Yellow Belts

Today in art group the littles did do a dot pieces with collaged feathers, puff balls and sequins to dip in glue. The bigs did self portraits based on the art of Mondrian. Unfortunately I did not take more pictures.

The girls also tested for their yellow belts!

Rachel Platten Concert

MeMine and I took the girls to their first rock/pop concert. Rachel Platten came to our town and we had seats up front and center. The girls were able to run right up to the stage and touch her hand as she went past. It was a great night.

The girls are really into this string art technique. They are insisting that we HAVE to do it with art group so I guess we will buying this stuff in bulk. They pound out a picture with little nails and then wrap colored string around it to fill in the drawing.

Random Things

I love finding little doodles around the house. New Fish has become more interested in art than ever.
Anytime I catch these two quietly playing together in their own little world, it makes me happy.

Trampoline time with Nixie. These two crack me up. They are pretty much the exact same size.

We went on an outing to a local farm with friends. The giant lop bunny was stolen from the farm later that day and it totally scandalized my kids. The bunny was very pregnant and was returned the next day but my kids have many conspiracy theories on where the bunny was.

Red Fish went to the baptism of one of her Best friends H.

Messy bird feeder project in the front yard

These jammies are affectionately known as "the sparkle pups". New Fish has been wearing them since she was two and a half. They are a size three and I'm pretty sure she intends to stretch them and make them fit for the next decade. She will not hear anything about them being too small.

New Years, Grandma's Birthday and Art

 Skiing a black diamond with Pop Pops (easy resort meant that this was not equivalent to the black diamonds at the resort they normally ski at but it was a huge confidence boost. )

 New Years at the Lake House. Movies, board games, puzzles, sledding and sparkling cider at midnight (also known at 9:00pm.) My kids favorite part is running around outside with pots and pans.

Always with the babies.

 We had a birthday party for Grandma (Scott's mom) with the O family. I am so lucky to have such a wonderful mother in law and for my kids to live close to her.

 I always love to capture some of the drawings that my kids have been doing. These were favorites.

Art At Our House

 We are trying to keep the art flowing around these parts. These are some little still life paintings the girls were working on today.

 The girls have been doing some monster drawing with drawing prompts from the Picklebums blog. We are trying to do a lot more drawing.

 The girls tried some tape resist skeletons inspired by The Artful Parent blog. They used tape to block out a skeleton shape and then covered the whole paper in black finger paint.  When it dried, they peeled off the tape and had an awesome skeleton.  I was surprised by how much I liked the final product.

Dinosaur Drawings

 These pictures are terribly blurry because the lighting at the dinosaur museum isn't terribly camera friendly and I only had my cell phone.  We went to the musuem to do some drawing in our sketch books and one of the paleontologist suggested the girls submit some drawings for a new exhibit they have.  The girls were thrilled. It made our drawing day even better.

Fall Break Day 2

 We spent the day off from school at the aviary. We have been taking our sketch books on all of our adventures and we spent the bulk of our time drawing birds.  Drawing live, moving animals presented a challenge.  The girls would freak out every time their subject moved. The aviary is amazing because it is never crowded and there birds from all over the world.  This outing was the last thing on my list of stuff I wanted to do over the summer but it was a better Fall activity. The weather has been gorgeous and we have been making the most of the warm days.

 After Two Fish finished work, we met him for a picnic and hike up to a lake near our house. It was nice and steep, just the way the girls like things. We caught the last bit of Fall color in the mountains.

Family Day

 We spent the morning at a nearby animal musuem.  The girls love animals.  They loved the massive bug collection as they have just started a bug collection of their own.

 There was a live animal show while we were at the museum.  The presenter gave clues about the animals and then brought the animals out for show and tell.  Red Fish could hardly contain herself during the lecture.  She ran straight to the front when the presenter invited the kids to hold the animals.  She let a tarantula walk all over her and held a snake.  It was gross and she loved it.  New Fish pet the snake and lizard but there was no way she was going to hold a spider.

 We spent the afternoon up the canyon with our sketch pads.  I would have like to draw at the museum as well but we didn't have our supplies with us.  There needs to be much more drawing our lives.  We used pastels to sketch the waterfall and then pencil to draw different leaves.  I need to start remembering to take sketch books on our adventures.

Giraffe Report

 The biggest project in kindergarten this year was an animal report.  They had to do a written report with a picture and then present the report in front of their class.  Red Fish was so cute while working on her report.  She spent so much time writing the report that I finally had to cut her off.  She would have written ten pages about giraffes.  I absolutely adore how her picture turned out.  She is really starting to have some drawing skills. I was really impressed with the final product. I was lucky enough to be volunteering in her classroom when she presented so I got to hear her presentation.