Here we are again, on the bike path bright and early! Fortunately it is a beautiful day!
Early mornings
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Author Archives: Tessa
Halloween Craft
Another idea from Pinterest, with our own spin, of course. A crafty afternoon that started with making a Halloween decoration and ended with getting out all of last year’s homemade decorations. Now we have a lovely decorated Halloween home.
My idea for a decoration was the white ghosty hands, like mine in the middle. The kids thought black with white crayon would be more scary. Eve’s handprints (just left of mine and far right) remind me of Badly Drawn Dog. :) Lex had the idea for the BOOs.
Lex decided the ghosts should be haunting a pumpkin patch. It’s hard to see in the pictures, but there is a row of orange pumpkins on the bottom part, courtesy of Lex.
Then some decorating… and out came the hat and teeth from years past (I’m gonna be lazy and not link to years past though because it’s late and I’m tired).
She can stick her tongue out even with fake teeth in her mouth!
Oh, actually our afternoon also included getting out the winter gear and sorting through it to see what we need. It sounds early, I know, but it is getting chilly on those bike/walk to school mornings!
Trying on the winter gear.
Eve decided to pretend the leaves were snow and went out to “play in the snow!”
Lex wanted nothing to do with pretend snow, but he was happy to smile for me. That’s all I ever want. :)
Love notes from Eve
I (eye) love (heart) you (U) mom (arrow to a lovely portrait of me). What a sweet thing to find tucked into my bed. :)
Painting the big beautiful scenery
Every Monday after school we drive over to our local farm (one of many in this area!) and pick up our CSA share. Our farm happens to be situated high on a beautiful hill and has a great view (see here and here and here for more beautiful farm pictures). Two weeks ago Eve started talking about how she would love to bring paints and paint a beautiful picture. Lex loved the painting idea as well. Boring mommy suggested we take a few pictures with the camera and use them to paint at home. No dice, boring mommy! Last week they were both disappointed that I didn’t bring the paints and I reminded them that if they want to paint they need to bring the paints. This morning Eve woke up and almost immediately reminded me that it’s Monday and we need to pack the paints for our trip to the CSA. With my help she packed up a bag and put it in the car before school. I’m always running around on Mondays so if it didn’t get in the car early it probably wouldn’t get in at all!
When we got to the farm there were a few logistics to figure out, such as the fact that we don’t have portable easels (hardcover books from the car made acceptable stand-ins) and the ground was damp (turns out little kids don’t care about that!). So we climbed as high was we could, right by the wonderful swings, and settled in with the watercolors.
Settling in, getting comfy, time for painting.
The view is pretty amazing.
I entertained myself by playing with camera settings (and checking email, FB, blogs, etc.) I like this setting. The colors look more vivid. Someday I’m going to have an awesome camera and know all about such things.
I went back down to the barn, collected my CSA goodies, picked some herbs and flowers, loaded the car, then went back up to wait with them.
My view from the car. Do you see the kids up there? :)
After a few minute I was bored (I have the patience of a gnat!) but they were so calm and peaceful. Diligently working on their pictures. Discussing what they saw and how to draw it. Lex made outlines and then filled in. Eve painted with a broad brush (literally!) and was a bit abstract. Lex threw around words like “outlining” and “layering” that he learned in art class and tried to comment on the differences in their painting techniques. “Mine is more detailed and yours has more colors,” he said. She took every comment as a critique (she can be touchy like that sometimes) so I jumped in and explained that everyone has a different style and no style is better or worse than any other. We talked about different artists and styles. My knowledge in that area is just a barely-there wisp, but I was able to bring up books we have with different styles of illustrations and I think the point was adequately made. I may find a few art books in the library to further our discussions. I considered painting with them, but we didn’t have an extra book handy and I didn’t want to sit on the wet ground.
Eve gestures to the sweeping landscape as her verbal stories unfold.
Hard at work.
Big beautiful scenery!
Like I said, I amused myself by taking pictures. Now you have to look at them!
I did a little swinging too. :)
Lex’s finished piece. He is standing in front of the view he painted, with the barn in the lower right corner of the picture and his painting.
Eve’s pieces are more abstract and she included everything she saw at any point. As usual, I wish I could include her stories with these posts, but of course I never could so you’ll just have to enjoy the pictures and imagine the stories.
I waited patiently and after an hour and a half we packed up. Lex had finished one and Eve had done one and nearly completed her second. I rushed her a bit at the end (I felt guilty but really we had been there so long already and I was cold and bored!). They took them into the barn and proudly showed Chuck, the farmer/owner. He and everyone else in the barn oohed and aahed appropriately. :)
Then home we went, wet works of art drying in the back of the car. Happy family.
Dinner
I can throw together a pretty nice dinner when I try. :)
Tree
Despite my complaints about the leaves, we definitely have the prettiest tree on the street!
