The Children’s Museum
We had a blast of Saturday at the Chirldern’s Museum. What a cute little place. India was so excited to see the rabbit hole and dress up like an animal (she loves to dress up). Ezra was happy just running around… but he probably loves the fire truck the best.
Popcorn… we love it!
When we come inside, after school, it is often popcorn time. I have sworn off microwave popcorn in favor of the air-puffed variety. This change of thought happend a couple of weeks before the popcorn scare. I don’t know what is in microwave popcorn and wanted something a bit healthier. So I bought an air popper. But I never got around to buying the kernals. When the story broke about the man with the lung disease, Zach went out and bought a couple bags of kernals. When he made the trip he had to go to 2 stores, the shelves were bare after the story came out.
Sometimes we pop it on the floor, even.
Fall is here… and almost over!
I am a bit behind on life these days. I tried to get some plants for our yard in time for the fall season. I think I must be on Baltimore time or something. The nursery we went to was closed so we headed to Lowes. They had a hand full of plants for sale and each was $.25. Some would say that is the perfect time to buy plants. But really, that is when you know you have missed the boat. So I got a few ground covers and some flexible tube for a plant tunnel we will hopefully make in the spring. We checked out this awesome book from the library that has all sorts of great garden projects for kids… things they can do on their own too. The tunnel was one of the ideas. Once we get it going, I’ll post photos. You only have to wait a few months! Ha!
Anyway, I haven’t gotten too behind on fall to avoid raking some leaves. It seems that any yard work I start takes a few weeks to get done. Finally I was able to get my piles into bags. They had been on the lawn for a few days. It’s hard when you start to get into a groove and your kid wants to take a nap.
Both kids loved playing in the pile. I kept wanting to get the camera out and when I finally did this is what India was up to. Ezra was in the swing, done with the leaves. Oh well.
Go Rockies?
Ok, it looks like the Rockies and the Red Socks will be at the World Series. Now who do we root for? You know, I’ve never written those words before (and I’m not quite sure how to spell ‘root’, is it really like a tree root?). Um… rooting for any team has never, ever been an issue. But now it seems to me that it has some sort of connection to our old digs. I think Zach will be rooting for the Rockies while I might be cheering the Sox on.
We have been to a couple of Rockies games. Both had fireworks at the end of the game. They won the first, lost the second (which is pictured here). It has been nice having our little, itty-bitty point and shoot camera. I can take it anywhere and capture everything. Although I don’t ever look like I’m a photographer with it. Humph.
This is at the train stop on the way to the game. The sky was very pretty. Made me wish I had my real camera. I need to get down to the tracks and take some photos.
Zach at the game.
Ezra’s Day
Ezra watching the older boys playing ball on our way home from dropping India off at school.
Then we were off to the Littleton Historic Museum. They’ve got a working farm with an old time school, blacksmith, and home with a pretty extensive kitchen garden. Oh yes, and a cat who was really friendly and followed us for awhile.
This is Ezra in the barn. I have been inspired by the fashion images of late, which are pretty low-key; meaning dark or even underexposed. It was difficult to get this shot with my point and shoot. The shutter speed was really low so I made sure to take several in a row and hope one came out. Wiggly boy (or maybe I’m the shaky one). Anyway, I made sure the auto focus/exposure square landed on a lighter part of his face so it wouldn’t try to lighten the shadows. Does that make sense? Much easier to do when you’ve got control of your settings. Just expose for the highlights and let the shadows land where they will.
This one was with the flash, which my camera automatically fired. Ah, I hate flash! But what a cute smile. I had to reduce the red-eye in Photoshop at home. With on camera flash red-eye is typically unavoidable. Unless you don’t mind waiting 2 minutes for your camera to fire while the red-eye-reducer flashes. Meanwhile, your subject has moved or even thinks the picture has already been taken! Not worth it!
Happy Birthday Teri!
It was Sunday and Teri’s birthday was on the Thursday before and we had nothing… Then I had this great idea of making up a portrait with Teri, India, and Ezra. So we did. I was inspired by this artist Claudine Hellmuth who will create a portrait almost like a caricature you would get at the fair… only a lot more beautiful and something that would look wonderful on your wall.
