Powerless

We are one of the million homes without power. So you won't hear much from us for a few days...

One last look

Before I totally move on from our trip, I wanted to leave one more image. I can't wait to watch these munchkins grow up together. I feel lucky that they are so close in age and will hopefully see eachother with some frequency. Makili LOVED Gabrielle, and I think in her own way she liked him too. Look at what a great big sister she is already. It is so interesting to see how kids' personalities really are innate. They come out a certain way. Sure, we can influence those things a bit, but fundamentally they are who they are. Can Oliviann really be this mellow forever?

War Paint

Last time I was home at my parents' house, we went to the Children's Museum, where I picked up some of these watersoluble face paint crayons. Though they are actually designed for this purpose they work great and wash off easily. The Museum has been using them forever (I used to work there). I broke them out yesterday when we needed a minute of calm and let the kids go at it. They were a bit timid at first, and Gabrielle was definitely far more interested than Makili, but both of them had a great time and it was fun to watch the little Indians run around all morning. This is an AWESOME activity for kids and I intend to do a lot more of this! The crayons aren't cheap, but they last a good while. And just in case you buy some, they need to be dipped in water before they will work.

Passing Our Days

We're headed home from Arkansas tomorrow, but we've had a terrific visit. I'm sure Gabe and Laura will be glad for some time to themselves without the extra mayhem of four kids, but I've enjoyed the stay a whole lot. We've had great weather (until today) and have had lots of opportunity to be outside (I ran four miles yesterday!), playing golf, walking, and generally getting some vitamin D not out of a bottle. We've been watching the olympics, and playing with puzzles. Today we got out a fun project, which I'll post pictures of later. Good times.

Top gun

Uncle Gabe took us to see the big airplines, for which he is the navigator. It is sort of weird to be on a military base, but the kids enjoyed checking out the plane, and Raph asked a million questions. It was pretty cool.

Big and Little

Cousin Love.


Lots of baby interest around these days, as you can imagine...

Good Times.

Oliviann Josephine Matty

A lot more pictures to take, but there are four kids here and boy is that a whole lot more than two! Just as one kid stops crying, the next one starts. Oliviann is the mellowest baby on the planet, however. Sweet, sweet, sweet.

Ski Trip 2010 and a winner

Whew! We survived a weekend of exchange student skiing fun. Only a little bit of halting teenage hormonal action! Not a whole lot of sleep, but fun nonetheless...

And the winner of my post 600 giveaway (generated by the random number generator) is Suzinn (which I am assuming is Suzanne - is that right?)

Cheeks

An Art Project Before We Go

We are headed out to go on a ski trip with 30 exchange students, and then onto visit the Arkansas Mattys, so I don't know how much I'll be posting in the next few days, but I was pretty proud of myself yesterday for the art project I came up with for doing with Makili.

Raph bought me a bunch of block printing materials for Christmas that I've been dying to get around to work on. (So many things going on all the time!) Yesterday I decided to modify the project for Makili.

We used those styrofoam trays that food comes packaged on in Market Basket. I save them for using under plants in the greenhouse, and I've used them in the past to make crafts for decorations, like at Makili's birthday luau. I decided yesterday to try using them as printing plates. I cut them to the size I wanted with scissors, and then Makili used a chop stick to draw on them, though some of his lines weren't deep enough so I also had him draw with a Sharpie, and then I traced his drawing with a chop stick.

Here is a plate ready for printing. As you can see, Makili also liked poking holes. And the smily face was my demonstration for him as to how to draw on there. He didn't do that (obviously).
Then we inked up the plate using some block printing ink and a brayer. Makili really like this part, and of course he chose red.

Here is an inked plate.Then we put the plate on the paper, turned it over and rubbed it.
Then we peeled off the finished print.
I'm not showing the best works here because a few of you might find Valentines in the mail from Makili and I don't want to ruin the surprise. Let me just tell you that my favorite works were "Tractor" and "Mommy." Limited editions, of course. I LOVED this project and the finished products were really nice. I recommend this project highly!

While the Mid Atlantic gets dumped on again...

We have no snow around here! Makili likes to jump off of this rock into the snow, but we haven 't had any! But we have been getting out of the house a bit, which also makes me feel like a good mom.

Like Mama

Makili had his first sewing lesson yesterday. He loved it and made a really cool piece of art that is now hanging on my wall. I've been really trying lately to get him to do more creative stuff, since one can only build so many block garages. I have some other projects that I'll post pictures of at some point, but I have to say doing things like this with him is so good for me! We have this structured time together and then he is happy to play independently for a little while. So good.

Post 600!

We had a rough last week. Sorry for the lapse in posts, but with sick DEMANDING babes, my mental health was in question, and blogging was one thing I was not able to make happen. I blame it all on this:

Good ol' Chuck E Cheese. This was part of our Americana weekend. A birthday. Makili had an alright time though he was terrified of Chuckie. And I don't really blame him. In particular those mechanical puppets on stage with the creepy eyelids totally terrified him. I was happy to help celebrate Kayden and Brogan's birthdays, but I don't think that we're going to go there again soon. (Those posters are HUGE in there, by the way, and made Raph and I laugh.)

Since this is my 600th post, I'll do a mini-giveaway. Leave a comment between now and next Sunday Feb.14th at 9:00am and I'll randomly choose a winner to whom I will send a fabric bucket something like this. Good luck!