KC decorates!

KC has been working hard on the decor for his room.  It has honestly been a couple years now that he was mulling over color palettes and styles. Creating pinterest boards and wish lists on A*mazon.  He informed me that his room would have a feel of Broadway with his personality shining through.  he was right.   He chose a deep gray, nearly black, for the bottom half of the walls. This is actually old panelling.  The top 1/2 of the walls he chose an off white with a touch of creamy yellow. Actually maybe only a hint of yellow.  It is not a combination I would have chosen because I like really intense colors, but it is really stunning.  He has a two windows and an open doorway which have burgundy black out curtains. 

So the wall repairs have been done. The ceiling repairs done. The paint applied.  And KC has begun to purchase the items that will help make the space most truly his.  He chose some floating shelves and this engendered a great deal of conversation.  Our upper walls are all lathe and plaster so floating shelves don't have tons of support despite using mollys or toggle bolts.  However he was clear that nothing heavy would be on the shelves so we put them up.  I did not know exactly what he wanted to display.  KC is my guy who has always saved momentos from all manner of things.  Here is one shelf;
I asked him about the shelves.  He told me a story about them.  One is a tiny Wiggles car that was on his birthday cake for his wiggles birthday party.  I think he might have been 4 that year.  He has one of his Robeez baby shoes, his favorite bath toy from when he was tiny (a frog that squirted water) and his grandfather's compass.  In KC's words, it shows his progression from infancy to guiding him into his future.  Sheesh.  I didn't think about thinkgs like that for my room when I was 15 I assure you!

I don't have a picture yet of his second floating shelf but he devoted that one to his Coming of Age experience and church and his Youth Group experiences.  It too looks amazing.

Theater is a big part of his life.  He loves musical theater and while he has not starred in any yet, i expect at some point he may explore this. He has many friends in theater and he found this cool and inexpensive grid to hang playbills and favorite pictures:


Then he decided that he wanted pictures of his roles in the dance recitals.  He had a character role last year and will have one for the next 3 years so he found inexpensive frames at IKEA and created this:
                                            If you can't read the  wooden sign it says "I hope you dance" and he bought it on a mission trip last year.  The top left frame is filled all ready; it has his picture of his role as Don Lino in the school's recital.

There is more to come--he has ordered a rug in burgundy with gold accents.  He has also gotten a bookshelf that I'll write about some other time when I regale you all with our maiden voyage to the land of IKEA! For now I am just smiling at the fact that my son seems to know himself so well and has such a vision of what needs to be in his space to give him joy.

Stepping forward

This guy here?  The one with the two legs, not the four.  It seems like not long ago that he was so little, so anxious about the wider world.  I remember that despite his love of dance, he would tremble back stage, clutching my hand, nearly breaking the teeny bones in my hand because he squeezed so tightly.  

I've never been one to push my kids. They only squeeze your hands for a moment in time.  And then you turn around and they are a teen.  Going off on mission trips and helping others.  Chatting with friends and planning outings that only occasionally involve me getting him at least part way to the destination. This year he has two part time jobs---one at the dance school and one at the local grocery store.  He's saving up for a cooler phone than what his mom will buy him.   And the little guy who was afraid to go on stage?  That guy decided to try out for one of the acting roles in recital.  This studio does theater as well as dance.  He auditioned and got a part.  He will be the godfather in the dance school version of Shark Tale!  

This spring he will turn 15 and I know the pace of changes and separation and working towards newly defined dreams will only intensify.  So for now I am grateful for the fact that he still gives hugs warmly and willingly.  That he asks each day when I come home how my day was and that he enjoys movie nights with his doddering parents.  I am blessed.

A special gift

My wife's birthday is in early February; KC's is in April.  Last week he came in to my work room staring at his phone.  "I'm so upset," he said.  "I just can't believe it."

I asked what was up and he said that Travis Wall and his dance company Shaping Sound were coming to a city near us for one performance only on January 29th.  Travis Wall is an amazing dancer and choreographer.  Our whole family is pretty well enarmored of his work and the amazing ways he thinks of helping to tell a story through dance.

