greetingarts

paint play

All this week my girls and I have been absorbing Regina's wonderful e-course, The Art of Giving.  The posts are thoughtful, the message important, and the homework is pretty fun.  Regina has some great videos (with nice music!) that show her creative process and they're really fun and magical to watch.

 
I definitely need to do this more often, and learn how to let go, let loose, be free with the paints and play.  Instead of worrying about mess, waste (that's a biggie for me), or precision.  My girls are really good at that part, I'm terrible at it.  Although it helps that I had all of this stuff on hand already - some materials are at least a decade old.

 
And pushing and scraping paint around with the side of a credit card sure is a better way to use them than to rack up more debt! 

I hope to show some finished pages and some of my girls' creations, too, along the way.

even on rainy days

 
Some days it's nice to be reminded.

letter to Santa

 
            Santa,

            Please give presents to dead people.

                                       By Jessica
                                       12/16/10

My girl with the sweet, kind heart wishes all people (dead or alive) and animals a very merry Christmas, with lots of presents to unwrap and good food (chocolate) to eat.

From all of us, Rebecca, Jessie, my husband and I, happy holidays.

missed my calling

In June, after the kids got out of school and before our annual passes were blocked out for the summer, we spent a lot of time at the Happiest Place on Earth, and California Adventure, the smaller park located across from the main one.  One of my favorite things to do there is to attend Animation Academy and learn how to draw a Disney character while sitting in their comfortable, air-conditioned, art studio theatre.

The kids like it too, of course, but I could sit there in the studio all. day. long.  The Imagineer demonstrates how to draw a different character every half hour, and you get paper, clipboard and a pencil without eraser, then sketch along with him.  We've done Mickey, Daisy, Tigger and Pooh.  Three in one day, because I kept wanting to go back. 

Can you guess which Mickey was drawn by which family member?

There's also a book that has the same steps the Imagineers use to show the audience how to draw (over there in my left sidebar under "playing").  We checked it out from the library and are having fun with it at home, too.

So did you guess which one is mine?  Do you think I missed my calling?  I think my husband did, for sure! 

not enough

After reading this post, my girls and I went into action, and yesterday I mailed off a small package of roughly 10"x10" squares cut up from old, 100% cotton T-shirts for Project 8.  It isn't much, and doesn't really help me feel any better, but the girls were designating animals for each square ("this goes to the pelican, this will be for a seal, this will be for a hermit crab...") and I know it made them feel good, so that's something at least.

They drew cards for the workers, thanking them for saving the marine life. 

I have to show a close up of the pelican Jessie drew.  Man, I love it so much.  It's going to get embroidered on something, I swear. 

 
Jessie even decorated the envelope (ignoring my strict instructions to stay *away* from the writing, of course.  I hope the sorting machines can read through the marker...). 

Even the back didn't escape attention.  That's the Earth inside a heart, for those that need artistic interpretation.  Love the Earth.  Yes, indeed.  God, if only it could all be fixed with wishes and love.  We have an abundance of it.
 

last day gifts

The weeks leading up to the last day of school were absolutely crazy for me.  Knitting and crocheting deadlines, helping Rebecca's teacher take down the stuff on the walls and pack up books and everything to switch classrooms, inventory for the school library, community club meetings, another Book Fair, doing final Box Tops and Campbell's Labels mailings, and getting rewards out to the students and faculty.  I was there by 8 in the morning and left well after 3, sometimes later than most of the staff.  I'd resigned myself to the fact that I wasn't going to be able to make any gifts for anyone except Rebecca's amazing teacher, and though I felt a little bit bad about it, I knew it was the smart, sane thing to do.

I used the Note Taker pattern from Kathy, and made the small size with these great school-themed fabrics I've been collecting.  I left out the stabilizer and just reinforced with double layers of fusible interfacing (frankly, because that's all I had!), so now it's washable if necessary.  The girls drew their own cards, and I wrote a heartfelt note to a truly remarkable woman.

 
I finished all the sewing by Monday night (last day of school was Thursday) and when I went to the closet to pull out a notepad, dang!  Not one was to be found.  So I grudgingly went to Staples, armed with my Rewards Coupon, and went to get a 5" x 8" notepad. 

 
As I was trying to decide between yellow, white, unbleached, recycled, wide-, narrow- or college-ruled, I found these Mini Writing Tablets, in pink, green, yellow, and purple.  They came five to a pack, and were marked at 99 cents.  The wheels started turning, and suddenly I knew I could do something inexpensive, fast and easy for Rebecca's classmates, too.  And even better, when I got to the checkout counter, the packs of tablets rang up at 50 cents each!  And with my $9 rewards check, I didn't end up paying a dime for anything.  Whoo hoo!

