Still Life

It was a rainy morning. I thought it would be kind of fun to have the kids draw some fruit. I love seeing how their drawings turn out. Samantha is starting to have a little more control...drawing shapes, faces, etc. Jack has been getting some great circles going recently too. (Seems like it all starts with circles).

Oranges On A Blue Plate (fancy, huh?)

JACK'S ORANGES

SAMANTHA'S ORANGES


Bananas In A Green Bowl



SAMANTHA'S BANANAS



These are my bananas. Jack lost interest in drawing and went to play with dinosaurs or something after the oranges.

Just because

I'm so glad I get to kiss on these sweet cheeks everyday!

Picnic at New Favorite Park

This weekend Molly, the kids and I checked out the Creative Playscape in Georgetown. It's been written about in magazines and newspapers as being one of the best playscapes in the area. It's a huge, wooden sprawling fort. Lots of tire swings, wobbly bridges, nooks and crannies just the right size for small children (and not tall Mama's toting big cameras). It even has small zip-line and musical chimes. I also thought it was cool that they have incorporated art through-out...painted tiles and wood- framed paintings, at children's eye-level.

Molly packed us the best picnic lunch I've ever had. Really, it was gourmet. It rocks having a chef in the family. She packed all of our favorites...chicken salad and turkey pastrami sandwiches, fruit, veggies with dips, olives, pickles, cheese (blue cheese for Jack), and still warm chocolate chip cookies!! Awesome! The kids are going to be so disapointed the next time I pack our picnic lunch.

After eating and playing, we went down to the river and checked out the ducks and geese. I forget how pretty San Gabriel park is...we'll be heading back again this summer I'm sure.

Can't Believe...

It's already sprinkler weather and it's only April!

You notice that Jack isn't in any of these pictures? He hates water spraying in his face. Not his thing at all. He likes swimming OK, but hangs out on the deck when the sprinkler is on. Samantha, on the other hand, starts wearing her swimsuit as soon as it's 70 degrees and hooks up the sprinkler on her own.

Mystical Trees and Other Wonders of Nature

The Easter Bunny left this really cool "Mystical Tree" in Samantha's basket this year ($3 at Lakeshore). Just place the tree into the included potassium solution and watch it grow "leaves" in several hours.





The kids were mesmerized. Unfortunately this is not a hands on project, which is always a problem with preschoolers, so I let them try out another, (sort of) related project while our tree was growing.

I came across this celery idea on a blog that I recently discovered and LOVE. So many great ideas for kids there!

Anyway, you just let celery sit in food-colored water and wait for it to suck up the color through their tiny veins.

The bottom picture was taken of the celery in purple water, after it had soaked overnight. As you can see, it's a very subtle color change, but S and J enjoyed being able to get their hands on this one.

Sam and I tried to throw out the term "capillary action," to Samantha several times, but she wasn't having it. She just looked at us and said "OK, I'm going to play with my doll now." Hmm, maybe we were just a tad ahead of ourselves. She did understand that it was similar to when she drinks through a straw, so that's a start.

No Waves

I've been wishing that I was at the beach. Or just somewhere different.

I feel like I have tons of things I need to do, but don't want to get started on any of them. "Boring" things, like the pile of laundry, weeds in the yard, culling out old toys, etc. I should also be working on forest animals. Oh, I have lots and lots of forest animals to make for Vacation Bible School.

Instead, we made wave bottles (that the kids were mildly impressed with) and I decided to start teaching Samantha how to stitch.

That's pretty much all I've got for now.

Egg Overload

What a busy Easter week! And three of us at different ends of a nasty cold too. Someone has to be sick during a holiday it seems.

Samantha started off the egg hunting with her preschool class on Thursday. Lots of fun...I got to be one of the parents to hide eggs for the kids, (twice)! Her school had the whole park to themselves to hunt, play and eat lunch. Best part...everybody left with exactly 12 eggs each. A very diplomatic Easter Bunny!

