Growing Everyday

Beka and Jared’s art teacher at their school is amazing. So this summer when she offered a week of art camp at her house, I signed both kids up. They went for an hour every day for a week. The first part of the week was spent studying Gustav Klimt and his painting of a baby in a blanket. Each child then tried to make a similar drawing of themselves wrapped in a colorful blanket.

The second part of the week focused on sunflowers. Each child drew a closeup of two sunflowers and colored them with oil pastels. I wish I could have gotten pictures of all of the sunflowers. They were so beautiful. The kids in class really took their time.

(Beka’s picture is on top and Jared’s is on bottom)

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We had an exciting week this week. On Monday afternoon, Beka was trying to walk the dog. Well, Kahla went one way and Beka went the other. Beka bruised her foot pretty badly but it wasn’t broken. She is still limping a little, but she is much better. The unintended effect of the injury was a lot of down time on Tuesday and Wednesday. By Wednesday night, Jared was getting a feral look in his eyes. I knew if I did not get him some exercise and outside time I was going to regret it. So Thursday and Friday afternoons were spent at playgrounds around town giving Jared plenty of time to run and play. I played frisbee, soccer, and sharks and minnows. I think I was more tired than Jared, but at least the feral look was gone.

Now, you might wonder what Beka was doing while Jared and I were playing. Beka has been wanting to cross-stitch for awhile now. So I bought her a little stamped cross-stitch kit where you make a whale. It was very travel friendly and kept Beka occupied for hours.

The finished product doesn’t look too bad either.

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Beka learned how to make these pipe cleaner flower rings by watching a video online. She really enjoys making them. She makes a rose flower ring and a daisy flower ring. She has also discovered how to make a spider ring. Beka thinks she will be able to sell them this summer to kids in the neighborhood, but I think we will just have to wait and see.

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Beka and Jared have a wonderful art teacher at school. She does delightful wonderful project with them introduces them to artists, and uses many different types of mediums in class. One medium I kept hearing about over and over was oil pastels. Now, I am not really artsy person so I had no clue what those were, but when I spotted some at the store I picked them up to try out at home. Oil pastels are really soft crayon type art supplies. The kids enjoyed them immensely all weekend. Jared especially spent hours created artwork with oil pastels.

Sidenote: Jared also lost one of his front teeth on Friday. So hearing him say oil pastels all weekend was hilarious

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A few months ago, our church asked for donations of books. That donation process got me thinking about what our bookshelf and books say about us and what we enjoy reading. Our bookshelf is eclectic to say the least. The top picture is of our bookshelf and if you really look at it you see anything from Dr. Seuss to Harry Potter to Radioisotopes to Chronicles of Narnia. I have a whole shelf full of my comfort reads (the books I go to when I just need a break from real life.) Those comfort read include romance, urban fantasy, and historical. We donated 60 children’s books to the church and I still have three shelves full of books for the kids and that doesn’t include the box of books from my childhood that is hiding in the closet.

You might say my bookshelf shows that I have a tiny addiction to books. I read almost anything I can get my hands on. And gradually, I am passing this addiction onto my children. Beka has discovered Bunnicula by James Howe and Jared loves Captain Underpants. For the most part, I don’t care what the kids are reading as long as it is kid-appropriate. I don’t really care for some of the humor in Captain Underpants, but that is the main reason why Jared likes it. And he is reading and enjoying it! I never want Beka and Jared to feel like reading is something to be suffered through. I want them to anticipate getting to read something.

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Beka received a microscope for Christmas and she also received some prepared slides. Beka has really njoyed looking at things under the microscope. But she got bored with the prepared slides. Now, the last time I had to prepare a microscope slide was sometime in high school. But when Beka asked if we could make some slides, I said sure and set out to re-learn how to make our own slides. We now have slides of toothpaste and a mouth swab. If anyone has any suggestions for slides, let me know. Beka is always looking for more specimens to examine.

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I, by nature, am not a hoarder. I hate clutter and most knick knack type things just seem like dust collectors to me. I throw away things that I haven’t used in 6 months. I just don’t keep a lot of stuff around "just because".

Because I don’t keep a lot of things, I am sometimes mystified by my children. Beka has a collection of feathers, coins, rocks, and miscellaneous other things. Jared collects rocks, pokemon cards, bakugan cards, and I am sure some other things. The point is the kids like to keep things around them all the time. They are neat about it so it doesn’t really bother me, but I also don’t understand it. I just don’t get.

Recently, though I had to draw a line at the collections. We were eating fried chicken at supper and at the exact same time both children asked if they could keep their chicken bones. No reason, they didn’t want to DO anything with them. They just wanted to keep them. My answer was "EWWWWW and NO".

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The trees in our yard are very small and very young, so there are not enough leaves in our yard to even bother to rake. Believe I am not complaining, but the kids miss jumping and playing in the leaves. Luckily, around the pond in our neighborhood there are numerous huge trees that drop tons of leaves. And the best part is you can rake the leaves up to play in them but you don’t have to bag them up or anything!! Anyway, Beka and Jared had a great time rolling in the leaves, throwing the leaves, and burying each in the leaves.

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Our Alien pumpkin

We had a great Halloween. Andrew’s parents came over and ate supper with us so they could see the kids in costume. Beka and Jared had been excited about trick or treating all day. They were determined to walk the whole neighborhood this year. They ended up walking about half of it, but I think they came home with more candy than what I gave out and they had an amazing time.

Beka was a clown and she painted her shirt herself. She could not find a costume she liked, so we invented one.

Jared wanted to be something scary this year. He picked Frankenstein mostly because whenever he talked or walked the chest lit up and his heart glowed. He thought it was the best thing ever.

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I have started letting Beka and Jared invite friends over every Friday after school. There is no homework to do and I think everyone needs to blow off a little steam after sitting quietly in school all week. It is like a weekly reward for good behavior. Anyway, the kids seem to really enjoy it and some of them can’t wait for Friday. The plus for mom is once all activites are out everyone pretty much entertains themselves for 2 hours.

Each week I try to make a goody after-school snack for everyone. Beka requested what we call kid’s sushi one week. It looks pretty cool and tastes really good, but I think Andrew and I ate more of them than the kids.

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