Our Canvas: My Painting Buddy

Meli has been my most consistent painting partner. Colin will join in occasionally. Will and I are even going to have a night where we drink wine and try our hands at a Bob Ross tutorial! We have been watching those at night for fun. I cannot believe I did not watch him as a kid. This Christmas, I totally scored in the art department with canvases, acrylics, oils, an awesome wood box/easel. Thrilled me to my core! I am inspired to really invest time in this hobby.

To get Meli comfortable with paints, she will pick out something she wants to paint. Then I will draw a basic outline for her to follow. Then she paints away.

Then I get to work on my own painting next to her.

Heart & Rainbow

Black Kitty in a field of flowers

 We are making some final touches on it today.

 ~ Love, Hugs & Kisses ~

                                                                       The B Family

Our Canvas: Seasonal

After years of not touching a brush, I have decided to pick up painting again. I was never a full-blown painter, but I enjoyed it during my school years. I was always more of a sketcher with pencil or charcoal and still not necessarily very good.

Since the kids have been able to walk (possibly before) we have had art time. We have explored watercolors and finger paints. Now we are exploring acrylics and soon oils and different techniques. Meli has loved moving to canvases and using my tall easel. I seem to always get my small wooden table one, which I actually do prefer.

Over the past few months we have stuck to some seasonal themes. Meli and Colin both did a fall foliage inspired piece. For this one we bundled Q-tips together and the kids used them for the leaves. I thought this method was pretty neat. The Q-tips added a cool texture.

Colin's tree

Meli kind of sits like I used to when creating!

Colin's tree

Meli's tree

Meli is the only one that did a Christmas one. She will want to paint on her own often.

She has started to explore mixing colors. 

                                                          ~ Love, Hugs & Kisses ~
                                                                   The B Family

3 Ugly Eggs

Our ugly egg contestants

I hope everyone had a lovely Easter weekend. Saturday was a very busy day for us with Will’s band recording all day and then Colin having a soccer game and birthday party. We also threw in a trip to the library and Easter egg decorating.  Even with such a filled day, we enjoyed ourselves.

Meli thought ugly eggs meant they were zombies!

The kids were bummed that Will could not join us for coloring the eggs, but it was still a fun time. At one point, Meli dropped an egg she just finished into another color, which she then thought was ruined. Great Mommy Save: I suggested we have an ugly egg contest between the three of us. Dad would be the judge.

The Eggs

The kids were thrilled to try and make the ugliest egg. Colin’s is on top, then mine, and Meli’s. Will voted mine the ugliest (maybe not to choose between the two, because I am pretty sure Meli’s was). Will said that Colin’s was too cool to be ugly, which made the little guy proud.

Colin's, Mine, and Meli's

We had a lot of fun with this and am sure we will be doing it next year. For some reason, I decided to have the kids dye more than 30 eggs. So, we will be eating hard-boiled eggs at pretty much every meal for a while!

                                                     ~ Love, Hugs & Kisses ~
                                                             The B Family

Meli's Kitchen: Turkey Burger

Turkey burgers

This is the first week that we are having the kids separately plan their own dinner menu (including dessert) and cook it. Meli went first choosing turkey burger sliders with pears and green beans. Will decided to add Red Lobster biscuits (one of his fave). For dessert Meli chose marshmallows dipped in chocolate and ice cream cones dipped in chocolate with vanilla ice cream. She actually did a very good job. She got to crack an egg again. She added all of the seasonings and stirred the meat. She did not want to touch the meat, which I was OK with. So, I made the patties and put them on the grill. She picked out of the condiments and veggies. I was very impressed that she would pick things that she did not like, but knew that Colin or somebody else did. Meli is super picky, so I am hoping that this will help her want to try more things. Thankfully she seems to like something in every food group. Plus, she loves protein rich foods. She just has very simple taste. Nothing mixed. 

Very yummy

So first meal was a success!! Colin is up next. He chose cheese & bean quesadillas with a vanilla pudding.

Need to work on her presentation

I think we will like the two cookbooks for kids that we chose.

Both recipes came from the Cooking Class book

Art Corner - Meli's My Little Ponies

Meli and I started this project a couple months ago and just got to finishing it the other day. We thought it would be fun to paint her white letters that spell her name as My Little Ponies. She picked four (which her choice surprised me because she left out Apple Jack which she likes a lot more than Rarity. Maybe it was more for the colors. So, we did Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, and Rarity. Meli is pretty meticulous with her painting. She did a wonderful job!!

She wanted to help me with the cutie marks. I was reluctant at first, but it is for her room. I was very impressed with her ability to stay in the drawings I did for the most part. I had to go over it a little bit and did some of the smaller parts of the design. We had such a fun time doing this. Colin wants to do Pokemon for his name. We will see how that goes!

While I was touching up, Meli made this frame for Grandma. I thought it turned out pretty creative and cute!

Sunflower Project

The kids and I are working on a spring/summer science project of growing sunflowers and some herbs. Colin and Meli love watching them grow from seeds and for the responsibility of watering the plants. Meli totally dumped the seeds in the bigger pot (well kid pail) we used. I will definitely have to split them apart at some point. The ones we planted in the small mini pots are not as happy. Probably because their dirt keeps coming out when Meli over waters them. They are still doing well though. I actually did not expect them to sprout. 

Below is Colin's sweet basil. It is really starting to come up!

Meli's cilantro is starting to appear. Like one or two...but she did put more dirt on top of the seeds then she was supposed to. We will see though. I hope it works. I love cilantro!