seven

 




















Josh's birthday was a few months ago, and we finally got around to taking his seven-year-old pictures!
It was kind of a cloudy morning so Josh got to wear one of he favorite shirts; I'd been waiting for a nice sunny evening, but it never seemed to work out. As usual, Josh doesn't hold still very well, so there weren't a ton of photos that were focused as I'd like, but he's cute so I guess it's okay.
I really wanted to take someone's pictures with this old chair. I know it's become cliche to have a piece of furniture out in a field, but this chair was perfect, and it's the only picture of Josh in a chair in a field, so it's not cliche for him! Most likely, I will pick one from this first group for my wall; I am partial to the top two but haven't really decided yet. I like the composition of the bottom one as well, but as an 8x10, some of it would get cut off, and the effect might not be the same.


A.

Here we have some leaning poses. I think the bottom left is the best here, though if he were smiling better I might pick the top right for the composition.

B.

We finished with the chair, and of course then Josh started smiling. I like his face in all of these a lot, it's just we already have lots of pictures of kids standing in tall grass! (Or in this case, yellow clover). I don't know which I like best here.

C.

This group shall hereafter be referred to as: the time everything was in perfect focus, but Josh wasn't actually smiling good for me. Although his face in the bottom right frame is hilarious.

D.






















These few are okay, just not spectacular in any way:

E.























And finally, when Josh started being too silly and I knew we were done.


F.

















 So, are there any that you would pick?

oh yeah...May.

So we talked about June. Do you want to hear about May? Cause that happened too. At the beginning of May, the grass was still yellow.



















But as it grew in, some of it looked very strange. I couldn't remember if it had been this way before, but for some reason many different plants-grass, weeds, etc. Were coming up with tinges of red and purple in their leaves! I wonder if it was something in the soil? It seemed very curious and was everywhere around our community, though I didn't notice it anywhere else.

As the end of the month neared, the grass was green again, and the red tints seemed to disappear without a trace.




















The end of the school year came with the end of year pow-wow. We missed it last year because of a funeral, and I seem to remember it getting canceled or something the year before, so everyone was glad to be able to go this year. The kids got to hang out with their class one last time, and Elora even got her hair decorated with the flowers blooming all around. The other girls were very jealous.

May also brought some pretty wildflowers, and wildlife! We saw a toad in our garden, a snake in our yard, and lots of turtles on the road. May was a pretty good month!

 

little artists

A week or two ago, we all sat down and did some paintings together at the table. I was surprised the boys stuck around (especially Joshua) but we all had some fun. Would you like to see what we did?
Here is Eli's minimalist painting, as well as one he did a few days ago. Eli is kind of like Elora in that he will sit and paint by himself if I set the stuff out for him. He was into markers for a while, until he suddenly realized he could draw on his arms and legs too, so we don't get those out so much any more.






































Jonah got to use some acrylic paints for his drawing. He says there are bird foot prints in purple:



















And Joshua has become interested in drawing monsters lately; typical seven-year-old boy stuff. See the little guy by the tree being scared in both pictures? That shows you the scale of how big his monsters are.

 














































I was very impressed with Elora's drawing; she chose a glass mug and got it out herself then sat and drew it for an hour. I think it's on par with a beginning art class in high school. Good job Elora!


























As for myself, I was testing out a new "moleskin" notebook I got for my birthday. I keep seeing them on Pinterest, and decided I wanted one. I'm still hazy on how to take a good picture of the whole notebook with the pages laying straight- it's too big for my scanner.
The day before, I drew a picture of my newly-finished quilt, and then painted it this day. It turned out pretty good!

June is:

June is: fields full of yellow clover. Yeah, I didn't know there was such a thing before I moved here either. This year it's everywhere!

 

 

June is: tall grass and picking flowers! Sometimes even mommy's flowers that we're not supposed to pick. But not usually.

 

 

 

June is: Joshua's birthday! With lots of cool presents like a pogo stick and a bug catching kit.

 

(The little boys didn't use the pogo-stick, but they were ready, just in case.)

 

 

June is: mommy's birthday too. Shhh,.

 

 

June is: blowing bubbles on the porch! Don't you love my feet superimposed over Joshua's body?

 

 

June is: visiting parks in Eagle Butte and Spearfish...where we actually get to visit and feed real fish! (Elora's such a poser).

 

 

June is: Almost seeing a real tornado for the first time! But not quite.

 

June is, walks with the family, and mosquitos.