I looked on line and knew that there was no way I could buy tickets for all of us.  The money tree in the back yard is dead, people!  (laughing)  It has been a hard winter financially, capping off a hard YEAR financially. Hey 2018 has to be better right? Please goddess? Anyway, I called my wife and suggested that I pay for she and KC to go together as birthday presents to them both. (the other part of KC's gift is a dinner out with 4 friends)  She was thrilled and they are both looking forward to this so much.

I am glad that I could gift them both with this.  For KC it isn't just about the dance which is his deep and abiding passion, but it is so important for him to see successful male dancers in the styles that he enjoys dancing in.  He adores contemporary and jazz and I know he will see a performance that will inspire him.  If you are curious, here is a Youtube link to a performance from the show.  You know I"ll be youtubing all I can to get a bit of its flavor here at home.  Shaping Sound  And while dance is not everyone's cup of tea--art in some form is so important for our kids; for all of us.  We need ways to express that which is deep within us and sometimes there is no way to release those emotions without dance, or song or another form of art.  I hope we all have ways to shape our sounds, and tell our truths.

Gourment Leprecauns!

This weekend was the great Lucky Leprecaun Art Gallery showing!  The kids had a blast. The grandparents came to view and to stay for a pasta luncheon.  KC was an admirably well prepared docent, explaining the concepts and medias used on each piece he had created.  I loved that my mom especially had thoughtful questions that she asked the artists about their work.  It is important for kids to feel that their work is respected and valued and she so did that in spades.  Fiona was home and she had work shown in the gallery as well.  I am glad we were able to keep the tradition going as my pneumonia had kind of slowed down the gallery creation there for a few weeks!

Saturday night our church was holding a gourmet dinner. This is a fancy schmantzy fundraiser that happens annually.  I went once and the food is stellar.  However I hate driving at night because it is a migraine trigger so I have not gone since.  The chef asked if Rob would help with plating and Rob agreed.  His godparents were going so we brought him to church and they brought him home after it was all over (sometime after 1 a.m.) I was dozing, just waiting for him to come home.  I can't sleep deeply when someone is out and supposed to come home. Rob stopped in my room to tell me it went well and he had fun.  Sunday at church a bunch of folks came up and told me what a hard worker he was and how busy he was in the kitchen.  Proud?  Heck yes.  I am both proud and grateful that he is such a caring young man, and gives of his time and talents without reservation.

Farewell Vacation!

My holiday break is about over and I am sad to see it go.  Life is so fast paced that it takes me a loooong time to really let go of thinking of times and schedules and by the time I do, it is just about time to think of them again! Also my job does not lend itself well to long times away.  Aside from breaks at this time of year, I mostly only take a lot of 3 and 4 day weekends with my vacation time. A couple days ago I started forgetting to put my watch on. That is my sign that I am really in a "vacation" mindset.  My watch is always on me.  Some people use the alarms on their phone. I am pretty old school for time pieces and have a timex that has a glow in the dark light! LOL

I love the picture above, even though I think I have used it all ready on the blog. But in the not too distant past I would have thought that this picture was not attainable.  All of us routinely together on holidays? But the Great School helped Fiona so much. She still has severe issues and probably always will, but pictures like this are myriad now in my photos.

I toured a really great day program for Fiona while I was on vacation.  I am not sure if it will work or not because the program is not allowed to administer medications. She has a psych med she takes three times a day.  I hope that perhaps there are adjustments that could be made that would allow her to participate in this.  The program has a learning component for adults who wish to expand their learning, a job readiness component (and they have a lot of connections in the community with employers who hire their people) an art component with a ceramics studio, a fiber arts center, a wet media room, and more.  There is a fitness room as well as a cafe for just gathering.  It has a school like set up where the participants choose with help their 4 focusses for each semester. I SO hope this works out for her as it would greatly expand her horizons.  The program needs to review her information and her psychiatrist has to look at the medication issue but it is at least a potentiality for 2015 to have a great opportunity for her.

The kids and I have had a lot of fun playing the games our family got for Christmas.  Games are always family games so no one person has ownership.  We have rocked out to Dance Revolution 2015, played Slamwich, Nada and Super Farkle.  Oh and Scrabble Slam which is a lot of fun as well.  In our house, games that you can do in about 15 minutes with a max of about 30 minutes are the best fit for our schedules.  All of these work well within those constraints.

