Creativity Abounds!

Little Angel  used to be very interested in art. Three years ago we bought her a table and chair, so she could have her own creative space.....then, after I brought her to a couple of art classes....she lost interest. Unfortunately, one of the teachers told her she was doing something wrong in her project (what??!!!)....and that literally resulted in her not creating anymore art for TWO years!!! See how easily a child can be affected by someone!
I never pushed it; the creative process comes from the heart and soul. She had to work through this on her own terms.

A few days ago we hit Michael's. The girls are old enough now where I can do my thing and they can do theirs. Fairy Girl came back with some needle point projects and Little Angel came back with paints and brushes!!
And then she came home and turned created her sweet art studio!!!
Happy Happy Mama!!!
Joyful Joyful Little Angel!

Friday Fun Day!

  

artwork gift from my girls for a very special lady

I have a friend I met two years ago.  I met her in my new band.  She touched me.  She touched ALL of us!  She's my age, and has been battling cancer since she was 33.  She's been nothing but an inspirational fighter; always with a smile on her face!  Yesterday, my dear friend and her husband received the very sad news that she would now be entering into hospice care.   There is an outpouring of Love and Prayers, as she's also a band director and has touched SO many lives.  She's VERY inspiring!

These are going in the mail to my friend today; artwork created for her, from my girls:

From Little Angel:


From Fairy Girl, age 8:

a special note from Fairy girl:
"welcome to Happy Land.  What happens in Happy land, well, whatever you wish will come true!"

Art and Flowers

The girls snuck out of bed at 3am  to create and hang heart art all over the house (there's a lot more where this came from;)

 


these are the beautiful flowers I received from my wonderful hubby!  (unfortunately the Lindt chocolates didn't last long enough to make it to the photo session :D )

and this is the cool giant "piper" card that the girls were excited to receive in the mail...from Grandma and Grandpa (unfortunately Piper got excited too, and proceeded to chew up their Princess Elsa doll, from "Frozen" while they  were busy opening the envelope.....naughty puppy

flashback artwork

little angel's family portrait...circa 2008 or 2009?  notice how not only is mama towering over daddy, but her hair is BROWN :D   I think this is such a sweet piece of art:)

Creative Outlet Adventures...Halloween Crafts

This is the kind of mischief my seven year old gets into, when left to her own devices.

God Bless the U.S.A.!

little angel's heart art

just noticed the back of little angel's heart art (two weeks later:D)

Yoga Class

This non fiction piece was written by Little Miss Angel (age 8) with ZERO help (including spelling **I left all of her original spellings in:) from her teacher....illustrations/pictoral depiction provided by Little Miss Fairy Girl (age 7.)

YOGA CLASS

When we got there we were the first ones to lay out our yoga mats.  Then a few other people came and of course layd out there mats.  Then Ms. Laura introduced herself and told us about the forming art class.  And then we did some moves like butterfly and frog and mermaid and pigeon.  And she massaged our backs while we did a yoga move.  And then she said that kids could play a game.  It was just like musical chairs.

How to Play

you will need

.2 yoga balls

.4 jump ropes

.1 balance beam

.duct tape

1. put the duct tape on the floor and then put 3 kids on each side

2.  turn a radio on turn it off evrey minute.

This Week's Happenings....

 Bambie looking to ride the bronco?

Bambie looking guilty after getting caught mowing our front lawn.

We've had MANY Bambie sitings in our yard lately....our pumpkins are gone, our sunflowers are gone, our July supply of tomatoes is gone.  But we got smart, there is now a fence around our backyard (pumpkins were in the front, sunflowers on the side) vegetable garden.  Take that Bambie!

The girls have decided to enter a contest that they found in The American Girl Magazine.  Do they have American Girls...no (they have very adorable similar dolls from Target, that only cost $30 each (shhhhhh, don't tell the judges:)  The contest is to design a birthday cake!  They mailed their cake artwork with info, and their photographs all the way to beautiful exotic Wisconsin:)  (as the company is headquartered near Madison). 

 

 We FINALLY hit the Friday morning farmer's market on Hilton Head.; located at Coastal Discovery Museum and Honey Horn (home of our beloved butterfly house, which we also visited).

I've decided that it would be fun to set up a booth at some point and start selling my Dragonfly Inspirations Bracelet Creations, and some other fun home-made goodies we have in the works.  It's only $25 (a week) to have a space...we could just start with once a month, and have some fun!  Time to start working on some beachy-coastal theme, as that's the stuff that would sell on Hilton Head:)  I'm going to become my very own tourist trap,  ha ha:D  I just think this would be a fun little social business for the family....we love the atmosphere of this particular Farmer's Market...it is so peaceful and beautiful!  Next project, I will start working on designing and having a banner created.  Stay tuned......

