River in the kitchen

Here is a new drawing I just finished of River in the kitchen! I took the picture several months ago, and something about the scene really appealed to me. The combination of colors, the baby's smiling face, or maybe just my favorite curtains mixed with the baby. That's right, you've seen these curtains before.

You might recognize them from this drawing from around 2011,

 Or maybe from the lefthand side of this fun drawing in 2013,

or this one done later that same year.

It's true, my favorite bedroom curtains are now my favorite kitchen curtains. But what else can you do if the kitchen is already painted yellow and blue when you move in, right?

Anyway, it's a cute backdrop for a cute baby, even with the dirty (yet pretty) dishes in between.

What I like about it: the colors, the style, the curtain pattern, the dishes in front of her face. What I don't like: the layout of the dishes behind her, and the angle of the tiles.

A moring walk

The other morning, Eli, River and I took a lovely morning walk around town. We saw many exciting things on our adventure. All the blocks in our town have a dirt ally right through the middle, and it was down one of these that we started  our journey. The first cool thing we saw was a smushed snake. Awesome.



Then Eli noticed all the new anthills being started all over the place. Or maybe some other exciting bug made these?



The whole town right now is covered in dandelions; Eli likes to call them wish flowers. This patch was especially resplended with color and Eli's hat helped him blend right in.




 One of our most exciting stops was to visit these two horses. While we were standing there admiring them, the owner drove up and told us we could pet the brown one, but the white might not be so amiable. I helped Eli pet it's nose, then scooted River's stroller up so she could get a closer look.
















At first she was pretty excited; reaching her had right out so she could touch the horse too. But when the animal lowered it's head and started to stick it's nose through the bars, River suddenly realized just how very big it was. At that point, she shrank back in her chair and held her hand up, saying, "Don't. Don't!" I backed her up again and she was much happier.



At one spot just after the horses, we could hear this ridiculously loud bird that was sitting in the field. I assume it was some sort of mating call, and boy was it loud!

We saw a few more interesting sights, like these weird seeds on a big tree,




then we went on to the ally behind our house and headed home. Not bad for a morning walk!

April Fools (because now it's May)

 Since it's pretty much May now, I thought I'd mention April fools. Joseph and I had big plans, but ended up forgetting to reallly do anything. Luckily, Elora and Josh had it in the bag. First, Josh woke me up repeatedly, telling me he'd made me a beautiful picture on my door and he really wanted me to see it. He further embellished his description of his drawing, saying it was a pretty heart. When I finally went to see what he'd drawn, this is what met my eyes. Surprise, surprise!






















Later,  I discovered one of Elora's tricks when I went to use the restroom....there was a "spider" several rolls into the toilet paper. Haha. I know she got that idea from our Highlights Magazine. 
















Joseph attempted to trick the kids by offering them a bite of his homemade burrito, which was staring straight back at them!



Later in the afternoon, Elora taped a big plastic spider to our doorway (not pictured), trying to make daddy scream, but he just ignored it. Too bad.

Finally, Elora told everyone a lovely tale about how she'd woken up in the night hungry, so she'd made everyone a little snack. I think Eli was the only one really surprised by the "Brown-Es", but it was still a good trick.

April Fools!

colaborative works

In our bag of kid activities for Sacrament meeting, we have four or five notebooks of lined paper, so the kids can draw while they sit and listen. As you know, Elora loves to draw, (and name her characters)

 



and at least at church, the other kids enjoy it too. Joshua has always liked drawing monsters,

 
 

 
 while Jonah is starting to move beyond stick people with big tummies.

  Eli has just recently jumped from scribbles to stick people and monsters too.

One day several months ago, I was looking through the notebook pages trying to find a blank page. When I couldn't find one, I decided to just add to the scribbles already on the page. ( I don't draw at church very often at all these days, and I didn't want to take up a page someone else could use.)
The scribble made some nice hair, no?

Another day, I found some half-finished drawings that Josh or Jonah had done, so I decided to finish one. This was fun!



In fact, I decided Josh wouldn't mind a little embellishment to a few more of his monster drawings. This was the first addition done, drawn quickly and to Joshua's delight.



Of course, then Elora had to try it too. Copycat.



 And one time, I think Josh is the one who sabotaged Elora's drawing, with the monster coming out of the genie lamp. Haha. Elora always makes cool outfits for her characters.

And at some point, Jonah found a pair of pants Elora had drawn without an occupant, so he decided to fill and color them himself. (Green is Jonah's favorite color, and therefore Eli's favorite as well.)

 



Once again, I turned the tables on Joshua's monster: now the guy his creature is attacking has a pet monster on a chain that's even bigger! Mwaahahaha.



Of course, my favorite addition wasn't exactly Joshua's. But he did get a good laugh out if it.