 
I had a stack of black construction paper left over after taking down one of the teacher's bulletin boards, and I thought I could make covers for the pads so that they looked like faux chalkboards.  Of course, I first had to check with Rebecca to make sure the kids still knew what a chalkboard was, but she assured me she did.  She'd seen one in a movie before, she said.  Ha!  Anyway, I cut the paper down to size (3.5" x 5"), plus about an inch extra in length so I had enough to wrap around the top to the back of the pad.  I used double stick tape, easy peasy.  Then Rebecca drew on them with chalk, we printed "Happy Summer" labels with her name and email address on them and stuck them on the inside front cover, and that was that.  I didn't even have to stay up late!

we had a great day... it was a super way

... to spend some time together.  La la la la la laaaaa, are you singin' along yet?  What, you don't know the Fresh Beat Band?  Then you obviously don't live in my house.  Because Jessica *loves* the Fresh Beat Band.  When she watches the show (the photo above was from September, 2009), she lays out a scarf as her dance floor, puts on some boogie shoes and sometimes dresses up, and starts doing all the arm gestures, the poses, the spins, and sings along.  When she gets tired, she'll sit down, pull out all her markers and start drawing them.

And by chance, on Saturday night as I was searching the internet to find out if who was going to be at the Los Angeles Festival of Books (which I was totally planning on not attending on Sunday but decided to look it up - just in case), I discovered The Fresh Beat Band was performing live at 10 in the morning.  So my husband and I totally rearranged our plans (him much more so than me) and got the kids up at 6:45 am the next morning to make the hour drive.

Except for Mr. I'm-a-Completely-Selfish-A** who insisted on standing up to videotape the concert even though he already had an unobstructed view, and Ms. What-Can-I-Do-I-Can't-Ask-My-Child-to-Sit-Down who seemed so apologetic that her child was standing up on a seat directly in front of my baby but who was somehow unable to physically pick up her four year old and move her the eff over, or, gee, maybe have her sit down... aside from those two clueless individuals, we couldn't have asked for more.  It was a surprise, but the instant Jessie saw the instruments on an empty stage, she screamed "The Fresh Beat Band?!" and freaked out.

They sang all her favorite songs, Bananas, Loco Legs, Stomp the House.  Fabulous.  And ended with Great Day, of course.

And then we waited a little over thirty minutes to see them in person, and get their autographs.  They were so friendly, energetic and gracious, really made my girls feel special.  And my little one was star struck.  She couldn't speak at all, couldn't say a single word.  Rebecca kept telling them Jessie was their biggest fan, but Jessie barely blinked, didn't move except for my prodding her onwards.  They personalized little postcards of the band, and all four of them also signed these little backstage passes I printed off of the Nick Jr. website the night before, and laminated with packing tape.

So special, what a memory.

It was a great day,

it was a super way

To spend some time together.

We had a great day

The very best day

And nothing could be better.

pencils for the STARs

Today was the first day of California Standardized Testing for Rebecca, this big huge deal for students grades 2 - 11.  We're in Silent School Mode, volunteers do not work in the classrooms for two weeks, and everything is very serious and a bit stressful.  Now, my gal can seriously work herself up about things, to the point of making herself sick, so I've not done anything to build this up.    We've gotten reminders sent home about the importance of having a good breakfast, being well rested, getting to school on time - things we practice every school day anyway, so I'm just trying to keep it fun and make it seem exciting instead of tense.

 
So, to keep it festive, a classroom gift of much-needed pencils was in order.  When I picked her up after school, Rebecca said the test was "not what she expected," though she wouldn't expand on that for me, and I don't know if that was a good thing or a bad thing.  She did say that she thought it was long.  I think she probably did great, based on her practice tests from last week, and from her regular schoolwork.  Only eight more days to go.

toothpicks & marshmallows

When Jessie and I went to pick up Rebecca from school the other day, she appeared holding a baggie full of miniature marshmallows and a fistful of toothpicks.  Jessie squealed, with visions of hot chocolate and blissful munching.  I asked Rebecca where she got them, and she said the class had them but she got to take them home because no one else wanted to.  Hmmm.  That seemed strange, a class full of sugar-crazed 7 and 8 year olds not wanting miniature marshmallows?  As Jessie was about to pop one in her mouth, I figured out that they had been used by the entire 2nd grade class to make geometric shapes...  To my ears, that meant touched by 24 germy, possibly flu-carrying hands.

 
Needless to say, there was no hot chocolate, and no munching allowed.  But Jessie had fun anyway, creating and playing, with The Marshmallow Incident (written and illustrated by the same team who did Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs) lying open on the table.  She constructed for nearly an hour, while Rebecca did homework.  Who knew half a baggie of marshmallows and a fistful of toothpicks would be so entertaining?

And yes, as she was in the bathroom washing her hands, I was wiping down the dining room table with an antibacterial wipe.

handprint Santa

Oooh, hands down, one of my favorite ornaments on our tree.  Hee hee!