Pics of Me and My Dad

Guest blogger: Gwenn. (My mom)

Hello blog readers, (as Nia is so fond of greeting you)

This is Gwenn, Nia's mom. I wanted to have a "guest blog" post on Nia's blog to explain a few things about why we're working on this project.

1. Nia is very artistic. She loves to draw and paint and well, anything like that. I thought this might be a fun new medium for her to explore.
2. Being that Nia is homeschooled, I thought this might be a cool, different way to teach her a bunch of different concepts... computer skills like typing and photo editing, yes, but also more basic things too... Things like math, "Go find 5 things and line them up and take a picture." Things like science, "Go take pictures of 6 things that are alive." Things like creative writing, "Tell me the name of this picture." etc. etc. etc.
   
3. It's fun to see the world through the eyes of a 5 year old. It's interesting to me the pictures she chooses to take. It's funny sometimes and nauseating at others-- IMAGINE HAVING A REAR-END LEVEL KID TAKING PICS OF YOU AROUND THE CLOCK. I feel like I have paparazzi. I think it's going to be neat to see the regular "household" things she snaps pics of in Haiti. I think that transition to her "new life" will be super-cool through the eyes of a kindergartener.
4. Nia is funny. She doesn't try to be funny most of the time, she just is. She cracks Nick and I up every single day. I love the way kids her age talk-- the expressions they use and the ways they try out their new language skills. It's funny and super-cute.
5. I wanted to give her a project that was something special we could do together very often that wasn't something strictly academic. I feel like we do a lot of the "boring" kind of school work together with me as her primary teacher, I also wanted something both of us looked forward to doing. Since I am a pretty... ehm... "prolific" blogger, it seemed like a good fit.

So, how much is Nia and how much is me?

• The words. It is honestly mostly Nia. I do most of the typing at this point and she dictates. Sometimes I will ask her a question to get a thought going, but all of the words I type are her words. I try not to interject my opinion when she wants to name her posts, "Oh, hey!" "Oh, hi!" "Oh yes, hi!" or when she wants to name every single picture starting with the word, "my." Which means that sometimes it will probably be not-so-clever or repetitive, but I wanted to try to let her find her own voice.
• The pictures. Unless I say so (like the pics of her in her "ball gowns") they are ALL taken by her. 100%. She is particularly fond of self-portraits. Together we download them, select several to use and then work on editing them together. I will ask her what she wants to do with the pictures and we will work together until she thinks they look good.
• The layout. That's just blogger. :) But she picked the templates and colors.

So, blog readers, thanks for all your encouragement. She LOVES seeing her "map" from where everyone lives, she LOVES hearing how many "hits" she has, and she LOVES getting new comments.

So long for now... And keep coming back. And all my Haiti people out there-- keep coming back. I think experiencing Haiti through Nia's eyes is going to give you the warm fuzzies...

With a grateful heart,
Gwenn. (Nia's Mom)

Hi.

Hello blog readers,

Thanks for voting on my blog.
Tomorrow night is the Daddy Daughter Ball. Since the white dress is the winner, I am going to wear the white dress. I will paint my fingernails the color of wine. I will have my mom take pictures and put them up here.

I have a lot of pictures today. Better look at all of them. Because there's a lot of them.

"My brother, Grumpy Josiah, and my dad's hairy arm"

"My brother, Grumpy Josiah"

"Pirate Nico"

"My silly mommy"

"Another picture of my silly mommy"

"The silly mommy of me"

"Me. Silly."

"Me. Another silly."

"Green Mom and Me"

"Purpleish Blue Mom and Me"

"Pinklish Purple Mom and Me"

My blog has a lot of pictures.

Love,
Nia

I am going to the Daddy/Daughter Ball!

Hello blog readers,

I am going to the Daddy/Daughter Ball on Saturday.

I have three party dresses and I can't pick out which one. I think my favorite one is the white one, but I have two other dresses that are good too. (My mom took these pictures, I didn't take them because I am in them.)

This is the pink one. Grandma bought this dress for me before Easter last year but I picked it out. I am wearing my puffy slip underneath it.

This is the white one. This is the dress from Mint Jenny's wedding. She is married to Josh now.

This is my red one for me to wear for Christmas next year when I live in Haiti.

Can you please vote? There is a vote posted on my blog.

Thank you.

Love,
Nia

My walk to the store

My dad found my camera, but my mom says she did.

Tonight I am going to stay up until TEN O'CLOCK with some of my friends.

Here are some of the pictures that I took.

"My bathrobe hanging by the door"

"The picture with reflections"

"The gym"

"The sun"

"My brother that's Nico"
"My brother in the sunlight covering his eyes"

"My feet in the car in my new socks"

I will write some more later. Bye.

Oh yes, hey!

I love Haitian Spaghetti.
It's so good.
You gotta try it. Try it. Try it.

Here is the recipe. My dad will tell you how to make it because he makes it really good.

So what is Haitian Spaghetti? It's spaghetti that Haitians eat.
Somethings that are in it:

• really, really good
• there's ketchup in it
• there's hotdogs in it (if you want)
• and there is onions in it, but you don't really taste the onions that good
• spaghetti

We're going to try to look for it but my camera is still missing. Too bad for me. I am not really that good of a parent to my camera.

Love,
Nia

Sorry, no pictures today

Dear Blog Readers,

Sorry there are no pictures today. I can't find my camera. I took a bunch of pictures yesterday. A LOT of them. But now I can't find it. I will post the pictures when I find it.

Sorry. I will try to be more responsible. I gotta learn how to do that.

Love,
Nia

Dear all of my friends,

Hi. I posted some pictures on my blog. Come see them. I am having a great time having a blog. It's very fun. If you don't have one, get one.

I went to church and it was fun. My grandma brought me to church. I had a great time at her house. I went to one service at church and I stayed for two nights and two days at my grandma's house. I forgot to bring my camera with me but I took these pictures today.

"My cake that I built out of dishes from my lunch"

"My lunch with grapes and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich"

"My dad with the food I ate for lunch"

Oh yes, hi!

We are glad that you saw the pictures on my blog. What we did is cleaned the lens on my camera, so the pictures after today should be clearer. I didn't know you weren't supposed to touch that part and there might have been fingerprints on it.

Here are the pictures I took last night night and today. I am liking taking these pictures and having a blog. I hope you are liking it too.

"My doll with her hair sticking out"

"My glass stuff that is on the window"

"My dad's bouncy balls that we put in lamps"

"My mom's glass that we hanged by the window."

"My dad's castle that he built"

"My brother playing the drum"

"My dad and my brother sitting by the castle that my dad made"

I am an artist too.

This is a picture I made in school the week we were learning about octopi.
I "painted" with paper like my Aunt Diana used to do.
I made the painted papers with my grandmother, and then my mom helped me make the shapes for the picture. I cut them all out and glued them on to make this lovely picture.

PS-- The octopus legs are really my fingers. My mom traced them.

Oh hi!

This is Nia. I love having a blog. It's very fun. Thank you guys for coming to my blog.

I had a fun day, but it was hard because I lost my camera. But then Nico found it. It was on the counter and we didn't even see it. My camera has my name on it. I would show you a picture of my camera but I can't take a picture of my own camera.

Here's my pictures for today. I am going to start naming my pictures for you.

"Nico's pretend tantrum"

"Josiah eating the ice cream"

"Josiah eating ice cream and sticking out his tongue"

"My fireplace door"

"me in my mom's glasses" (self-portrait)

See you next time.

Today's pictures