We celebrated Easter on Saturday with the Peck side of the family. Molly, (The Vanilla Orchid), prepared us an amazing meal. After eating, the kids hunted for eggs with all of their cousins. Samantha loved the confetti eggs. Jack stopped hunting after finding about 3 eggs. Once he realized that candy was inside, he found a nice isolated spot to stuff his cheeks. I don't think he has the whole more is better thing figured out here.

Sunday, we headed over to Ba and Pa's after church. More good food and egg hunting. Nobody was safe from Samantha smashing cascarones. She confetti-ed every head in reach. It's supposed to be good luck though, right?










Hope you had a wonderful Easter too.

Sounds like "Mas"

Jack calls Samantha "Aas." Not Ass. "Aas", with a 'short A' sound. This is what he has called her since about 10 or 11 months of age. We have no idea why. It doesn't really sound like any shortened version of Samantha that we can think of. He can say Sam, and many other names. In fact, if he's not calling her Aas, then he's calling her "my cute baby." Really.

What's funny to me is that Samantha figured out this was her name before we did. She does that a lot- knows what he wants or what he's trying to say before we do. Today he was screaming about nap time and Samantha brought him a picture of her to keep in his crib. He got quiet immediately and fell asleep holding the picture.

Samantha calls Jack, "Jackie." The one nickname we hated for Jack before he was born. But it sounds so cute when she says it, that I sometimes catch myself calling him Jackie too.

When we try to go out...

Sam and I don't go out for "dates" often. At least not often enough. We tried this weekend (even arranging for the kids to spend the night at Ba and Pa's- their first sleep over).

Let me tell you how it went.

Kids are at the grandparents, Sam and I are getting ready.

Scout gets sick. She's a dog, but she lives INDOORS. I'll just leave it at this- she's trained us well. We decide to drop her off at Ba and Pa's too. What's one more responsibility, right? (what a good Ba and Pa we have).

Scout throws up on Sam's fancy clothes on the way to Ba and Pa's.

We carry on to the concert. Down to UT campus, Hogg Auditorium. Oh yeah, the Texas Relays are this weekend aren't they? Wow, all of the parking garages say "FULL."

It's okay, we need the exercise. We'll walk. A very long way.

Ahhh. We made it. The concert is worth the hassle... Madeleine Peyroux. She's amazing, and so is her opening band.

It's late, we call Ba and Pa to check on the evening events. Jack is snoozing away. Samantha started running a fever and saying her tummy and throat hurt. Poor girl, she was so excited about spending the night.

We pick up Samantha and Scout, and head back home.

Get home around 1 a.m.? Just in time for more throw up. Up most of the night.

You never know what will happen with kids (and dogs, I guess). It keeps us young. Or maybe it makes us old. It's all so very worth it though.

We'll try another date night soon. Are you ready Ba and Pa?

Our Naturally Dyed Easter Eggs

I was in the mood for a project.

Following the suggestion of Martha, I decided to dye Easter eggs using vegetables and spices. This is how they used to do it right? Before PAAS? At any rate, I thought it would be a good learning opportunity for the kids, and me. It was more labor intensive than I had imagined. Not hard, just time consuming (which was kind of a good thing). Also, messier than I thought, once a two and three year old were factored into the equation.

We got some awesome results though. I used both brown and white eggs, blown out (even setting aside my salmonella fears, and let Samantha help me do the blowing out bit). Left them in the dye solutions overnight, because apparently natural dyes can come out a little subdued.

What we used....
Yellow- Ground Tumeric
Red- Beets
Blue- purple cabbage
Green-(cheated here) food coloring, vinegar and boiling water

The beets were my favorite. They dyed the eggs quickly, didn't stink (boiled cabbage), and I ate them, after straining off the water. (Thanks mom for the Harvard Beet recipe).





I'd be up for it again next year. Maybe even try a few new dyes...coffee, onions, paprika. I don't know how much the kids absorbed, but I'm sure it was something. I asked Samantha later that night "What did we use to dye our Easter Eggs today?" She replied, "I don't know. Blue Bonnets and beets?"