You Capture - Colorful

Thursday, January 26


Enjoy the colorful things I found this week.  No time for explanations - I'm in the middle of baking a double batch of chocolate chip oatmeal cookies.  

To see more Colorful photos visit Beth's blog.

No words...

Tuesday, January 24

...except to say that we are sending our love and prayers to the family of our friend and neighbor David, who passed away this morning after fighting cancer for more than two years.  Peace. 

Art by Sydney from first grade (2010/11).

Happy Mother's Day 2011

Sunday, May 8

Happy Mother's Day!

 to my mom, my grandmas and all the moms I know!

Watercolor Wednesday

Wednesday, October 27


I'm finally posting the watercolors that the girls painted with Grandma Gayle.  
Here are Sydney's paintings.

I think she decided these are Easter eggs.

Here are Kyla's paintings.

 An abstract, in case you weren't sure.

Thanks Gma Gayle, the girls had a great time painting with you.

A new year and a new decade

Hellooooo?  Anybody out there?


Wow, I really fell off the blogging wagon if there is such a thing.  I haven't even been reading any blogs lately.  So I'm pretty behind on keeping family and whoever else is still reading up to date.   Now that school has started I have a little more free time, but a lot of it seems to get used up just keep the routine of school, lunches, dinner, soccer  and bedtime going smoothly.

So the girls started school last week.  Sydney is in first grade and reports that so far it is awesome.  First grade at our school is rather awesome as both teachers are wonderful and they get to do music and yoga.  We also have a part time music teacher this year at school.  


Kyla is really excited about 4th grade and is really happy with her teacher.  She gets to be a self manager this year.  I'm not sure what that is yet, but it involves perks like going to lunch 5 minutes early and stuff like that.  She also gets to start taking Spanish - yay!    We have forgotten so much since living in Spain two years ago.  


Both girls are doing soccer this fall and Kevin is the assistant coach for Kyla's team.  They had their first game last weekend.   Sometimes they overlap, so we don't get to watch both girls every weekend, but at least most of Kyla's games are within walking distance so that's pretty convenient for only having one car.


What's this new year, new dedade I'm talking about?   I know it's not January, but it feels more like the start of a new year when school starts.  I find myself wanting to make new resolutions about all the things I will get done after having a fun and lazy summer.   Mostly this includes excercising and cleaning up a bunch of junk around the house.  I also started my fifth decade a few weeks ago.  Yes, it was the big four - oh.   I don't feel much different, actually right now it feel like my head might explode, but I think that's my sinus headache from catching a cold from the girls.   It didn't seem to slow them down much.  Maybe getting older is harder than it sounds.   Anyway, I'm looking forward to the forties - the thirties was very much dedicated to the kids, which was fun, but tiring and messy.  I'm hoping the forties will be a more organized and cleaner kind of fun.  Yes, just as soon as I teach the girls to pick up their clothes, shoes, art supplies and dishes.  Ha!    


This summer I did a lot of photography  (over 5200 shots taken) and I still need to edit some photos.  I worked on some projects for friends and practiced doing some portraits.  I'll try to show some photos soon.   I haven't done the weekly photo challenge for at least a month, but look for some flowers next week.   OK, hope you all have a great weekend, 'm heading out the door for a soccer game.    


Here's a bonus for getting to the end.  Sydney's self portrait.

Macro Monday - String art

Monday, May 3

It's not midnight yet so I can still call this Macro Monday.  Kyla brought home a cool piece of art from school, but I can't remember if it has an official name.  I happened to remember a frame I had that would leave a space between the glass and the art, so I immediately photographed it and framed it.   Wow that was record time and that is why I'm documenting it here.    Most of the kids' art gets stacked in a pile and may or may not be photographed and logged digitally onto  a Picasa web album so that I can recycle the original without feeling guilty.  Here is the string from a normal angle. 

