over pictures I guess we've had 7 years full of good times.

Over the past year Yogi has really become a boy with hardly any trace of toddlerhood left. He's into Pokemon and Wii games, boogie boarding and playing with his DS, swimming and Jinenkan. He's moved from Playmobil to Lego, now that he can build things out of the millions of small pieces that only look like the picture on the box for about 10 seconds (after hours of frustrating construction for John!) He and John are on the last few books of the Harry Potter series, after which they'll see the movies which have been banned until the book-reading is completed.

Other books he's been listening to on CD include the Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Chronicles of Narnia, Redwall and others in that series, Eragon and Eldest, Castles in the Sky, The Mysterious Benedict Society, and many others. He loves stories and can listen for hours. His ability to focus is fierce. He still doesn't read, but is definitely showing signs of being close. However he resists being taught, so we have to slip reading tutorial in when he's not looking! He's good at math - can do simple addition and subtraction in his head.

He's articulate and outspoken. He's not shy about shouting, "Mommy!" (Or whoever else is close by...) "A little help here?" And he says funny stuff all the time. I still find it hard to believe that he's my kid sometimes. He just seems like an amazing creature that came from some kind of magic place!

Alienor Has Arrived

Yogi's friend Alienor has dodged the hurricanes and arrived in Dominica.

Saying goodbye to Alienor

Yogi's dear friend Alienor Mendiburu moved to Dominica in the West Indies yesterday. Alienor and her family moved to Los Angeles from Paris, and she came to Play Mountain Place when she was about 5. Yogi met her in House Group when he was 5 years old and Alienor was 6.


Saying goodbye was very hard. Both Yogi and Trip wanted kisses on the lips, but Alienor (being the smart girl she is) would only kiss on the cheek.

Here they are in the back of Fabienne's fab*fab convertible.


Finally it was really time to say goodbye.


We will all miss Alienor, who is very special. And we'll miss Fabienne, Bernard and Lupin, too.

But we know we can visit them in the Caribbean, and eventually in other wonderful places as well!

Yogi in costume

Yogi is very game to dress up. He and I recently went to the thrift store to put together an Indiana Jones costume for him.

Yogi and his best friend Trip at the end of Yogi's Indiana Jones birthday party.



Yogi attended Asher's disco-costume birthday party dressed as an American Indian. Our friend Michele made this costume for Yogi for last Halloween.

But will he learn to wipe?

Yogi and I were sitting on the couch this morning watching Mythbusters. I glanced up at him and he wiped the back of his hand across his mouth and got that I-wasn't-doing-anything-I-shoudn't-be-doing look on his face.

"Yogi!" I said. "Are you playing with your spit?" (Playing with spit bubbles is a gross thing he's been doing for a couple months now, and he knows I think it's disgusting.)

He broke out in a smile, and I said with a laugh, "You're so weird and gross!"

He cracked another tiny smile and then said, "I'm a kid."

A pause, and then he concluded, still smiling, "I think I'll grow out of it."

Great Weekend

Saturday was Yogi's birthday party. We had it early because his best friends Alienor and Trip will be out of the country starting next weekend. Trip is going to Sweden where his father is from for 3 weeks and Alienor is moving to Dominica with her family. More on that later.

So we set up an amazing Indiana Jones party with an adventure/treasure hunt that was a huge hit with the kids. Shelley really did an amazing job (with lots of help from Hope and John and Thelma...Sam gave moral support) putting the party together and despite some moments of stress for the grown-ups a great time was had by all.

One of the presents that Yogi got was a boogie board so with this present in hand we went to the beach on Sunday.

After boogie boarding for two hours in the amazing surf (Yogi is a natural - like his dad he loves everything about the water) father and son built a pretty cool sand castle just ahead of the incoming surf. The castle withstood the onslaught for quite a while but inevitably fell to the encoaching tide.

On the way home, to top off an eventful day, Yogi lost his tooth!

That night, Mom and Dad were so tired they almost forgot to let the tooth fairy know about the tooth...if you know what we mean.

Thank You Alienor

Yogi and Alienor decided to play a trick on John, and spent last night making a "present" with the appropriately decorated card for him.

We didn't catch the unwrapping, but we got John on camera enjoying his present!

Yogi learns about women

Overheard in the back of the car (they're playing with Scooby Doo magnets):

Yogi: "Why do you get to decide where the skull goes, missy?!"

Alienor: "Because I'm smart."

John Started New Job, Yogi Hits Home Run

John started working this week at Blitz Interactive which is an interactive agency. He's working on some cool things involving Naked Juice, FX shows and something that rhymes with Jar Bores.

Yogi started playing T Ball last month. I am experimenting with a new tool so I haven't actually checked to see if Shelley has blogged about this already but T Ball is hilarious. Yogi hit a home run his first time up at bat because he just didn't stop running. He passed one of his teammates at 2nd base.