I've marshalled the troops and they have happily spent a lot of time helping to undecorate our house and put up our snowman collection and tidy various messy spots within our home.  A family our size and a home our size seems to make a lot of messy spots.  I wish I kept up with that better but at least twice a year I get a chance to hoe through things really thoroughly, usually in winter and again once in the summer.

My wife was able to take the kids in to the city to see our friend Jane Houghton's art show at the Hanover.  She is an amazing artist and has taught our KC so much and continues to foster his artistic leanings.  The kids loved the show and her amazing mixed media work.

We read our 2014 memories together over supper the other night and enjoyed that too.  All year long when something happens that we want to remember, a family member grabs an index card, jots it down and puts it in an envelope that hangs on our kitchen wall.  They can be big things or little things.  Campouts, seeing ducks crossing the road near our street, sunsets rainbows, and physical achievements--anything can be written down.  It was fun to recount them together and to wonder what new things the year will hold.

I know that January is going to be very hectic at work and that on the 20th Rob will head back to school for the next semester.  Part of me feels very unready to launch back into the crazy.  But I know that once it has been going for a few days, it will be normal again, and I will at least be entering it with a more rested frame of mind than I have had in a long time.

Endings, Beginnings and Celebrations

It seems we are at a birthday party nearly every other week over the past two months.  It is a shame that my homeschooled children have so few opportunities for socialization.  (big snicker here folks!)  Saturday it was a party for a 4 year old. We are friends with the whole family who have kids ranging from 4 up to Rob's age.  There are also two near KC and Lissa's age.  We mesh well together, a couple of loud gaggles of kids and congenial parents.    KC had actually put a lot of thought into his gift for the little girl and she loved it which pleased him greatly.  Celebrations are so much fun for all of us!

Rob was not with us at the party, though as he and my wife were touring a college.He liked the campus.  It is much closer than his other college choice and I hope this works out.

Sunday was the Youth Group service at church.  Rob played an original piece that he wrote for the prelude. Very jazzy sounding, and very beautiful. I am honored that he shares himself through his music with us.  He also played the opening hymn.  I was so proud of him.  Reading music is harder for him. He tends to memorize pieces as opposed to reading the music.  He didn't have a lot of time to learn this piece and though he made a few mistakes, what I was proud of was that he was courageous enough to try. There was a time when just the thought of flubbing anything in front of people would have made him refrain from stretching and trying at all.  It is hard to wrap my mind around the fact that this is the last Youth Group service that he will participate in.

This afternoon he spent his time at his girl friends house.  I confess to some parental concerns over his girl friend's behavior lately.  She seems to need a lot of adoration and adulation. To further that in her life she has begun bringing a young male friend to church with her.  Said young male is clearly smitten by her and hangs all over her.  Rob has been handling this with far more grace and maturity than I think I had at that age. At least I am hoping it is grace and maturity and not naivity. . .   I keep reminding myself that this is his life lesson to learn, which is hard for this momma.

While he was gone, the littles and I set up our Lucky Leprecaun art gallery.  KC this year found it easier (thank you goddess) to edit his work and actually willingly disposed of a few obviously unfinished sketches or pieces that he knew were just practice and not up to his usual quality.  He helped me to decide how to group the art. This year we have a wall of abstract and modernism, and a wall of mixed media.  The latter has become increasingly his passion.  He loves to use oils or markers and then embellish or deepen the art with stickers, or cut out pieces of paper, tissue paper layers etc.  Then there is a long wall that encompasses, holiday art, nature, and his growing passion for drawing comics.  To be sure the other kids have art in this display as well, but for the most part this is KC's passion.  He even made the Lucky Leprecaun Art Gallery sign on the computer this year, almost without help.

I'll try to remember to take some pics to share at some point!

Mural time!

 Our annual Yuletide mural is taking shape!  The kids and neighbor B began working on it this weekend.  Understandably, B was mystified by the idea that we make a mural every year  for Yule. (I didn't even mention the birthday ones!  LOL  KC's idea was to draw "Christmas town" and he sketched the plan out for us.  It is a mixed media type of thing.  Lots of painting, but also markers, crayons and  stencils as well.

The top picture is a snowbank with a pile of oversized presents and a few elves around them.  The presents are made with leftover wrapping paper.  The elves the kids made at our city's holiday stroll last weekend. There is a bobble head elf on top of a ladder by the presents--that's Chet!