Spring break fevers

Wednesday, March 26

Yes, there is a beautiful blue sky with the forcast predicting a high of 68 degrees today and my kids have fevers!  Actually Sydney is mostly better already, but now it's Kyla's turn.  I should have posted this yesterday for Syd.   

Why do I have a stack a tissues with no box?

Because Miss Ducky needed some shoes of course.  Her feet are so big, no one else's shoes would fit.

I love it when my kids get inspired to do art projects that grow and take a long time.  She started with this girl...

and decided to add the rest of her body and some scenery.

I found this story and drawing in Syd's newly cleaned out closet, where there is a shelf that looks like a little desk.  I guess she is a closet writer now.   I think Kyla finished the story for her.

Translation:   Once upon a time there was a little girl.  And her name is Aria.  She was picking flowers in a garden by a tree.  And she loved the tree and it was her favorite tree. 

I hope we get to go play outside soon, before it starts to rain again.

Belated Valentine Love Art

Friday, February 26

I meant to post these near Valentine's Day, so here they are.  Kyla drew this for Sydney.  I think she really does love her little sister even though she doesn't always show it.

This is the valentine that Sydney made for the family.

Happy Friday everyone!

You Capture - Food

Thursday, November 27

How appropriate that this week's challenge is food. However we aren't having our Turkey dinner until my sister come over on Saturday. So tonight we had turkey chili and cornbread.

I'm also not much of a cook although I plan to do a little baking. I tried to get some cool photos in the produce section, but they didn't turn out so good. Mostly I've been cleaning house this week, so I offer more photos of my kids' art. First we have a Fruity Cheerios rainbow.

Here's a cornucopia made with foil covered by plastic wrap and colored with permanent markers.
Click hear to see some real food photos.

Kid writing translated

Tuesday, November 24

Both of the girls got good reports from their teachers today. I think they have definitely inherited the love for school gene from us. Here is a recent sample of Sydney's writing. Usually when she is home she asks for help on spelling. At school they are encouraged to do it on their own and use "kid writing" which is phonetic spelling. You can tell, she did this on her own.

A quote from Sydney (age 5): "I love the ABC's! It's probably good to love the ABC's because if you want to know your sounds, so have to know the ABC's."

Happy St. Patrick's Day & Art

Tuesday, March 17

I know Paddy's day isn't about Leprechauns and pots-o-gold, but they are Irish - hence the rainbow. Next time I cross the Atlantic I hope Ireland will be on my itinerary. For now we're wearing green, even though we haven't left the house today. Kyla has a little cold and I really encouraged her to go to school after missing three days last week, but I just couldn't make her knowing she would be wiping her nose every 5 seconds and sneezing her germs all over the place. She's been walking around with a tissue stuffed up her nose and I'm resisting the urge to share a picture. I'm happy that the no one has even requested to watch a show today. So far they are happy playing and making art. Here is the art work Kyla did at school after reading Dogs in Space.

At the grade school they had family art night where Sydney painted this ice cream cone.

Sydney is showing a little spring spirit here.

Kyla made these cute little flowers out of construction paper, tape and cotton swabs.

Also the girls and I enjoyed this YouTube art video which was shared on a few blogs I read recently.

Art

September 9
Here are the girls standing by some graffiti about a block away from our apartment. The graffiti girl doesn't look as happy as I remembered, maybe because she is right next to that scary monster. Hopefully she'll cheer up now that our girls are in the neighborhood. I have seen some kind of good graffiti here, I'll have to make a photo album of the interesting stuff I find.

Here is a piece of artwork done by Kyla titled "The Cat Band". I think their instruments are a flute, a tamborine and a drum.

Dads & Grandpas

Happy Father's Day to our Dads and Grandpas. We love you! Sorry you didn't get cards in the mail - it's getting crazy here - only two weeks to go. Kyla & Sydney worked on these for you, but you'll have to enjoy the digital version since these slabs of wood didn't fit so well into an envelope. The girls wish they could go camping, but luckily they got to spend two nights at the "farm" with Gma, Gpa, & cousins playing outside all day. Thanks!