Craftiness
(I just noticed that it’s October 5th and I’m just now creating an October photos folder, and I only have 15 pictures to put in it, four of which aren’t even for me. I’m slacking here! ;) )
I had a realization recently (again) that our afternoons go more smoothly when I have something planned. Not necessarily an outing, but a plan. Some days we go out but many days we all want to be home. I’ve started trying to be a bit more proactive, or intentional as the mommy-blog world talks about, with my afternoons. As a result of this decision, we’ve done several fun craft projects recently.
Family Tree
I found this idea from a blog I read, written by a local mom. It’s fun to see her pictures and sometimes recognize where they were taken. She has lots of fun little kid ideas. I modified the project, of course. For our afternoon I got out big sheets of paper and all of our stamps and ink. We haven’t used the stamps in quite awhile. The kids were super excited to come home and find this project setup.
Everyone loves stamping.
While they stamped away I drew a tree branch on my piece of paper.
My bare branch. I am always so nervous to create. I marvel at how fast and easy the kids put ink to paper, while I hem and haw and hesitate, fearing it might come out different from what I see in my head.
Then I asked them to use green ink and make fingerprint “leaves” all over the branches.
Little green finger print leaves.
Lex wanted to put his whole hand down, but I had to stop him. The ink isn’t washable (they had colorful fingers for awhile!) and I really wanted my project to turn be nice. :)
Then I had them each pick a color and put one thumb print on the big branch. The idea being to make little birdies sitting on the branch. One for each of us. I had Alan do his thumbprint when he got home from work.
After awhile Lex and I moved on, but Eve persisted with the stamping, turning out several sheets that look a lot like this one. All full of detailed, intricate stories.
She has no hesitation in creating!
The next day I got out the paints and paint markers and we did more creating.
This is Eve’s painting. A bunny in a field with white flowers.
While they painted and thought and deliberated on how to finish my Family Tree. How to make it look “right.” I didn’t have right size googly eyes, like the sample I was following, and we didn’t do the paint smudge and I was afraid to do anything for fear of wrecking it. Finally I put pen to paper and finished it, putting the sample out of my mind and coming up with a few idea of my own. I was super excited about how it came out!
Our Family Tree!
Perfect, right? Wrong!
The kids were oohing and aahing as I showed them the finished product. Then Eve made a comment about her little blue bird and Lex made a comment about his big blue bird and I suppressed a bit of very strong language as I realized I had written the names wrong!!! ARGH!
More heming and hawing. I pointed out the mistake to the kids, who would have noticed momentarily anyway, and told them how frustrated I was about the mistake. They were both so sweet and kind and came up with lots of idea. I tried one fix that didn’t work then I tried Lex’s suggestion of just making the branch bigger. That worked. If you look really close you can see the pen names through the branch, but only if you know to look for them….. hmm… disregard that last sentence and take a look at my finished PERFECT Family Tree!
Finished! The first step to my downstairs bathroom remodeling. :) (I know decorating the walls should be the final step to a remodeling project, but I do things a bit differently over here.)
Then the kids finished their paintings.
Lex made a deep sea picture. I think I like the lantern fish best. :)
When we were all done Eve took the job of cleaning up the paint. It took her almost an hour. Can you guess why? :)
Eve “cleaning” the paints. Seriously though, when she was done things were pretty clean!
I have to go get the kids off the bus now. I’ll save my other recent craft project, a bit of Halloween fun, for anther post!
No more reading at the table
A week or two ago, on a whim, I declared a “no reading at the table” rule. For those of you who know my house, this is a big change. A big change for Lex and I anyway. He was not happy. I was a little uncertain in my declaration, but I wanted to give it a try. Guess what? It has been a stellar success! (So far.)
I made the rule because he grabs a book for every meal and completely tunes out the world. He eats very messily, doesn’t pay attention to what he’s doing, doesn’t pay attention to us, and then sits at the table, completely spaced out, and reads until someone takes the book away. Two weeks ago he started coming home with a homework assignment to read for 20 minutes a night and write two sentences. I figured this would be a piece of cake for him but he continually insists that he doesn’t remember what he reads. That was the final straw. Making a mess, spacing out, and not even remembering? Not worth it!
Now he doesn’t read nearly as much, but he has better table manners and participates in the discussion and is generally a much more pleasant person to dine with. Yay!
The downside, for me, is that I also like to read at the table! Sometimes I sneak it in when no one is around, but I’m trying to break myself of the habit as well. I find myself much more attentive to the kids and participating more in the conversation, particularly with Eve, when I don’t have a magazine in front of me taking up 80% of my attention. My magazine pile is suffering, but the rest of us are doing fine! :)
Today
Our post-circus recovery day went something like this…
Alan exercising… do you see Eve in there?
Lex and I sewing patches onto his cub scout uniform.
