ART NIGHT

I was in charge of this school activity last week. It was a family art night, featuring booths with art projects, a lego building station, a jazz quartet, and a lego sculpture artist. We were expecting about 200 people to come but ended up with nearly 400! I was surprised! But luckily we also had great turnout of fabulous volunteers, especially of the teenage variety. They more or less ran the booths, carried heavy objects, passed out water bottles, lured wandering children to project tables, filled the need for extra prep work, and they stayed after and cleaned up!!!

Spin Art

Hannah and Maia with their "valentines" from the card booth

Lego creation station

The piece de resistance was definitely the giant lego sculpture. This was created by a dad of one of the kindergarteners--we call him "Lego Dwayne." I can't do his rocket sculpture justice with what would be a lame attempt at describing it. It came apart and contained several swinging parts inside with smaller planes and rockets. When I asked Sam, "wasn't that cool when Dwayne took it apart?" he said straightforwardly, "yes, I nearly fainted."

Rapture

Notice Dwayne's "signature" in legos over the flag

Yarn Art

Disney animation

When it was supposed to be over at 8 pm, people were still going strong and having a great time, and yet I was home at 9:30. My own kids were among the most helpful from start to finish, including hours of cutting and sorting and preparing during the days beforehand. They also gave lots of encouragement for all my posters, signs and flyers. It felt great knowing the kids appreciated my efforts. It also felt amazing having all the help pour in from my dear friends, acquaintances, and even strangers!

My neighbor, Aaron, does some impromptu cariactures for people

This kid from my ward, Skylar (on trumpet) brought some jazz friends

And Sam gets jiggy with it

Love is in the air...

And it smells like this!

Let me back up. I have always disliked Valentine's day. Ever since I was twelve and I received my first heart shaped box of candy from a boy who liked me. I felt so...manipulated. In high school I broke up with a perfectly good boyfriend once on valentine's day, because I just couldn't take the pressure. The flowers, the candy, the carefully chosen tokens...there is something so nauseating about it. Does anyone else share that problem? That intense aversion to pink, pre-packaged romance?

My sweet, patient husband knows I have these weird hangups. (One of the countless adorable things about me.) He likes to call my bluff, like when I made fun of my roommate's boyfriend for bringing her flowers, Mike put flowers on my windshield the next day. And this weekend, he booked a romantic room at the beach and planned my perfect day. We hiked, shopped, ate seafood, hot-tubbed, napped and went to a movie. All of these activities are in my top-10 favorites, and half of them are in Mike's bottom-10 dislikes (can you guess which half?).

Here are some pictures from our romantic hike to Drift Creek falls:

Looking down on the waterfall from the suspension bridge.

Sunlight through the mossy trees.

Thank you, Mike! And...it's hard to say, but here goes: Happy Valentine's day!

I have come to terms with my dislike of the holiday by making it all-about-the-kids. The last couple of years we've done fancy dinners (at home) and chocolate fondue with the kids. This year we let them have a "party," with heart shaped pizza, games, and heart-shaped cookies made into "fruit pizzas." Yum.

"Do you love your neighbor?"

Next time you have a bunch of kids over, of any age, this is a great game. The person in the middle asks, "do you love your neighbor?" If the child says yes, the neighbors have to switch places before the "it child" grabs a spot. OR the question "do you love your neighbor?" can lead to "No. But I love people with bare feet..." (or some such qualifier) then all those children have to jump up and switch spots. The child left in the center is "it."

Big, loving fun. I hope your weekends were equally wonderful!

Lil' Bookworms

My week is way too busy for me to sit around blogging, but I still just feel like reaching out to everybody right now and saying "hi." The issue on my mind is children's literature. A great friend of mine with a 5-year old asked about good read-aloud chapter books for that age, and it got me thinking about everything we have enjoyed as a family. My mom used to make those long hours on car trips go by faster reading such classics as Trumpeter of the Swans and ... what else mom?

Now I read books aloud--it's my favorite part of traveling. I almost want to plan a road trip on the release date of the new Fablehaven book. Sometimes we pull into a stop and nobody wants to get out until the end of the chapter.

So for 5-year olds I was thinking the Boxcar Children series, the American Girl books, the Borrowers...what else? Please comment with your suggestions. I have to admit we read the first Harry Potter books with our five year olds. And I read many Young Readers Choice books and Battle of the Books books aloud with everyone present. I may be targeting the 9 year-old, but it's often the 5 and 7 year-olds who are begging for more. The 13 year-old has been known to stop by for a chapter of Little House.

I started Anne of Green Gables last night with the girls--the descriptions are so lengthy and florid--not really for 5 year-olds. But then today I heard Maia summarizing the first couple of chapters for her little friend, so I'm going to stick with it.

So what are your favorites from childhood, and what are you reading with your kids?