Our version was a bit rougher then any of hers but it was something that India and I could do together. We both tore the paper and pasted it down and India drew the bodies for each of the heads. All I had to do was sketch out the beach scene and print out the heads. What a great Sunday afternoon activity. It was a blast.
Creating a Bird Stamp
India and I were watching the Martha Stewart Show together. Yes, we sometimes watch that show. I typically fast-forward past Martha’s sometimes awkward banter to get to the good stuff. I love Tivo. India saw them coloring in bird stamps with makeup. Coloring and makeup?? She had to do it. I told her we could make a stamp and create our own bird picture.
Later that night she kept telling me that she could cut four pieces of paper at the same time. I thought that was great, but had no idea what she was up to. The next day I came to our project room (yes, we now have a project room/office) and I saw this:
I asked her what it was. She promptly told me it was her bird stamp that she made. How great is that?
I let her know that I had just bought some blocks and ink so we could make our own stamp. Not from paper. Basically I purchased more block printing supplies.
Last year I had made a passport for a church activity. I carved my own ’stamp’, if you will, out of that very soft woodblock printing block that is available at any art supply store (even Michael’s has it, but that is all you’ll find). It was so easy to do that I wanted to give the harder, linoleum blocks a try. That way the block would last longer and I could make finer lines more easily. My desire to get back to woodblock printing began a couple weeks ago. I was inspired by a friend’s collection of greeting cards displayed in her home. I thought, I can do that.
Well, India beat me to it. We printed out a few images of birds for her to copy and this is what she came up with. I carved the block and she did the rest!
This is the block:
and this is a print:
At the Fair
You know how a church fair can be really lame? Well move over lame church fair and welcome in the Denver Stake Fair.
I cannot believe the amount of cool stuff there was at this fair. Free concessions… which is always very cool… cotton candy, snow cones, home-baked bread, chili and pie cook-offs (with plenty of tastes), corn on the cob (which India will actually eat), cupcake walk, cookie decorating, fishing game, ice cream sandwich eating contest, dunk your friend in a pool of water thing, plus two giant bounce houses.
I kept joking that I only saw people we knew every 20 minutes or so because there were so many people. Our ward (congregation) is pretty small and the stake (regional congregation) is pretty big and apparently has good ideas and money to make things happen. In any case, loads of fun and if the cotton candy line were smaller we would have had some pretty hopped up kids.
hula-hoop contest. Zach beat India and I, if you can believe it.
India in the bounce obstical course
India ready to dunk a kid
Our friend William gettin the job done!
India and her friend at the end of the night with their cotton candy
Ezra’s tongue
We have passed the week mark since Ezra about bit the tip of his tongue off. He was playing on the play structure at India’s school and bit it… well, fell. Lots of blood, lots of crying and even an offer to go to a friends for a popsicles.
I didn’t know how bad it was until the next morning when I got him out of his car seat. He was fingering his tongue and pulling at the flap that was at the tip. Yuck. After dropping India off at school we were off to urgent care to have it looked at. The Dr. wasn’t sure so called the ER. That doc said they could put in a stitch but that it would heal on its own. That’s what Grandpa Brian had told us the night before. It was good to hear it from another person… the Urgent Care doc hadn’t seen a tongue laceration that bad in the 14 years he had been practicing, if that tells you anything.
You can see for yourself:
Still a happy kid… especially after the medicine.
Aren’t the kiddos so cute together?
Who are the People in our Neighborhood??
Just in case you were wondering.
The woman across the street from us hosted a street ice cream social. It was well attended. This will give you an idea of who India and Ezra will be playing with now and in the future. This is only our street, so not everyone is represented. We had a lot of fun and Ezra only had a hard time when we pulled him away from the fire truck.
Our neighbor
From across the street
One of the potential sitters showing Ezra the approaching fire engine
Even the adults had fun
India and this guy have had lots of fun together. She enjoys hangin’ with the boys, playing boy games.
Our driveway was full of activity once the street was no longer blocked off.