The kids and I being stood up for a cub scout hike. Apparently our den leader hates the rain (WTF?! This is BOY scouts!!) and can’t use the telephone. I was actually cranky this morning leading up to the hike because it was drizzly and I couldn’t get ahold of him to confirm if the hike was still happening. I’m learning about myself, in my old age, that I get cranky if I don’t have a plan for the day. So we went and apparently everyone BUT us got the cancellation message. Sigh.
We hung out anyway. Wading in the water…
… throwing rocks…
… and getting soaked! By the time we left we were all feeling happy and relaxed.
Lex got his very first phone call today! Just for him. His buddy called to invite Lex to his birthday party this weekend. Lex was super excited, but he needs more practice using the phone because he just doesn’t get it. :) I don’t know what his buddy is like on the phone, but Lex’s end was pretty funny.
I invited Grampy Don and his new friend in for dinner. Veggie soup and fresh bread. Perfect for a rainy day! Eve did her usual entertaining. This time she had some props!
But the best part of the day, the part I haven’t yet photographed, is the mudroom. It’s so close to done! Alan is out there hanging trim as I type. The recycling shelves were in place for about two minutes before we moved the bins out of the kitchen and back into their proper places in the mudroom. It’s so exciting! :)
That was our Sunday. The very last day of September. I hope yours was equally interesting, eventful, and enjoyable. Maybe less rainy and cold though.
The Greatest Show on Earth!
“But what if it isn’t?” Eve kept asking? “Oh baby, just you wait,” I kept replying. And wait we did. Until the day finally arrived and we went to the circus! The Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey circus. THE circus! And oh, what a show! I happen to love circuses and I was bummed that we didn’t make it last year, so this year I bought tickets early so there’d be no excuses!
We arrived an hour before the show so we could visit the pre-show scene. They had some animals out for viewing, performers out signing autographs and putting temporary tatoos on people. Kids could try on circus costumes, walk a (very low) tight rope, etc. I thought the kids would enjoy all of that, but instead we ended up planted in front of a clown show, which they LOVED! They are both pretty partial to slap-stick humor. The very definition of a clown.
Following you’ll find a serious of blurry photos taken in the dark from our excellent seats. I didn’t want to be too close because then you can’t see the whole scene, but too far and you can’t tell what’s going on. I think we could have been a smidgen closer to center, but otherwise the seats were perfect! The photos are blurry but I’m going to post them anyway because they make me happy. :)
At the pre-show, this was going on in center ring…
… but we were captivated by the clowns sliding off tables. :)
The opening parade.
Suddenly they turned the lights out and everyone was glowing!
This is a very blurry picture, but can you tell they are black and white horses? Eve called them “cow horses.” She pointed and yelled, “Look Mom, cow horses!!”
The Strong Man tossed around a phone pole like it was nothing. Then two lovely ladies sat in swings on the end and he tossed them around as well. Eve was not impressed. (She was on my lap, hence all the Eve quotes.) She shrugged and said, “Anyone can lift a phone pole.” She cracks me up! Upon further discussion, in the quiet after the show, it turns out she thought I said “foam pole” and was therefore not impressed. Anyone can lift a foam pole! :)
These guys were AWESOME. In this picture there are two guys jumping over two other guys on the high wire.
Standing on shoulders. The guys on the bottom walked all the way across and back with the other guys on their shoulders.
For the finale two guys rode bikes, with a bar across their shoulders and a lady sitting on the chair. They stopped in the middle and she stood on the chair!! I did notice she was wearing a wire for this part of the act. It was pretty amazing!
“The Twin Turbines of Steel!” These guys were jump roping and turning flips as these huge metal rings spun around. The guy on the left lost his balance just as I snapped this picture. He recovered though, and didn’t fall! Thankfully.
Intermission.
We returned from intermission to find the tiger act set up!
The elephants were fun. Lex was surprised at how small they were. :) He asked if they were babies. I guess he had something much bigger pictured in his head. I assured him they were perfectly normal sized elephants.
These are the most awesome shoes ever!! The program calls them bouncy stilts. I’ve actually seen them before in toy catalogs. The glorified version of “moon shoes” that we had as kids. They are amazingly cool though! Fun Fact: While on bouncy stilts, an acrobat can jump up to 16 feet high!
Eve was very tired at the end. We stopped for pizza and she ate dinner like this for awhile.
I’m pretty proud of how the whole day went. Sometimes things all seem to work out well. Both kids did amazingly well. We met Amanda and Rachel there and the six of us had a great time. The show was just long enough. The kids were getting worn out by the end, right as the show came to a close. I think they are at a great age for it. A year or two ago and it would have been too much (too loud, too busy, too long) but now it was just right for them. We stopped at a pizza place on the way back to the car, had some dinner, then had a quiet ride home (thanks to Mrs. Piggle Wiggle on Audible!)