Driving home the other day, Tyler wanted to know if we could make necklaces with seashells. Yes I told him thinking about the time I went to a bead store and had them glue and mount a shell on a pendant. It is always so funny how I think of the adult answer and then they come up with their own.

They wanted some string when we got home, but we were out. So yarn I though – Tyler said it needed to be thin. Thankfully I found some cotton classic white that fit the bill and of they went. They didn’t need me; they were on a mission.

They got their shell boxes out and began to string shells. I grabbed some tapestry needles and threaded their yard to make it easier. If there wasn’t a hole where Quinn wanted one, she just tried to make it herself! They were very busy bees and made a necklace for each Grandma. They turned out great – Grandma one loved hers and we will give Grandma two hers this Friday.

I had to include these shots. Quinn found an old dance costume of mine and was wearing it around the house. So here she is in that costume making art with glitter sand.

Quinn took a few photos while we were bowling last weekend. Have I mentioned just how much the kids love to bowl? Tyler beat all of us scoring 2 games over 100! There is a great deal at our neighborhood bowling alley on Sundays – $7 for 2.5 hours of unlimited bowling and it includes shoes. That is $28 for 2.5 hours of fun – great deal for a family of four!

This time Grandma Havel joined us. When I was a kid, my parents had their own bowling balls and were in a league. So it was good to get her our bowling again.

I also have to post these two shots I took this day. One of a cool design Tyler make with buttons and another of the the kids with their treasure bags filled with coins ready to go and spend it.

I love these mornings. We all get busy doing our own things quietly enjoying each other’s company.

I remember this Friday being exhausted. Many nights of poor sleep and I was just hanging on. And so I was thankful for a moment to sit down and relax with Pop and quiet moments experimenting with new art mediums.

Later that evening, I had a most wonderful and needed night with friends. It was good to be out in the world and find my bliss for a few hours.

Our View	Glue Art on wet sand
A most beautiful sunset before a wonderful night out with friends	Pure, much-needed escapism

..and I don’t mean that in the way that every parent thinks there child is an artist. She IS one. If you have ever watched her create, you know. She creates art out of anything and I am constantly blown away. From a very young age, she has made self-directed art projects. She loves to mix colors and make her own. She had a collage phase and a watercolor phase. Now we are in the marker and tempra paint stage (lots of color mixing) She can take trash and turn it into anything. She makes glue art. She experiments. She is always making something.

She is wicked creative and I am learning more and more how to get out of her way and not stifle that. For example, I no longer ask her to NOT mix the watercolor paints in the tray. Now she has free reign to do that.

Recently, she asked me to draw the outline of a cat. I obliged and when I came back, this is what she had made with her markers.

Those diamonds!?! That pattern! Then she asked he to draw a dog outline and did this:

I love the bands of colors. I also find it interesting that they have very vibrant, patterned bodies, yet all black legs. Late that night, she did this free-hand:

She is amazing and I am going to start featuring more of her work here. I keep all their art work and bind them in binders by year. It is so interesting to watch how both their artwork grows.

As far as Quinn goes, I don’t say much about it to her. She just needs to be herself and at this point, art seems to be a large part of who she is. Knowing that, I make sure that outlet is readily available to her and that she has lots of supplies. And I sit back and enjoy watching her express herself and her ideas.

That isn’t to say that they aren’t sometimes chaotic or filled with moments where they are driving me up the wall. It is all there. There are many complete days shall we say. But I love this and I love them being home. Best of all are the moments…

I got to play teacher today and it was so fun! We haven’t gotten into any curriculum work yet and probably won’t until May. However, Tyler has been begging for a science class – he is very fixated on anything fossils and is getting into the notion of artifacts. So I did some reading in a Fossil book we got him and decided to start this week with going into the 3 kinds of rocks.

Today we did sedimentary. I explained a bit about them then asked them to draw layers. Tyler decided they should label their drawings – well, alrighty then, so we did. Finally, we mixed water, epsom salt and sand hoping to make our own sedimentary rocks. The process takes two to three days, so we will have to wait to see if we succeeded.

What I love about doing this at home is the flexibility and the time to explore an idea. Tyler decided he wanted to make another “rock”, but use crystals. Go for it! So he went outside with a hammer and made crystal sediment. We mixed a good bit of that in with the sand and will see what happens.

December was just not a good month for this family and therefore many of the fun craft and gift-making projects I would want to do never happened. We are making up for it this week crafting every day in preparation of Valentine’s Day. Today potato stamps.

Well the carving was hard and Tyler was quickly frustrated. I love how my kids can solve a problem like that. Quinn grabbed the larger cookie cutters that were out, put them on her paper and painted inside the cutter. Tyler did the same thing, but with markers and then expanded on his shape.

As we get farther into this, these are the things I love. That the lines aren’t rigid. That the kids have the freedom to go off in different directions and explore. Interestingly enough, while Tyler did not use the potato stamps I made this day, the next afternoon he wanted to try them out. We got the paints out and he made a few cards with the tulip. There is also the freedom to come back and approach something when they are ready to do so.

From here, Quinn and I continued to do art and Tyler went off to build legos.