Playing With Food, Water, Birds, and the Presidents

This week, we had fun eating color dinners.  At the end of the week, we enjoyed a rainbow of leftovers.  Here are the orange and green dinners. 

After a weekend of rain, we had a lovely day at the park on Presidents' Day.  When we arrived, the sprinklers were on, and so the kids all got wet in no time.  After the sprinklers turned off, we were left with a stream from the grass onto the sand that provided much entertainment.  Hannah designed a river path and was delighted that she could control the flow.  After pleading with Micah repeatedly not to get himself filthy dirty and wet, I just gave up and allowed him to go with joyful abandon.  Chasing birds is also a favorite past time.  

Enjoyed attending Olivia's kindergarten Patriotic Program (presented by three of the classes together).  

Amor, Papa, Luna, Amiga

A shot of the kids on Valentine's Day.  They don't particularly care about the origins of the holiday, they're just thrilled with the goodies.

Can you spot the amazing purple potatoes in this photo?  My kids wondered what was wrong with them, but nature made them that way.  They were delicious in addition to beautiful.

The moon.  I took this shot after a very, very early morning run.  The moon sinking down to the horizon and getting larger and more orange with every passing minute.  I raced home to get my camera.  Not the best shot, but you can see how full and rich in color it was.

Rain in the desert!  Olivia and her good friend Emily insisted on rollerskating with umbrellas of all things.

Eyes, Arts, Shadows

I never know what I'm going to find when I import photos from my camera to my computer.  Hannah is a goofball -- with a set of gorgeous eyes.

This week has been all about the Valentine Day crafts.  You can find the how to for the pom pom flowers here, the felt roses here and the color hue cards here.  Hannah and I made the box for a secret friend assignment at school.  We hope Peyton likes the box as much as we do!

Also this week, Olivia won another art award -- this time for a self portrait collage.  She told me she was frustrated that she couldn't make the yarn hair curly.  Both H and O are going to start a Young Rembrandts art class next Friday that they're excited about.   

And finally, this shadow shot of me walking to the mailbox.  Feels like I'm operating on autopilot much of most days.  This photo captures a very typical moment in every weekday.  On the way home from work and school, we drive by the mailbox, and I get out to check the mail.  The sun is always going down at that time, casting shadows as I walk.  I find myself stopping to think, now what day is it?

Sky, Leaves, Rocks

We spent much of Sunday afternoon lying stretched out in Hannah's moving box fort in the backyard.  Here's a shot of the view of the sky from the fort.  Makes me remember fondly the amazing fort my older brothers constructed in our basement out of moving boxes when we were kids so many years ago.

Looks almost like a scene Monet might have painted -- until you realize it's a fleet of leaves that fell off our neighbor's tree and into our pool.  

Hannah's 2nd grade class took a field trip to see Slim Goodbody perform.  I met them for lunch in the park afterwards and snapped this photo of Hannah (on right) with her best friend Ashley.

It's amazing how much fun you can have with a big mountain of gravelly rocks at the park.