Hank Turns 6

The gang, over for pizza.

 I love this picture of Paige. She is so great.

 Dollar Store styrofoam gliders were a [my, I'm not gonna lie] brilliant idea. The weather was perfect...a bit of wind helped them on their way.

 Justin was more than happy to monkey-up the tree to rescue Ruby's stuck glider.

 No birthday would be complete without a photo of the little sibling waiting in the wings to blow out a candle. Sorry, Hank. Will you ever forgive me for just serving ice cream on your sixth birthday?

Sure love this guy.

Hank at 6:

-Loves dinosaurs and can pronounce their names, talk about their habits and habitats, 

and draw their pictures.

-Is almost done with kindergarten and has grown in leaps and bounds emotionally, socially, and academically. He is learning to write and read.

-Has callouses on both hands from doing the monkey bars every day. Wore gloves to school everyday during the winter for said monkey bars.

-Loves Reese's peanut butter cups and peanut butter/Nutella sandwiches.

-Does 360 degree turns on his Big Wheel, Dukes of Hazzard style.

-Is very insightful and thoughtful. Tells me he is "sensitive" and that his skin is "sensitive." Still sees things that no one else sees, makes connections, and catches more than we realize.

-Loves to watch TV and play computer games. Does flips on the trampoline. Both of which make me uneasy and a little nervous, but we are working on teaching self-control and discipline, as well as safety, so hopefully we're on the right track. 

-Hank is a sweetheart who loves people, especially babies. He is creative and has the accompanying creative temperament (of which I know a bit). 

Like all my children, he teaches me more than he learns from me, and I am grateful for his strong, funny, curious, adventurous, and content spirit.

Vegetable Art

Since the beginning of the year, I've been doing art in Ivy's classroom once a month. We have had a blast, and the topic deserves a full blog post of its own. This week we did a vegetable art project based on the art of Miroco Machiko, with guidance from this blog. I brought in three big bags of vegetables, which we looked at, talked about, studied, smelled. We talked about drawing them, perspective, and filling the paper.

 The kids started drawing vegetables with crayons on watercolor paper.

 Then they watercolored the inside of the vegetables, not always painting things the color they were "supposed" to be, much like Miroco Machiko's fanciful imaginative vegetables.

 Finally, the kids painted the background of their paintings with undiluted black watercolor paint.

 They turned out fantastic!

Of course, this meant a whole lot of vegetables were (washed extremely well and) consumed. My friend Brittany shared a delightful recipe that we all devoured....Stacked Roasted Vegetable Enchiladas. Basically a bunch of roasted vegetables (I used sweet potatoes, pinto beans, fresh corn, mushrooms, asparagus, red pepper, carrots, squash, Swiss chard, eggplant), layered with salsa, cheese, and corn tortillas. Served it with sour cream and avocados. We slicked. It. Down.

 Then came decorating Ivy's classroom door for Teacher Appreciation Week. The vegetables were fresh on my brain, so we repeated the art project, which was really fun. I went to town watercoloring, cutting everything out, and then we hung the art on Friday. Ivy was my assistant, folding pieces of tape to hang up everything on the black butcher paper.

For our final act, I had the kids paint a vegetable on a separate, smaller piece of watercolor paper, which we made into cards. I stitched around the paper with my sewing machine and the kids wrote amazing notes to the teacher. The notes accompanied a beautiful gift basket from the kids.

It was one of my favorite projects of the year!

Reception Time

I have been working on a little project since January. I coordinated a wedding reception for my friend's daughter (who is also my friend, and my former YW when I was a Laurel advisor). We had a good time planning it all, late night meetings and hilarious email exchanges, lots of laughing and no tears! I am surrounded by talented friends who helped pull it all off. It was a good time, candles, Sergio Mendes and Brasil '66, logs, lace, paper streamers (inspired by this), scratch cupcakes that were repeatedly referred to as containing crack cocaine, and an amazingly stunning couple. Lauren sang beautifully, despite lousy audio, and the candles flickered while people danced. Really too much fun.

Easter 2013

Spring Breaking It

We set out for John Day, OR, to visit the cousins after a quick trip to the library for some videos (the old, weird, dubbed Pippi Longstocking, anyone?), some snacks, and tank full of gas. Fun, crazy times ensued. Highlights: trip to the fossil beds 45 minutes from John Day, cousin baths, jumping on the trampoline and playing in Finn's treehouse, cleaning out all of Sarah's closets and drawers (6 black garbage bags later...), biking to the school playground, free community movie every afternoon at 2 PM, an egg hunt with candy and coins, making books and drawings, eating Sarah's good food (best popcorn ever), and lots of fighting, squeeze hugs, and rambunction. Great time...thanks for having us!