As it is, it took a lot of subtle persuading to get her to do groups instead of total chaos. (Yes, I admittedly have issues with kids and art projects.)
Category Archives: Art/Drawing/Coloring/Crafts
The end of the puzzle.
For as much as she wanted to color it, she didn’t do much (I did probably 95% of it). It’s back in the box now and she has no desire to put it together. Maybe we’ll get it out next year. #fail
Family night at primary!
Katie’s school had a family night with lots of fun games and activities.
Glow-in-the-dark mini golf:
Pictures with Wiley, the district mascot:
An attempted family selfie:
Revealing their magic notes (after drawing pictures with white crayon):
Owen’s holiday penguin
This was the project the class mom brought for the holiday party. I’m not that mom. 🙂
She loves her new paints.
Decorating Christmas cookies at the gallery!
Owen brought home this gift for the family.
She’s quite happy with herself.
She loves ink stamps. As you can see. 🙂
Brunch with Santa!
Grannie wanted to do something “Santa-y” this weekend for the kids, so we found a Brunch with Santa… Unfortunately I think it might be the last year to see Santa—neither one wanted to sit on his lap (though honestly, neither has ever loved the idea) but they agreed to stand at his side. They did enjoy the crafts afterwards, though. 🙂
Katie’s first love letters.
His name is Thomas and apparently he’s one of four who love her and want to take her out to eat and who chase her. Hoo boy.
The kids doing pysanky with Gramma Jean for the first time!
They’re a bit behind—I started at age 3! They were both excited to sit down and do it. Gramma gave them a quick lesson on how to hold the egg and kistka, but unfortunately both of them forgot and ended up grabbing the hot metal end…which is why you see tears on some of Katie’s close up pics. They both had fun and enjoyed doing two eggs—I was only going to watch but then couldn’t help myself and had to jump in and “do a quick egg” which of course turned into more time than I planned and I ended up sitting there finishing mine while the kids were done and outside playing. 🙂 (Note: The eggs are done but are still at Gramma’s house being varnished so the finished product photo will come later.)
Tom had to take the seats out of the minivan.
This is what I walked downstairs to see this morning. Owen was in it at one point, too. And you notice the shoes, too, right? She clomps around in them all. the. time.
This is how they passed the time while sisters are at Hip Hop.Â
First Owen read his Lego book to Enzo and then this happened. Enzo is only four but Owen thoroughly enjoys playing with him.
 I love these Katie drawings.Â
Owen is so sweet.
This is what he made for us in the art room at Parents Night Out.
Pumpkin Day
I volunteered to help with Pumpkin Day in Katie’s classroom. I had no idea what would be involved but then I got the email saying we’d be carving pumpkins so bring a knife and bowl if we could. Hoo boy—I hadn’t carved a pumpkin in years…
The classroom was a bit insane (I don’t know how she does it without an assistant—we were spoiled with Owen’s class having one) but overall it went well. There were four moms total so we each had a group of six. We had to measure the pumpkin with blocks and chain lengths, write what the pumpkin felt and smelled like, weigh the pumpkin, see if it sank or floated…and then design and carve the pumpkin. In an hour.
As you can imagine it was pretty much like herding cats. It started with the teacher switching Katie’s seat with someone so we could be at the same table…and the kid completely lost his shit and was a crying hot mess because “he wanted his seat.” Really, kid? You lose it over moving seats for an hour? And then some kids couldn’t pay attention for more than three seconds. One had no idea how to draw an H (“we haven’t done that letter yet”). A few wrote their numbers backwards (71 for 17) but fixed it after I told them—except one kid who literally kept writing it 71 no matter how many times I told him it was 1-7 not 7-1. One kid wrote all his letters on top of one another. You get the idea. I’m not bragging when I say that Katie seemed among the most advanced in her group (able to pay attention, answer questions, write her letters and numbers correctly, and follow instructions).
This is a snapshot of mass chaos before we even started.
I didn’t take many pictures because I was very involved in every step of the way—plus I didn’t have pockets, remember.
Katie was the badge collector.
And then it was time to go home so Katie got to ride home with me. She had a good time and was happy I came.
Proof they can be really sweet.Â
Sophia knew Katie was getting shots this morning so showed up with this. Awwwww.