 Little Miss Angel purchased a garden stone kit for her daddy's garden as a Father's Day gift to him.  Below is her beautiful finished art!!

 Remember our front porch project?  Here  it is so far, so glad our porch is no longer all nakie nakie.

 And finally, our weekly beach shots!  Ok, Ok, I confess, we actually haven't made it to the beach this week....can you believe that?  But this works too:)  And aren't you just digging those groovy flipflops!  

Peace out!

This Week in the Exciting Life of Us (ok, ya, it's a stretch, but we need some sort of title to grab ya!)

 vroooooom vroooom vrooom....off to the monday movie in the park!

60s style!

 

 cute kid in the classroom

working on her daddy's garden stone

cute kid in cracker barrel!

and yes, there was most definitely a beach day...I think we all know what the beach looks like by now:D  Though we had some most cool beach clouds!

All The Excitement of Us This Week:)

I am THRILLED BEYOND THRILLED that my favorite little bagel shop from the town we resided in our first few month's down in SC, has opened a second location; right next to my grocery store, just a mile (or two, if you count driving through my neighborhood) by my house!  That is bike riding distance!  The other location, after we purchased our home, was now a 45 minute drive---ME HAPPY!  You don't think my favorite burnt oranges have anything to do with this, do you?:D

This is our little classroom.  It works for us!  Last weekend Ms. Organization spent about three days (off and on) reorganizing her mess.  I honestly hadn't done much since we moved in last year, and it was beginning to affect our schooling---just knowing what materials I have to work with.  Our creative juices have been resparked!  We've revamped our curriculum a bit.  After spending about 2.5 years with it, I've decided Saxon Math is not for us.  I don't regret using it, and I think it's given the girls a solid beginning (and the little teddy bear manipulatives are so darn cute:), but I felt it skipped around a lot, from topic to topic.  My goal is for them to have a VERY strong and solid math experience.  So, after doing a bit of research, we decided to switch to a program called Math U See...I feel this will give my girls a very strong and solid experience; it's VERY sequential; and the goal is not to move onto the next lesson until the girls have mastered each one...mastery means, they can teach it back!  There's a video "teacher" involved, which we LOVE...this actually gives me a bit of a "break" and seems to help them.  So far, after one week with this, we are pleased.  The program should take them through Algebra two---and then I feel they will be very well prepared for advanced math coursework.

While I was at band rehearsal last week, the girls made a batch of cookies, all by themselves, as a team!  (I'm not sure if I should be more impressed with the cookies or the teamwork:)  Granted, although I'm a "from scratch" kind of girl, this was a peanutbutter cookie mix, and gives my 6 and 8 year olds the ability to start working more independanty in the kitchen.

Ok, I confess, I'm the mean mama who doesn't let her little girls play dress-up with my clothes; so, they've had to adapt:D

J's garden is well-established!  We are looking forward to peppers, tomatoes, zucchini (and already a boatload of herbs), maybe cucumbers? (can't remember).  Looking forward to planting garlic and onions at some point!

We are studying the early Americas.  We did some brief overview of the various Native American tribes in the various regions of the country, and some of the different ways they lived.  Little Angel chose to depict her idea of living in the Pacific north west, where there was sure to be lots of fishing.  Fairy Girl (can't find artwork) created a piece describing those in the plain's state, who were very dependant on the buffalo (ok, yes, I know, North American Water Bison, since technically buffalo do not live here...I know that because we spent some time in the plain's states on our way to Glacier National Park in Montana...ok, I actually really learned that when I went to school at the University of Denver to become a Certified Tour Manager!  (little-known fact;)

Not pictured, this past weekend, we almost attended our regular Wine Walk (ahem I mean art walk:)...we've done this before with the kiddos--it's in the Old Towne section of our town...I personally get nervous with the girls walking around all the sculptures, etc.  Saturday we headed to the river front for Earth Day river clean up and festivities.  We went after the start time and Ms. Angel was so afraid there would be no garbage left for her to pick up.  Her daddy convinced her not to worry, as he would throw garbage on the ground for her (and I assured him he was sure to get caught and slapped with a $500 fine:D)

And Sunday, our favorite little icecream shop, which hosts Monday Movies in the Park (starting up again soon!), celebrated its one year birthday in business, offering free cake (yes, of course we bought icecream to go with it:)

And finally, my little ones aren't so little anymore...here is Ms. Angel reading us a bedtime story---a chapter from "Little House on The Prairie."

Sweet Dreams