Scenes from a birthday

That's right, people, we have a 3-year-old! After a whirlwind month, we took a breath and celebrated S's birthday. Grania and Maw came up from Pennsylvania, and we had a nice, low-key party.

 

Checking out her plunder from her birthmom and birthgrandma

 

 

Checking out her panda cake, courtesy of 3AM Cakes. Thanks Valessa!

Checking out her slice of cake, which she decorated herself

She wanted to ride her bike RIGHT NOW. In 36-degree weather *sigh*

Finding all the noisemaking buttons on her new car

Trying to figure out what's in all her gift bags

 

She loved her Pooh books from Grania

 

Playing teacher. Which after all runs in the family

 

Welcome to 3, S!

Three years ago today

...I was in a time-suck meeting and couldn't be reached by our adoption agency. Yet J answered the call on the first ring. In a few minutes we'll celebrate 3 years since we got The Call that S was our daughter. This weekend we celebrated her birthday in style.

More to come...

Another snow day

Poor S ::insert sarcasm:: She hasn't gotten to play in the Big Snow at her house. We remedied that today.

Gearing up to head out. Her good waterproof mittens were in J's truck, so we had to go with fabric ones. I was convinced she'd get cold hands in 20 seconds and want to come back in.

 

We decided to investigate the back yard first. For some reason S doesn't usually go back there. This should give you an idea of how much snow we had. It looks like she's walking on a glacier

 

We moved on to the front yard, where there was a ton more snow.

 

We found her storage box (that's the beige thing on the left). It had tipped over on its side, so I dug out a bucket for S to use. This is her, thigh-deep in snow, digging deep to get snow for her bucket.

 

She used it for the snowman we built on the deck. Yes, we had enough snow left just on the deck for probably 3 snowmen

 

S wanted more "snow treasure". Note how high she is compared to J's car

 

This California girl also started building a snow fort. No pictures yet, it looks more like a firepit made of snow at this point. Maybe I'll work on it with the upcoming snow we're getting *sigh*

BTW, her mittens were sopping wet when we got in, but she never said anything while we were outside. Even when digging in the snow and throwing snowballs at me. This kid LOVES the cold. Loves.

Our weekend in pictures (and captions)

So, the snowpocalypse was coming, and S's school closed at noon. I picked her up at a few minutes til, and the place was a ghost town. Good thing, as the first of the snow had started to fall.

 

S LOVED looking out the window/storm door seeing the accumulation

 

At 4pm the governor issued a driving ban. Which was just fine with us. Fewer cars = more space for plows and emergency crews

 

We had a nice dinner at home, and just before 8pm the power went out. We live a stone's throw from a hospital, and I heard we're on their grid, so I didn't expect it to last long. At 9pm I went to bed with S, who was not liking this whole Power Outage thing.

 

In the morning, we woke up to this:

 

See where that fence is at a corner? That's where S's sandbox is. Along with a large storage box. Somewhere...

 

That's pretty much what the house looked like from every angle. The driving ban was still in effect, and despite our hopes the power was still out. This meant we spent the day huddled around what heat we had, while J cranked up the snow blower and attempted to find our driveway.

 

S and I took a nice nap under lots of blankets, and woke up at 4 to hear the driving ban was lifted! This was fabulous, because our friends had offered to let S and I camp out until our heat went on. We got S dressed for the weather and headed out to the truck. 

 

 

She kept yelling, "Big Snow!" and was very upset that people were digging any of it out.

 

We had a warm winter evening with our friends (and S's best buddy L), and got up to sunshine and the beginning of the cleanup. S and her friend wanted to play in the big snow, so I geared them up and took them across the street

 

Yep, it was deep

 

S and her friend kept moving their "snow treasure"

 

This was followed by lots of snacks

 

And a nap

 

Around 2pm, J texted me that our power was finally on. 42 hours after we lost it. We treated our friends to dinner, packed up our gear, and headed back to our warm house. I can safely say we all slept VERY well last night.

 

This morning was like normal, with just a few exceptions. S went to preschool. J went to work. I sat down to do some freelancing. I picked up S and took a few pictures while I was at it.

That's J's car, with snow still on top. That's how high it was all around his car this weekend.

 

So now it's raining. And we're hearing there's a 40% chance of heavy snow again this weekend. Good times.

 

Finding Nemo

Or rather, he's finding us

Toddler-in-snow pictures to come

My daughter the diva

There's a little children's museum not far from our house. It's a converted firehouse that a bunch of parents turned into a museum. We went today because there was a craft going on, and we needed to get out of the house on a Tuesday.

S loves this place, especially as she's gotten a bit older. There's a train, and a boat, and a stage. There's a spaceship, and a fire truck, and dinosaurs, and a doctor's office, complete with baby dolls.

Near the stage is an open-area "dressing room", complete with those fancy bulb lights and face paint. Now, what almost 3yo doesn't like face paint? She usually makes a beeline for it and goes to town. Today was no different. Check out the concentration.

Shamelessly promoting my brother

So my brother made a movie. A really cool movie. Wait, I'll let him tell you.

Dear Everybody I Know,

I swear, this is the only time I'll do this.

I have had the privilege of producing an ultra low budget movie titled RETURN TO ZERO.  Based on the true story of writer/director Sean Hanish and his wife's experience with stillbirth, this is a powerful, emotional project, and we had the good fortune to attract an amazing cast that includes Minnie Driver, Paul Adelstein and Alfred Molina.

We shot the film over 19 days during December of 2012 and now we're deep in post.  The goal is to get the film into one or more prominent film festivals in the fall to secure distribution.  To do this, we'll need some completion funds.

We've set up a kickstarter page to help us secure those funds, which you can find at: http://kck.st/XxTGea

The page is live and ready to go.

This is going to be a really great movie about an important, but completely overlooked subject.  If you could forward the link to anyone you feel might be interested in getting involved, I'd greatly appreciate it.

Here's to a happy and prosperous 2013.

All the best,

Paul Jaconi-Biery

 

So at the very least, if you're interested in seeing what my brother has been up to, check out the link. Thanks!