Julia's Art Class # 2 - The Solar System

This second shorter art class video demonstrates the painting of the planets including Jupiter's big red spot!

1, 2, 3 Flip!

The Olympics has inspired our children to explore their gymnastic capabilities!

Book Art

Now that the kids are a little older and more flexible, I have a goal for our homeschool this year to finally take some of the field trips I've been thinking about! To that end, we and Grandma Laurie made a 2 hour journey up to Amherst, MA last week to explore the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art located in Amherst, MA. 

I have been wanting to go to the museum for awhile and this summer they had exhibits by three of our favorite authors: Beverly Cleary, Robert McCloskey, and Eric Carle. So it was the perfect time to make the trip and it did not disappoint. The museum is small, perfectly sized for kids. There were scavenger hunts to do through the galleries but Ben and Julia really just wanted to look at the pictures. 

Our first stop was in the gallery with Robert McCloskey's illustrations. The kids loved seeing the drawings from Make Way For Ducklings, One Morning in Maine, and Blueberries for Sal. It was very cool to see some of his preliminary sketches and how the pictures came to their final state. Ben declared that gallery his favorite of the day.

From their we headed to Klickitat Street and the world of Ramona Quimby. A favorite of Julia's!

Next up was an exhibit of Eric Carle's work, divulging some of the hidden easter eggs in his art. It was a lot of fun realizing that there are hidden caterpillars and initials in some of our favorite stories!

Ben seemed to have quite an affinity for Eric Carle. I found him looking intently at this photograph of the author and when he turned away he said, "Mom, he is staring right into my soul." Wow!!

Benj and his "soul mate"

Eric Carle

 We loved this illustration from Little Turtle's Great Adventure by David Lee Harrison because the dog looks just like Benjamin's beloved Bubbles!

a boy and a butterfly

hiding inside a caterpillar

There was also an art studio where we created our own unique animals.

creating a bunny and a fish

We also saw a video of Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus - hilarious, of course! Checked out the fantastic gift shop, and ate a picnic lunch on the beautiful grounds. Which were perfect for practicing handstands and cartwheels!

Beach Boy

Julia's Art Class # 1 - The Beach

Julia's interest in movie-making has continued with art lessons. Her first art class video is a tutorial for painting a beach scene.

Camp Week 2016

We had a new item on our summer agenda this year - farm camp at Casey Farm! Julia attended a full week of camp in their Growing Together program and Benjamin attended 3 half-days as a Little Duckling. 

Both kids had fun completing farm chores, doing crafts, and playing games even on the couple of rainy days! Benjamin also got to spend some extra one-on-one time with me and some friends and had a fun day out with Grandpa Rick at the ballpark and miniature golf course.

The first day, Benjamin and his friend were turned into turkeys!

On our day together, we found an old fashioned soda counter and of course, had to try a milkshake!

They even had the paper hats!

There was lots of silliness.

At the bookstore we found some new Minecraft manuals for the 2 big sisters, Julia and her friend Elizabeth.

Somehow, a Pokemon got into the adventures!

Ben and Sarah spent a quiet, rainy afternoon comparing Minecraft worlds.

Julia was all geared up. We don't need backpacks for school so we showed for camp instead!

From turkeys, they transformed into cows.

And a final afternoon of miniature golf (Ben's second round of the week!)

And a carousel ride on Narragansett Nessie

The final camp activity for Julia was an egg drop. Each group of campers created a contraption and the head of the camp, Adam dropped them all. Spoiler alert: they all broke eventually but Julia's team creation, the Sparkleduck, performed admirably!

Rapunzel

Rapunzel, Rapunzel, 

let down your hair!

1,2,3 Jump!

It was big day on the diving board this past Saturday!

First, Julia dove off the board for the first time!

And then Ben jumped off for the first time!

I should note that this means that Benj can now swim the width of the pool and back by himself. That's the test he had to pass to go off the board!

Swim News!!!

It's been a busy summer of swimming culminating in some great news! First, Julia swam in the Narragansett All Pool Meet on August 6th and 7th. Her goal was to make it to swim in the finals (top 16) of at least two events. I am very proud to say that she accomplished that in BOTH her events - Individual Breaststroke and Butterfly. And on Sunday she finished 13th in breaststroke and 12th in butterfly! She was thrilled!!

ready!

take your mark!

the first three medals! 

At the swim banquet she received her first three medals as well as the Coaches Award! It was given to 5 swimmers on the team who had the best attitude, participation, flexibility and overall good spirit. Julia showed up at practice everyday with a smile on her face, ready to jump in the pool. Her excitement was evident and her coaches noticed!

The second bit of news is that on the following day, about 4 hours after she was lamenting to me how sad she was that summer swim team was over, she was promoted to the year-round swim team at the swim club that she takes lessons from, Envious Swimming! So she is now a year-round swimmer with practice 3 times a week. She was beyond excited and literally could not keep the smile off her face - it was fantastic to see! She kept saying that she had been working so hard to make this goal, and she had finally achieved it. Which was exactly what she did do but it was nice for me to hear her recognize the direct connection. Our schedule is going to have a change a bit but we're thrilled that she's found something that she absolutely loves!

Poetry Reading by Julia

The popularity of Minecraft has continued to soar in our household and along with it have come increasing requests for new apps, skins, texture packs, and other purchases. Our new rule? To earn a purchase you must memorize a poem! 

A Galaxy written by Douglas Florian, performed by Julia

(it's kind of amazing how quickly memorization happens with this kind of motivation!)

All in the Details

I've been experimenting with a fun little gadget for my iPhone, an EasyMacro lens. It attaches with a rubber band and provides 4x magnification to the camera - fun!

Ben's eye

tomato flower

Julia's baby blues

parsley buds

Date Night!

Benjamin and I shared a mini-golf and Pokemon date night! We're not obsessed with Pokemon but both of us are having fun trying to catch the critters.

First up - mini-golf at Mulligan's Island! Ben had some impressive shots; I think all that practice in the basement on the first hole of his own course is making a difference!

Then to Garden City for Chipotle, Pokemon hunting, and ice cream (a choose your sundae with chocolate ice cream, chocolate sprinkles, rainbow sprinkles, and m&ms).

And THEN, we opened our car door and found this! Is a rock, is it a toad, is it a snake curled in a ball??? We wondered... we dared each other to touch it... we both refused... we looked around and did not find anything suitable to use as a poking device... so we left it, closed the door, and headed for home where there are plenty of BIG sticks!

After a little poking and prodding our little friend woke up and revealed himself to be a toad!!!

It was a fun end to a great afternoon!