Nice little layered effect... "I got poofy and poofy and poofy!"
Reading "Mother Jones"...

Trying out Daddy's new boots...
Rosie likes squishing things: her mama,
her beloved kitty
rabbits...
I don't think the horse felt too squashed. This was fun-- down at the Kauai Coffee Co. Christmas open house. Santa was there for a minute but we all ran away. He was a bit too jolly. He crossed the line into positively jittery.

Happy Holidays, 2009!

2009 has come and nearly gone! Here are some of our shining accomplishments this year.

Let’s see if you can figure out who did which.

· Took a pottery class and learned to throw pots

· Took a swimming class and learned to put her face underwater

· Took an Aikido class and learned to have a beginner’s mind. And kick butt.

· Travelled to Tinian and Rota and ate goat guts

· Travelled to France and ate stinky delicious fromage

· Travelled to Lappert’s and ate her weight in ice cream

· Raised chickens for eggs

· Raised herbs and vegetables for dinner

· Raised caterpillars and watched them turn into butterflies

· Read a heap of books, recommends Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones

· Read many books, recommends Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind by Shunryu Suzuki, tied with Ferdinand

· Read every book in the kid section and recommends Snow White illustrated by Trina Schart Hyman

· Speared lots of fish for dinner

· Baked a small mountain of Artisan bread

· Subsisted on 17 calories a day—usually a teaspoon of milk and three grapes.

· For movies, recommends “Children of Men”

· Recommends the movie “Eagle Vs. Shark”

· Recommends the movie “My Neighbor Totoro”

· Started out tiny and cute and got big and loud—and lay eggs for us every day.

· Started out tiny and scrawny at the pound and got big and handsome and say “meow.”

· Started out tiny and is due to appear on the scene March 2, 2010

Thanks for your love and friendship, and we wish you a wonderful Happy Holidays!

Love,

Matt, Becca, Rosie Jo and Baby Stevenson

RJ is the napless wonder. She still desperately NEEDS naps, but just won't take them any more. After months and months of terrible fighting, I finally gave in to her naplessness. So this is what she looks like all afternoon, morphing into delirious hyperactivity by 5. But then she's asleep by 7! But uuuurghe, the days have gotten VERY very long.
We're into dressups in a huge way. And layering. She's wearing about 8 different dresses here...

We had a little field trip to the fire station.
Not impressed.

And RJ made her very own loaf of bread!
All of the most lovely art RJ does is temporary: "tattoos" on her arms, or chalk on the sidewalk-- and this was at Tutu and Me-- on a slick transparent piece of plastic. It was quite lovely.
Ah. All fancy on the Waimea pier.

While Matt was out of town we had to think of long drawn-out ways to amuse ourselves. Driving to the far side of the island for Jo-Jo's shave ice qualified.

Aw, braidy head.

Halloween. (Yes, I know, it's almost thanksgiving.)

This year's halloween challenge: create a festive Halloween-y atmosphere, without spending Any Money At all. So Rosie and I cut lots of spooky halloween-themed shapes out of her already-used but not worth saving for posteritydrawings. I love her very creepy many-legged spider in the lower left corner.

As you can see, my kid is a full-body-contact-artist. Below are her very vibrant and exciting "tatoos." Good thing there was a hose nearby. (What, art is fleeting.)



We had a huge pile of dried coconuts mouldering on our front step-- we painted them into shrunken heads instead of getting a pumpkin.


And.... Rosie is a swing-fiend.

And.... a dress-up Princess fiend. Everywhere we go, she heads straight for the dress-up pile. Each outfit lasts about 2 seconds, or however long it takes to twirl once.

Daddy Love

Puffy lip post-dentist girl

How unfair is it that this poor kid has already had 5 cavities? There is only one pediatric dentist on the island. It's a dark little cave of an office-- wails of the damned echo on blank walls, and the TV in the waiting room is tuned to the 24 hour Flashing-light-seizure-inducing-cartoon channel. They have a special little kid "papoose" thing-- a toddler Hannibal Lector strait jacket. As soon as they see Rosie, they get it out. It is nightmarish. And this last time, Rosie came away from the experience with this shockingly puffy lip. Poor ting!

But... she's obviously still herself.

And... here her fingers are "Fighting eachother!!!" complete with dialogue in different funny voices.