the perfect classroom

 it's decorated in bright, cheerful colors

 you can bring special visitors to class

 there's a lot of down time

 you don't have to sit at your desk to work

 and your teacher loves everything you do.  :)

 Nature study / art was outdoors on Friday, at the walking trail / creek we like so much.  We had worked hard all week and it was time for something carefree!

 See the tiny (and I mean tiny) fish?  Not exactly River Monsters.

 But how fun is this?

 And this?  Alli kept calling it a lobster.  "Crawdad, Alli.  It's a crawdad."

 I love how everyone's drawing is completely different!  From Ben's bold colors that fill the whole page to Nathan's simple pencil sketches to Alli's single flower.  (Ben's drawing is of rocks in the stream and branches that hang over the water. So cool.) 

 I think I could have this photo framed and displayed in the most visible place of the house (well, when we get our own house, ha ha) and look at it every morning, noon, and night, and never, ever get tired of it.  Ever.  

When we got home, we planted tomatoes and peppers in Grandma and Grandpa's garden.  Then it was, "What is this called again?"


"A grub, Alli.  It's a grub."  


And so she made a Tupperware home for it and named it George.


*grin*

so there was this guy..



So, we're coming out of the library parking lot the other day, and I notice this guy working on a mural.  He's painting the west wall of the coffeeshop that I was going to stop at one day until Jamie said it was also a great place to buy crack.  And that their coffee isn't even very good.  Y'all know I can't handle bad coffee.
So I drive by the mural artist, and I think, "That would make a really cool picture."
And then I think, "I actually do have my camera with me today."
And I drive a couple more blocks, while this crazy battle rages in my head:

"You could go back and take pictures of him."
"What kind of a dork are you?"
"No, really, it wouldn't hurt to ask."
"Unless he's a raging lunatic on crack and bad coffee."
"Dana.  Quit being judgemental.  He's an artist, for Pete's sake.  He's painting their mural."
"The kids need to get home for naps."
"You have one chance to catch this."
Yup.


He was great, and let me snap some photos, and told me where he was from and about other work he had coming up.  And I was glad I got over my dorky self.




And I like that I got this, because it turned out pretty cool in editing when I laid a brick texture over the photo.  I just wish I could remember the guy's name, because apparently, I wrote down his email address incorrectly, and I was going to send him the photos.  And I really don't want to have to venture into the crack shop to ask for his info.


All this business about walls inspired me to decorate some of ours at home yesterday:




My SIL, Tia made these wooden letters for each of my kids and I just hadn't put them up on our walls yet, even though we moved in to this house eleven months ago.  Yes, I have guilt and shame.  These should have been put up in their rooms before I unpacked the blender.  Except that I don't own a blender, so now I'm not sure why I said that, but you get my drift.




Nathan's is on the left side of thier window and Ben's is on the right side.  They were both really happy seeing their names up again, and it looks so good when you come into their room.  I love that she made these for them.




I didn't have an 8x10 of Spencer to put up yet, but here's his name.  The picture is a little dark, but it really looks great on his yellow walls, and with his red painted floor. 




Along with Alli's name, I put up a coat rack for her dress-up gear.  Her toy box was spilling over with princess dresses and fairy wings, so this should give her a little more girly space.  Eventually I'll put a full-length mirror over to the left of her baby picture.  (And change the baby picture to a big-girl one.)