 We are all featured in the mural, but not all of us have been added in yet.  Here's Rob, snowboarding down a glittering snowcovered hill.

 And Lissa, skating on an icy lake.

Santa's castle, with neighbor B looking out the window.  Notice his very large elf ears!  He drew those himself.

There is more to the mural and more yet to do.  K and I, and Fiona are not  yet on it. K and I are snowpeople, Fiona is the star on the tree.  It is a lot of fun to do this.  I can never photograph it decently though because it takes one whole wall in our dining room and I can't get far enough away to grab the whole impact of the mural at one shot.

Ho Ho Ho!

Today my wife had a well deserved "run away" day and the kids and I had an unaccustomed day when we did not go to church.  We slept in till the unusually late hour of (wait for it. . . 7:00 a.m.!) and then eventually got up, and went shopping for groceries.  Came home and unloaded and then I took Chet out to do his holiday shopping.  This is the kind of experience that prepares one for being interrogated by the FBI    This is exhausting and emotionally draining. He means well and  he starts off well but by the time you are part way through the first store it is all.down.hill.  Chet becomes overstimulated very quickly, very loud, lots of uncontrolled body gestures etc.  The plus was it was early in the day.  The stores were not crowded as a result.  Generally, people can also tell from our interactions that he is differently abled and are pretty forgiving. Which is a blessing as his odd questions might otherwise be construed as prying or worse.  We had a list and we got through most of it. Then I came home and had a large glass of chardonay.   

Allright, so i just wished for the Chard.  I did make a giant mug of tea, take many deep breaths and sent him upstairs to wrap his gifts, after reassuring him for the 5th time that we did not need to worry about KC's birthday gift purchase today.  (KC's birthday is in April.)  LOL

Then the little boy from next door came over to play. The kids were outside with him for about 30 minutes but it was really cold and they were not going to be out there much longer.  I invited them all in to create our annual gingerbread house.  Neighbor boy has never had a chance to do this before and was enchanted with the whole experience.  KC and Lissa loved including him and it got Rob off the hook so he could start watching some football. Totally a win/win.  While they decorated the house, I baked a small batch of sugar cookies shaped like cookies so they could frost and decorate a snack for themselves.

After that, we went into the dining room and they all started working on the annual Christmas mural. This year it is Christmas town (like in Rudolph, I think).  KC came up with the idea and drew the rough sketch for us to follow.  My wife and I put his idea onto big mural paper and then turn the kids loose.  They can paint, color, use markers, stickers and other embellishments. Pretty much anything goes.  Neighbor boy was again enthralled.  Understandably he had never seen anything like that.  Our family are always featured in the mural, our heads put on various things in the mural. This year we are elves and snowmen.  Ben wanted to be in it too, so I took his picture and he made himself an elf looking out Santa's castle window. It is very cute.  The mural is not done, it probably as a good 3 more days of work in it to get the details in and the rest of the family. But it was begun and gave a good solid hour of creative fun to all three of the kids.  I love this tradition and know it is one of the things I will miss the most when suddenly the littles are too old and too cool for such things!

What are you grateful for?

KC decided that this Thanksgiving he would ask everyone in the family what they are grateful for. Then he would draw a little picture on an index card that reflected that, put on the person's name and voila! Our place cards!  I typically do these but I am touched by his creativity and the fact that he thought of taking this on himself.  I can stow away my craft supplies for another gathering.  In a family our size it won't be long!  LOL

We emailed my mom and her companion, Grandpa G.  They wrote back with what they were thankful for and KC decided to do Grampa G's first. He is thankful for 2 families, his and becoming part of ours, and for living in a free country.  KC drew a flag and two little hearts with legs and arms and labelled them Grampa G and Nana!  I can't wait to see how they all come out.

