Reality or Technicolor?

How about a little of both!
Chloe has been an artist from the time she could grab fistfuls of crayons or sidewalk chalk keeping all her favorite colors close. 

She still spends time daily drawing, coloring, painting, sculpting.  Some of her projects are supremely realistic and others.... not so much.

These are her "masterpieces" drawn from pictures of real horses.  I see things like this and I am in awe of her natural ability.  She has never had an art lesson, after all.

She drew this picture of Ruby laying on her back from a photograph.  She had the camera sitting next to her with the tiny picture to reference.  For comparison, below is my version which she asked me to do.

Evan has taken an interest here and there with art.  Every once in a while inspiration strikes and he will astound me.  Recently he made these:

A hawk and a crow, both from the underside view as you would see them if you looked up and they flew over your head.  He didn't have any image to copy, just the idea in his mind.



I was cleaning up the art corner the other day and flipped through Chloe's old coloring book of horses.  She started it when she was 5 1/2 so some of them are a bit sloppy.  Her realistic horses made me smile as I noticed the patterns she always added in -- not content with the original drawing (Mom, she gets that from you!)

But the main thing you see when you flip through her book is a rainbow of technicolor beauty. 

a work in progress -- the mane and tail are marked to be colored later

one of the only pictures with a background colored -- that is Gem Mountain!

originally she must have planned to give this to Olivia :-)

Evan's book was just as intriguing. He started out years ago coloring realistic-looking cars, like this:

Inspired soon after by Chloe's rainbow fascination, it seems he thought that would be a good idea to try.  His art changed drastically.  Each of these would take him more than a day to finish.

So, the technicolor world is what they prefer right now and I don't blame them.  It really is prettier :-)

She Loves Me

Hugs and kisses throughout the day, cuddles on my lap when she needs some comfort, and love notes galore.  These are my new treasures.  All from my sweet baby girl, Chloe.

She was Daddy's Girl for four years and recently (maybe over the past 6 months) she has opened up a place in her heart for me again :-)  Oh, how I patiently waited for this day....

 Her shirt says "I love MOM" (Evan's is covered with food -- we know what he loves)

I know she always loved me, but now it's so visible and tangible..... my heart is full.

Loving Spring Days

making a Thumbelina pond

so many flowers to pick from right now!

bird-watching.... our new favorite morning activity

visits at Granny's house for yard work and exploring

beautiful spring forsythia

The days are warm, the skies are blue and spring is wonderful.

Missing

Chloe's second loose tooth has been wiggling around nicely for about a week, making mealtimes difficult, but yesterday was really different.  It was so loose she was nervous to talk or play outside for fear of loosing it in the dirt.  (Evan thought God really should have made teeth metallic so we could find them with metal detectors.) 

Well it finally fell out last night, right at bedtime. Her grown-up tooth was rather impatient with this whole process and began it's emergence behind the baby tooth.  Evan's bottom teeth did that too, and all will be well with time as it straightens itself out. 

She waffles between wanting desperately to believe in the tooth fairy and also wanting to be like her big brother who has all but ruined that magic for her.  But right as she held her new tooth in her hand she said, "I'm really starting to think the tooth fairy IS real," and closed her eyes like she was making a wish.  She loves imagining that it's magical at least.

Fire Station Field Trip

These pictures were from the end of April when we joined up with some homeschoolers to tour the local fire station.  What a great experience to be up close and personal with the emergency vehicles.  The firefighters were really nice, but I don't think they were used to having homeschool groups come through.  Evan and Chloe were a little bit overwhelmed (and others may have been also).  The kids were expected, of course, to sit and listen to the teacher give a long session about fire safety, raise their hands to answer questions, form lines and stand still in them.  These are obvious skills to anyone who has learned them in school, but not these kids!  It was comical.  At least the trucks were cool and they got to play with their friends, but Evan and Chloe both told me when we got in the car that they are really glad we homeschool because they couldn't bear that sort of 'teaching' every day :-) Ha!

Breathtaking

The spring flowering trees are stunning.  I just can't say that enough this year!  This was our last great outing to savor the sights and smells before the cold rainy days came on us.  Most of the petals are being replaced with leaves now, but with a flow of photos like this one.... I can go back and savor them all over again.  And look how cooperative my kids have gotten with smiling for the camera!