Tap-a-tap-a-tap-a

Ainsley is in dance this year and she loves it. She had her first performance this week.

In all of the times that I've seen her practice this dance in class, I've never seen her without that shy little smile when she skips with the other little girl in class. So sweet.



The teacher has them perform at five or so nursing homes before their 'big performance'. It's a lot of fun for them and for the nursing homes and since the performances are in place of class it's not a big hassle for us.

*Cute Gray pictures here.*

Food freedom.

What that looked like last night.

Grayson, P.I.

Grayson found the binoculars and has become a private investigator.

Zander is not getting a moment of peace.

From the "I meant to post about that files".

We went to Oregon a few months ago and hit the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art while we were there. We had a reason to do that with 4 young kids - Ainsley is crazy about China and they had a Chinese collection there. She was in heaven.

One of the guides noticed her interest and gave her a personalized tour - wish we could have gotten more photos, but, um ... we weren't even supposed to get these ones. The guide showed her how each little window in this building had a little Buddha sitting in it. She wanted to make her own. We need to do that.

Hannah was not as interested, but certain pieces piqued her interest. Don't know why this picture looks like she's touching it - she was trying to point to a pretty color at the top of the piece. She wants to do some artwork like this. Pictures on tiles.

Gray and Matt did their own thing most of the time we were in the museum - Gray was not interested at all.

One thing that the girls really liked seeing was a wedding rehearsal at a beautiful reflection pond they had there. Romantic Hannah was blissed out.

Hello, camera!

That is all.

Today we ...

Played.

And played.





And played.

And played.

And practiced tying scarves.

And made.

Really amazing - perfect to keep in the fridge for hungry-ish kids.

And dreamed.

Because the catalogs are a-comin'.

And ended with playing.

And sleeping.

And mixed in there was park-playing and dance class and playing with Daddy and errands. It was a busy, busy day.

I'm going to miss this.

Having a farm road to walk down.

Also the killer style when they get older.

Grayson loves helping in the kitchen.

And he has so much fun doing it.



That is all.

Family photos on the fly.

A few months ago at an ice cream social at our house, I asked a good friend to take some family pictures for us. She has a fancy camera and a gift for kid photography.

They turned out so cute, though we're not exactly color coordinated.

Still, I love them - Ains in her cape, Hannah in her farm pants, Gray in his truck shirt, Matt in his shorts, me wearing a baby wrap.

And the silliness she captured when they did that.

I love that she went with the silly instead of putting the camera down and waiting for the 'good shots'.

all picture credit Rebecca

Sun Art.

We have an art show to attend this weekend *and* I'm decluttering my craft room. Doing the latter turned up this paper so that we could have a project for Ainsley to showcase at the former.

Gray and I tried it first with his toys.

This was what it looked like after being in the sun for five minutes.

Then we rinsed it in water.
Not so clear. Instead of holding them under running water to rinse them, we poured water into a pan, added some lemon juice, and soaked them in that. Much more clear.

Once the girls (and their cousin) saw the process, they were all over it.

Ainsley's beach page

Hannah's beach page

My fantasy page.

That one looked like it would turn out really cool but we got busy with another page and left it in the rinse water for too long. Totally ruined it.

We ended up using all fifteen pages, so we have a few for the art show and one less thing in the craft room.

Submitted to Saturday's Artist at OLM.

A cheesecake kind of day.

Want to take a walk through my day?










Add in hours of play with a cousin, lots of scooter/bike/trike play, swimming, banana waffles, avocado and fish eggs (Ainsley's favorite snack), painting nails, and seemingly constant monitoring of a sad-Hannah-because-cousin-left/want-attention-from-sisters-Grayson situation for the last hour before Matt got home from work. When we got the mail and there was a new Netflix superhero movie, I declared the living room a movie theater, made them all popcorn ...

and hid with Zander and cheesecake for 20 minutes.