Creative Love

 OK, I'll give you that this is an odd picture.  There is a thread of commonality to this post though.  It is about love and creativity.  I give you exhibit A.  That is the once white fur that I have managed to successfully dye pink for Lissa's Halloween costume. The littles are crafting their own costumes this year and Miss Lissa wants to be in her words a "glamorous" were wolf. Which when she broke it down for me, translated to sparkles and pink fur to attach to the jeans and hoodie we had bought at a consignment shop.  Except we could not find pink fur at the craft store.  And fabric stores are nigh onto non-existant these days.  She tried painting on the fur but even with a fabric medium added it resulted in gloppy fur that lost the real feel of fur.  She was pretty upset.  I put on my thinking cap and came up with. . . (drum roll please!)  Kool Aid.  Yup, strawberry koolaid.  Made sans sugar, made double strength.  Makes a lovely mottled pink fur.  The wee princess is quite happy.  My hands incidently are also quite pink.

And in the pink creatvie theme, I give you Exhibit B.  This was taken by KC earlier in the week.  Pinkie the bear (that really is her name) was transformed into a ninja warrior.  She was rapelling down our staircase.

And, lastly, Love.  Fiona was out today for a visit.  KC brought this heart out last night that he made for her.  He said it was a good luck charm for her to carry in her purse so she would always remember that she is in our hearts.  It was made on that scratch art paper so I covered it in contact paper for him and she seemed very touched by it.

I love that my kids are so creative.  Even though it is messy.  Even though I sometimes feel like I am drowning in the flotsam of their art, deep down I love it.  I love that they show their affections so freely and that family is so important to them.

Today was a good day here for Fi, even though Rob was away.  We decorated a haunted gingerbread house.  We did simple house things, our usual chores but also played and cooked and just enjoyed one anothers company.  We were like the curlique's in KC's art. We all sparkle on our own, but when together we make somethng more beautiful--family.

KC,Picasso, and Mario Bros!

 KC is my resident artist.  All the kids enjoy expressing themselves through art, but for him it is a bit more than that. It is at the very core of his being to use art of all forms to express himself.  He is especially enarmored of Pablo Picasso these days.  He has been experimenting a lot with geometrics in his art since reading Just Behave Pablo Picasso!  The above shot was on Lissa's magna doodle and I promised to take a picture of it so that it was saved for posterity and the magna doodle could be used by someone else!  LOL

 More cube art, this time of the sculputural variety.  He is also looking forward to pottery camp which starts next week and lets him work with clay all week long.

And here is the little artiste in his new room he is sharing with Rob.  His Mario Bros sheet set came today so the bed is all dressed as he wishes and he had to try it out and make sure it was comfy.  Some of the Mario wall clings have come but not all and I think I will wait and see if he wants to journal this on his blog before I co-opt more of his story! :-)

The Lucky Leprecaun Art Gallery Showing!

Our "art gallery" has been up all month. The kids love doing this and truthfully, I like looking at a years worth of their special art on the walls, tables, etc.  They had one gallery showing with my mom when she was down and had also invited their god parents.  They are busy folks and were not able to come until this past Sunday afternoon.  The littles were so excitd, it was a riot watching them prepare.  KC and Lissa had decided that we needed to have cookies and iced tea with the tea party play set for refreshments, so I threw some cookies in the oven right after we got home from church.  Thank goodness I make dough ahead!  LOL  We made some raspberry iced tea, which is the tea party favorite until it gets hot enough for fresh lemonade.  Then the two littles went to the front window and sat watching for their god parents to arrive.  Thankfully there were also some entertaining squirrels while they waited and the wait was not long, but they were so cute curled up there watching and chattering to each other.

G and W are sweet wonderful people who I am totally blessed to have in my children's lives.  They celebrate my children's joys and achievements and challenge them to do the best they can in a given situation. They admired the art and talked with the kids about their favorite pieces, and how they were made etc.  They extolled over the refreshments, and then spent time just talking with the kids.

That is a rare gift to children nowadays.  To just talk with out an agenda or purpose is not so common.  The gallery will close this weekend after the artists eac h pick a few of their most beloved pieces of art to save.  But the memories will remain and next year, I look forward to looking at another showing of snapshots of their interests and their interpretations of their world.

It's Art Show Time!

 An annual March event at our house now.  The Lucky Leprecaun Gallery is officially open for viewing!  We have been doing this for about 3 years now.  The kids love having all the work they deemed special and worth saving displayed in our dining room during the month of March.  This year their god parents and their Nana will be coming to a gallery showing where iced tea and cookies will also be served.

