Easter 2015

scenes from Christmas, 2013

Jackson is really developing a good set of camera poses.

Jackson + Baby Emma, Christmas 2013

(and one of me and Emma too)

Like an ad for fall, brothers, childhood in the country........

hiking in the green

Squeezing the last out of summer.....hiking, building dams, crossing streams, throwing rocks - - all good until Jackson cut his finger on a piece of grass and the fun was over. Yes, like a paper-cut. That's my boy. :)

good times

Over Easter, Jon took the boys to the Danbury Railway Museum, where they met the Easter Bunny, and generally tore all over the place, checked out the trains, and did rockstar poses. There were so many good pics it was hard to choose these few.

picking flowers...

Spent the last few days at Mimi and Nonno's, enjoying the backyard - riding big-wheels, picking flowers and eating popsicles. Ah, summertime, I love you.

Nonno's Retrospective

Jackson and Cade,

Your grandfather has been an artist and art professor all his life, and the weekend before last we got to Connecticut to see his Retrospective at Higgins Gallery at Western Connecticut State University.

The show included work from over 50 years. We saw paintings from the 60's! Can you imagine? I wasn't even born yet. You weren't even an idea yet!

Alberetti started his career at Massachusetts College of Art and Design where he received his Bachelor of Fine Arts. He continued to the Rhode Island School of Design, graduating with a master’s degree before moving on to Arizona State University where he achieved a Master of Fine Arts. His work has been shown nationally and internationally through solo and group exhibitions. Alberetti’s work also has been featured in museums such as the Panama Museum of Art, the De Young Museum, The Pentagon, the Mattatuck Museum and the Aldrich Museum.

These pictures don't do the work justice - the paintings are deeply saturated, layered, sometimes soft, sometimes angular, always atmospheric, and always, to me, something you can just sit and look at for a long time, always noticing new things, new lines, new colors, and new textures.

What a pair of lucky boys you are to have such a creative and talented Nonno. It is one of the greatest gifts Nonno has given me - a love and appreciation, a need and propensity - to be creative. I hope that gene is passed on to you both, in whatever form. Maybe you will paint like him, maybe you will do sculpture like your grandmother, maybe you will do printmaking like your uncle. Maybe your creativity will take other forms, in building, for example, or helping others.

Nonno, I'm so glad we got to spend the afternoon with you last Saturday. I'm so proud and thankful to be your daughter. I'm glad the boys got to see the show, even if they don't remember it, and even if they  only remember riding their bikes and scooters around inside. Congratulations on a beautiful show. We love you.

Love, Mama

a far cry.....

It's a far cry from Abigail's awesome gingerbread extravaganza (!), but we did our own little gingerbread village....

 

~ and Jackson and Mimi, 2009:

summer day in connecticut

We are in Connecticut. Mimi's garden is just beautiful, and we were outside all day yesterday. Jackson was helping Uncle Michael with his pint-sized matching shovel and wheel-barrow.  Cade was pushing the little dump-truck around from the front of the house to the back of the house. They sat by the fish pond. They looked at the robin's nest and the baby birds in the garden. Cade ate lettuce from the garden.

It's nice to be here.

connecticut

Returned from Connecticut with a beautiful bag of lace-cap Hydrangea and tangerine day-lillies. Thank you, Mimi.

Jackson wanted to go to the pond and pick raspberries when I asked him what he wanted to do when we got home.

more peonies please

We were just in Connecticut at Mimi and Nonno's, where the peonies, and the entire garden, are mind-bogglingly beautiful. It's so nice to get out of Brooklyn and go to the country. Jackson was awoken by the birds outside his window there, while Cade tried to destroy anything that wasn't bolted down.

roses in October

We were in Connecticut for Friday night, where Mimi's garden roses are still blooming, and Jackson was loving being outside with Mimi & Nonno - - and playing with all his trucks, cars, airplanes, monster truck, trains, water table, garage, airport, castle, and people (Fisher-Price).

{photo by Kate Mathis}

babies in gardens

Jackson (2009):




Uncle Michael (1981):


Mama (1975):

thank you Mimi & Nonno....

....for another great week in Connecticut.

xoxo Chiara Jackson & Cade

connecticut, where the woodpeckers live

Specimen of a "Lewis woodpecker"

[Asyndesmus lewis, collected Camp Chopunnish, Idaho, 1806]
Preserved skin and feathers
Courtesy of Harvard University Museum of Comparative Zoology, Boston (71)

The woodpecker displayed above may be the only specimen collected during the Lewis and Clark expedition to survive intact. Lewis first saw the bird on July 20, 1805, but did not get a specimen until the following spring at Camp Chopunnish on the Clearwater River in Idaho. Lewis's description of the bird's belly is still accurate when examining the specimen today: "a curious mixture of white and blood red which has much the appearance of having been artificially painted or stained of that colour."

We're in Connecticut til Easter, and hoping to see some birds and squirrels tomorrow.

{Woodpecker from here}

connecticut

We're at Mimi and Nonno's for a few days, where we'll be reading all the great new books that were waiting here for us (including this one).

PS Jackson, you finally said "Mimi!"