Coloring with Grannie
Coloring an adult coloring book!
She is REALLY good at coloring and staying in the lines. What you see is all her work!
Our first Parents Night Out was a success!
I walked in to pick up the kids and this was happening!
Both kids had a blast—bounce houses, art projects, and pizza for dinner! They can’t wait until next month!!
How to thrill a little girl.Â
I can’t even remember how this started. I think she asked if she could draw on her dress and of course my first and immediate answer was no. But then I had a thought. I had Tom check the size and it was a 4… Which means it won’t fit next summer… And it’s already pretty worn… SO WHY NOT?!
She. Was. Thrilled.
Marshmallow selfies and drawing by the fire
Happy 16th Anniversary!
Waiting for Tom to get home and enjoying the weather on the front porch.
Of course we had to start with a traditional anniversary selfie. 🙂
Our dinner of choice this year was…sushi! This was called the Willis Tower and had layers of crab salad, sushi rice, avocado, spicy tuna, and a few sauces. You ate it with a spoon!
We couldn’t decide between three rolls so let the waiter choose for us. Why yes, that IS gold leaf on there (right).
We wanted dessert and were trying to decide where to go. Our waiter, knowing it was our anniversary, said he’d give us a mochi on the house. We’d never had it, but were game to try it—all we knew is that it would be strawberry flavor. This is what came out: it was strawberry ice cream on the inside. It was tasty but not quite what we had in mind. (I Googled later and learned that mochi is a Japanese rice cake made of mochigome, a short-grain japonica glutinous rice. The rice is pounded into paste and molded into the desired shape.)
So we headed toward home and somehow ended up at The Chocolate Sanctuary where we both indulged in our own desserts! (We rarely get dessert and when we do it’s shared between all for of us.)
Tom had Pecan Bourbon Crème Brulé (Jim Beam infused crème brulée with toasted pecans, topped with toasted meringue and Sanctuary caramel) and I had S’mores Dark Chocolate (Dark chocolate flourless cake with toasted meringue, cocoa graham cracker sable, cocoa graham crumble, Sanctuary spiced caramel, and cocoa-candied bacon).
We may also have let it known it was our anniversary (the couple across from us was celebrating their 38th!) so we may have also indulged in free champagne and raspberry chocolates. 💕
And then this was waiting for us when we got home. (Well, they actually weren’t quite finished when we walked in so we were forcefully instructed to go wait upstairs!)
The kids helped Grannie make rice krispie treats (decorated with our cake topper!) and they drew and colored a sign. They were so excited to surprise us.
It’s kind of hard to see, but they drew and colored lots of wedding-related things (my ring and flowers, the train, the cake, the horse and carriage) as well as some of our favorite things (Petoskey stone, a saw, dolphins). We loved it! And then of course we had to have a bite of still-warm rice krispie bars!!
It was a good day. 🙂
Katie’s cute person
I love finding things like this.
Katie’s Pre-K artwork!
Oh jeez. I thought I had posted this a looong time ago… Better late than never!
I always wondered why she rarely brought home artwork…and then it all came home on the last day! It took me awhile to get the energy to take pictures of it all, but here they are.
Meet Wonder Woman!
We happened upon face painting while wasting time before my iFly flight. We wanted Owen to get one as well but he refused.
Kids’ drawings to the rescue!
When you’re trying to use what you have but the presents are too wide for all 12 birthday bags you have…you have the kids decorate pics to glue on. #reducereuserecycle #littlekidswontcaretheyjustwantthepresents
A quick visit to Owen’s classroom.Â
I needed to surreptitiously give his teacher his end-of-year book to sign so I made an excuse to pick him up. He was excited because they’ve been studying monarch butterflies and they are hatching some in class and he wanted to show me.
Other stuff from his classroom:
Artwork projects in the hallway. I asked him what pieces he drew.
The corn, apples, and pumpkin section:
The horse (which Katie said did not look like a horse):
And this—which I’m not sure what it is, but he was upset that someone scribble-scrabbled on it.
He did the red ladybug on the far right.
  
It’s a chalk kind of morning.Â
She’s really quite good at coloring.Â
The picture I didn’t take, however, is what it looks like when she’s done…when ask the white space is colored in as well (usually with the same color so there was really no point in staying inside the lines). 🙂