 I love the varietry of mediums the kids choose to use.  I love the art gallery because it reminds me that they are creative little sprites. They see the world with wonder and it is my job to remember that.  And celebrate it.  And worry a bit less about the socks mating under the couch.  LOL

 This years show features some acrylic paints, some cool collage work, some crayon pastels, some gel crayons . . . paint of the tempera and watercolor variety. . .

 and an art show first--a comic strip that KC and Rob did together.  They are both getting into graphic art these days.

And a final water color--blasting off for fun!

A sweet tradition continues!

K and the kids have been working on our annual Yule mural.  This year, they decided to make a gingerbread house and all of us as gingerbread people.  It isn't quite done yet but it is going to be sooooooo cute!  This weekend when the kids and I were whirling through the local craft store like a tornado, we found some cute stick on accents--pretend candy, felt presents, that kind of thing.  It will really look nice and the other cool thing is that it will not be hard to decorate around that for Miss Lissa's birthday on the 16th.  I love this particular holiday tradition of ours because everyone gets involved, and everyone is represented in the mural somehow. 

I have also been doing some research for our New Years tradition as the concensus seems to be to celebrate German style.  Which is funny as I actually have German heritage in me and other than loving a good beer, I have no idea how Germans celebrate anything! (well I know there is a lot of brautwurst and such also but as a vegetarian I'll be working around those parts of my heritage!)  Rob came back with this idea after visiting a cultural fair with his girlfriend and the rest of the gang seem to have bought in.

Candy Art!

Because I know everyone wonders what to do with the wrappers from all that Halloween candy. . . Because simply throwing them in the trash is so ordinary. . . I present an alternative.  This is art made primarily from candy wrappers by KC.  It is "Candy Land" in its most literal sense. He envisioned a factory that made the tootsie rolls and used bits of other wrappers to make the cars, the sun etc.

And this is  mine  (because I am so mature, right?  LOL)  Tootsie roll skyscrapers, a skittles garden, a farmer with fruit on his head a la Carmen Miranda and my especial fave--the starburst tree!  Silly but fun!

Bridges and Bargains

Rob took this  picture while he was away this weekend and I adore it. There is something sort of sculptural about it that appeals to me.  All my kids are pretty good with a digital camera.  I get by but tend to rush and the shots show it.  They help keep a memory but are not art. (though I can usually clean them up a bit with the computer!)  The pictures they choose to take are sometimes as insightful as listening to music with them or chatting with them.  It is another window into their essential self that they open to me and  I love that.

My stylish 15 year old found a really awesome suit jacket for $3.00 at a thrift store while they were gone.  Rob is really into creating his own style and I think that is great. I am stunned by the quality of the jacket that he got.  He was stunned by the fact that I figured out without being told that he wore it when the group went into town to go bowling. Yup, I know my kid! LOL 

I just don't do well at yard sales and thrift stores.  K says it is because I move too quickly and don't like to poke. I say it is because the stuff there is junk.  I think most times we are both at least 50 per cent right!

Black Princesses

I was blog reading the other day and someone highlighted an etsy store called "Erin Go Paint."  If I had time I'd figure out how to do the link thing but that always takes me forever--sorry!  Anyway, she has the most amazing princess and fairy tale art that she has painted using her 4 year old AA daughter as the model. She says at the site that she did this because she didn't want "The Big D" to be the only definition of princess for her daughter.

We have black art around the house--a fishing scene, a gorgeous African princess drumming that hangs in our dining room, kente cloth pillows in the living room, and of course 50 million pics of the kids themselves.  But none of that is the same as Disney inspired kiddie art.

I know we have to re-do Lissa's room next year so I showed her the art. (my personal favorite was an amazing Rapunzel.)  The kids all looked at it and admired them. They thought it was so neat that her daughter was the model.  Then they turned to me and informed me that Rapunzel, Snow White and Thumbelina "just don't really look like that though.

Sigh.  Can you say "we've been Disneyed."

The Lucky Leprecaun Art Gallery!

 It's March still (though barely!)  and somehow the month was slipping away before our annual Lucky Leprecaun Art Gallery could open for business!  LOL  Last year we started this at a time when the kids god parents were visiting and it was a huge hit. They will not be coming by I don't think but we have friends coming on Wednesday for a play date and Nana coming on for the weekend. So it is still a perfect time to share the kids art.  This is also the only way I have found that will get KC to dispose of all but a few precious pieces.  As a highly prolific artist, I just can't keep them all, much as I would wish to.  Scanning them, or photographing them doesn't do it for him either.  However a grand display, where he can then bestow a few of his treasures to the viewers, seems to work.