And here's something I should have posted long ago, the painting Jayna gave me for my birthday this summer.  Is it incredible or what?  I cried when I opened it.  She pulled pictures off of my blog and facebook and did some cool transfer thing and then painted it.  Of course, she's a detail person like my husband and is probably squirming at how I just glossed over that entire process, and I know she could tell you beautifully just exactly how it was done!  It's hanging by my front door, and everyone that comes in just loves, loves, LOVES it and I feel special for having such a one-of-a-kind painting and I always wish Jayna could be here to hear the comments.
Of course, I always wish Jayna could be here anyway, but that's beside the point.
:)



crafty little punkins

We have been a bit crafty lately!  Thought I'd share what we've been up to this past week.
Above is a spiderweb made of glue on cardboard, colored in with oil pastels.
It was supposed to be a spiderweb glued onto black paper and colored in with chalk pastels, which is an idea I found here at Art Projects for Kids.  Her idea is better, but we used what we had (the cardboard was the insert in a new, 2011 calendar) and the kids still liked the end result.  It gave my kids a chance to squeeze Elmer's glue right out of the bottle, which was really enough joy in itself.

Whenever I bring home new art supplies of any kind, silent alarms go off that alert Ben to their whereabouts.  So he can make pom-pom pipe-cleaner signet rings and such.  I love Ben's messes creativity so terribly much.  I think the kid has a hundred new ideas a day.

Like these - tiny balloon faces with (you guessed it) pom-pom eyeballs.

We used some of the extra balloons for painting.  My kids like to dip the end of the balloon in tempera paint and use it like a stamp, so I had them do that in fall colors on some paper plates,

and then I cut leaf shapes out of them and hung them on our ceiling fan to dance around in the breeze.

We also had a major baking week.  I guess Jill's molasses cookies put me in the mood for baking.  Or maybe it's just the magnificent fall weather?  Anyway, we made banana bread, and these gingerbread scones, which didn't turn out very well.

But then we made this pumpkin bread, which did.  :)
And of course, all of it is gone except a few lonely slices of banana bread.

Which reminds me....I've taken up running again.

This afternoon, we made these yarn pumpkins that I just love, because I really like the multi-colored yarn I found at Hobby Lobby.  It's so much better than plain orange!  I remembered doing these a couple years ago, but we made them as apples.  They're super easy.

This is all you need:  yarn and pipe cleaners.

You just cut a pipe cleaner in half, hold the halves side by side, and start wrapping yarn around the middle...around and around and around





When it's about this big, bring the ends of one pipe cleaner half to the "bottom" of the pumpkin and twist them closed.  Then take the other pipe cleaner, flip the pumpkin over, and do the same to the "top," leaving a little extra to look like a stem.

And there ya go!  You could also use brown pipe cleaners, and you could add a leaf or vine to the top.  Maybe we'll get around to that later, but my guess is we'll be on to something else instead.

playdate at the artery

Today Julie, Katie and I took our kids to the Artery for a playdate!

It's an area in the Salina Arts Center just for kids. They have papers, markers, crayons, glue, scissors, stencils, etc., all out on the table. We all agreed - it's nice to make those messes on someone else's table once in a while.

The kids had a great time, and were really busy with their work.

They finished up with a game of Ring-Around-the-Rosie.

Sort-of.

salt dough ornaments

My sister put up her Christmas tree in her new apartment, but was in dire need of some "ornamentation." (Is that a word? Ornamentation...)

So my kids made their Aunt DeAnn some beautiful cinnamon-salt-dough ornaments! We baked them yesterday (the house smelled SO good!) and did the decorating this afternoon.

We painted them with a coat of silver acrylic.

This is what most of them looked like after painting, so I covered the backsides and filled in all the brown places when the kids left the table. The great thing is, even with the layer of paint, you can still smell the cinnamon!

She has a fiberoptic tree, so we thought that adding bright sequins would be just the right touch.

This, of course, is Ben's. What can I say? The boy likes sequins.

We lined a shoebox with tissue paper, loaded it with bejeweled stars, trees, hearts, butterflies, teddy bears and snowmen, and took them to her this afternoon. She loved them!

*Here's the salt dough recipe (scroll down) if you know someone whose tree is a little on the bare side! They'd also make great gift name tags. The dough is very stiff, and I had to add a little more water. The second batch turned out better because the kids had worked more flour into the dough after cutting out the first round.

soap carving

...on a "stiick."