This morning Lily (I assume) grabbed a video of Ammon playing in a sticker book. He was playing with his imaginary friend, Tementor, and congratulating Tementor on being “too good” at stickers. 🙂
Due to Mary’s intense passion for art, and Andrea’s art expertise and kindness, she offered to give art lessons once per month to Lydia and Mary. Today I brought them over. It was so nostalgic for me to be at Andrea’s house which is where my grandparents lived. I have so many memories there.
Andrea was so sweet. She set up a blanket in the back-yard, had all the supplies ready and taught us a simplified version of her color layering technique, which is similar to many famous painter’s technique.
She decided to give us the art lesson using toe nail polish. The basic idea is that you color your object in an earthy color, make a thin white or cream colored layer across the whole surface, and then do two layers of the desired object color over the object (with the second layer being darker and more free) and then two layers of the background color or colors (with the second layer being darker and more free), but the overall the background layers are lighter than the object layers.
She also taught us beautiful lessons like 1) Nature is the best art teacher 2) an artist is a walking eye 3) a symbol is something that stands for something greater and 4) a color can excite all senses.
It was truly a magical time, and the girls also fell in love with her cat. Thank you Andrea!!
We were using our favorite things of Summer to inspire our toe nail designs. Andrea used this blossom from a tree in her front yard she loves.Mary had wonderful layering!Lydia did cloudsI did orange popsicles. I botched my layering because I put the blue on too thickly, and also I had a hard time painting in a way that didn’t come out looking semi-disastrous, but hey, it was my first time ever painting nails :).
While I was with the girls at Andrea’s Lily was home taking care of Ammon and Clarissa. Apparently, Ammon and Clarissa had a ton of fun playing together as they often do.
I literally have no idea what happened today except that Ammon got covered in stickers at one point.
Also, something that I forgot to mention in yesterday’s post is that yesterday I floated down the Provo as part of a team activity for work. It was overcast the whole time so much more chilly that it normally would have been, but loved every second of it. Some team members liked it and some didn’t, but it was definitely a memorable experience for all.
It’s almost two weeks after this post, so I don’t remember what happened on this day, but here is a picture and a video of Mary reading Dr. Seuss.
I will also mention that about this time Lily went on a routine walk and Lily told me about all the reading she had done about if it is OK to read Dr. Suess as some of his illustration portrayals have been deemed racist. It was a very interesting conversation, and we both felt that it is difficult to move through education without any hint of racism (even in Shakespear), but that Dr. Seuss is worth reading for his explosive creativity and good messages, but should spark proactive anti-racist discussion with our kids for any content that could instill incorrect attitudes. All the study Lily did on the topic also helped give her a bridge to understanding a little better how I can want to still share the Book of Mormon with the children even though it too has racism issues. It was a very thought provoking and engaging discussion. I love our chats!
This morning Lydia came to our bedroom and recited two poems for us from the Shel Silverstein book, Where the Sidewalk Ends.
Here is Poem 1
Here is Poem 2
Today was a fairly normal Sunday (for Covid). We had home church and had a fairly quiet day.
Lydia was sweet and used her grab-bag money to order a dress for Clarissa. Lydia and Mary are often using the money they earn to buy things for others which is so sweet. Today, Lydia (and I assume Mary helped) put Clarissa in the dress. Clarissa was so adorable!!!
Lydia and Mary also put on princess dresses and Ammon dressed up by putting a hood on and taping a feather to it (a rooster?) and everyone started dancing. It was so cute! Here are two videos and some pictures.
Dinner was unbelievable. Lily asked what I wanted to eat for the week and I mentioned artichokes. I felt so grateful that she delivered on that request, and not only that, but she made an incredible assortment to go with the artichokes. I love her!!
After dinner, Lily and I found this cute note Mary wrote.
On Saturday Abe and I slept in, got the kids ready, did yoga together, fed everyone brunch, cleaned up, and made sure the girls had their music practice done before hopping in the car for a day trip to Cedar Breaks National Monument. Below is a picture, and here is a video of the kids in the car before leaving. Clarissa and Ammon have been obsessed with saying BooBoo Bottom and Underpants lately. BooBoo Bottom comes from The Book with No Pictures by B.J. Novack. I’m not sure where underpants came from….
The kids were excited that their masks finally arrived. I ordered these months ago!
I have basically been an emotional wreck all week. On the three hour drive there I felt despair about the environment, our nation’s political situation, anti-science mindsets, anti-historical-reality mindsets, and pervasive racism everywhere. And during moments when the kids were all making–albeit mostly cheerful–noise at the same time in the small space of one moving vehicle, I began to wonder why such chaotic, messy life embedded in an irredeemably unjust world is worth living.
I actively wondered that for about twenty minutes before Abe articulately explained why our particular life is amazing and how, even though the world might be toxic, we don’t need to focus on that. Lydia timed our one and a half hour conversation, and by the end I was feeling a little more optimistic about life.
And then we arrived in Cedar Breaks National Monument, and wow did it surprise us all! We were not expecting how beautiful it was. Honestly I hadn’t even so much as googled on photo of Cedar Breaks, and while we were driving in the rain almost vertically up the slippery mountain road, I was feeling certain that nothing could be worth the drive. But when we got there, we saw this:
Yes, it was worth it. If the view isn’t enough, the smell was over the top. I have not smelled air that fragrant with pine–perhaps in my whole life?? Right after the rain everything was just giving off the most incredible scents, and our hike was a series of marvelous olfactory delights.
In fact I am wondering if we should go back next weekend because on our hike I made us all turn around at the halfway mark because I was scared the hike would turn into something much longer than we had time for. When we finally reached a map (back at the parking lot) I realized that if we had just kept going, we would have descended into a gorgeous loop. We’ll just have to go back I guess.
I think Abe took this because he thought it was sweet, but actually I have a very firm grip on these two kids’ hands. They are my, er, liveliest children. I don’t trust them not to run off a cliff.Abe, wearing Clarissa’s sunglasses and manifesting all over the place that life is awesome.Finally, Mary was the real hero of the day. On the drive up to the monument she got car sick and threw up by the visitor’s center. Poor thing. At one point during the hike her legs buckled, she turned pale and started shaking. Abe piggy-back carried her until she felt like walking again. On the way home she declined both dinner and ice cream, and instead spent three hours patiently entertaining Clarissa, who can be a downright tyrant when it comes to bossing Mary around. Mary, you are such a sweet girl, such a kind sister, and such a trooper. We are so proud of you!!!
On Friday I mostly let the kids do whatever they wanted. Lydia wanted to do my hair, and after about two hours she had worked this wonder:
And then at bedtime I went to play with Clarissa until Abe came in to put her down. He then took this picture, which happens to catch the other braids Lydia did!
The kids also made pizza:
Lydia was not happy with the way her pizza crust was resisting her effort to roll it out. But after all, her hands were tired from all of that braiding!
On Wednesday I let Ammon and Clarissa help make a ricotta, plum and strawberry galette. We got our only picture of the day while they were spreading the cheese:
On Tuesday Mary and Ammon played together for hours building and playing pretend. Here is a video and below is a picture capturing their play. The video includes Ammon saying “alsoly” which is one of my favorite words that I hear him use:
Also Mary wrote this adorable note at the end of the day summarizing what she did today. In her adorable “mitch match” pj’s.