 This shot showcases some of Rob's art.  One of the cool things is that all the kids really enjoy doing this.  He did some paint by number, traces some birds and then used artists pencils to accurately render their plumage, and did some neat dragons and cars.

 Rob also created this very cool canoe out of paper.  He was inspired by the little boats we made for our Brazil night and got a little grandiose with the size and scale.  KC ahs a mixed media sculpture in the background.

 This is a bad photo of a very cool piece of art that KC made in his art class.  I love this and might want it for my bedroom.

 This is the first picture he did where you could see that he knew our noses had a shape and he tried to represent that.  He was 5 when he did this so I was fairly impressed. 
 I love this mixed media collage that KC made.

This is another bad photo of an extremely cool creation.  Rob made that entire picture out of little punched paper things that are from my scrapbook kit.  It is an island in the ocean with a little house and music notes coming out of the house.  There is a punched paper art border around the whole thing as well.  It makes me want to sing Down by the Bay or something!

I'll have to do another post as Lissa has some art and KC has some animation he has been experimenting with.  But for long distance viewers, that's all from the Lucky Leprecaun gallery for now!

Skulduggery Sculpture

KC is so excited because he goes back to art class tomorrow.  He has literally been marking the days to this on his calendar.  Tonight we were at a play date at a friends house.  Their daughter A. is in gymnastics with Lissa, but we have been friends for years before the girls went to the gym together. A is only 3 but KC is as friendly with her as Lissa.  Both A's parents studied art in college and although their day to day life doesn't involve art as a vocation, they love it.  A's dad in particular would like to teach art to KC, with the other kids and myself invited "in case I felt weird about it." Which I don't.  I have pretty strong radar and see nothing wonky here, but I will likely hang out there anyway as I am not a drop off parent.

C. asked KC tonight what kind of art he was most interested in.  KC said that he would love to do sculpture and spray paint.  Street art is something C really did a lot of I guess and he also did sculpture. So he grabbed some books and the 2 of them looked at some styles a bit and made plans for when the weather will safely allow us to do some graffiti style art.  But when  I put KC to bed, he elaborated on his sculpture idea.

Every year when Rob goes to camp KC makes him a welcome back poster.  It obviously means something to Rob as he usually keeps it up for about 6 months.  This year, KC envisions making him a sculpture of Skulduggery Pleasant, a skeleton detective in a book Robbie adores.  I am not sure how to do that and will leave it to C to help that vision come to life.  But I love the fact that he plans so carefully to do something special for his big bro, and i love that I know Rob will truly enjoy it.

Tis Shamrock time (nearly!)

OK so maybe I am rushing the St. Patricks Day decorating a wee bit. But I am desparate for a bit of green after the long cold bleak winter.  We are still covered in snowpack, though now it is a mere 18 inches or so.  Down from the 28 or there abouts that we had a few weeks back.  I feel less like I am taking my life in my hands when I approach intersections as bankings have shrunk so you can see oncoming traffic again.

But I was still eager to decorate and on Monday the kids and I got together and put up a bunch of glittery shamrocks and such.  Then I put paper on the wall of our dining room and roughed out a rainbow.  Last night we started working on the rainbow while we waited for Fiona to call.  Instead of painting the bands on the rainbow we took colored paper and cut shapes.  The red band was all hearts, the orange was diamonds.  Those were the only 2 we finished because she called part way through. The good part though was that we were stumped on what shape to use for green (yellow will be stars incidently).  KC was voting for squares.  I am not sure why LOL but squares didn't speak much to anyone else.  However green is KC's most favorite color and he clearly felt that he should be the person choosing the shape.

When I was wrapping up the call with Fiona I told her what we were doing and how we were trying to decide what to do for the green band.  I asked her if she had any ideas. She thought for a minute and said "what about those green things they find in the grass?"  Shamrocks!  Perfect!  Everyone loved the idea and I love the fact that even though she is not physically helping us with the rainbow, she is a part of it.  When it is all done we are going to send her a picture of it to put in her room.