Future Picasso?

No, I'm just kidding myself over here. This piece is simply an exercise in preschool cutting and pasting that went awry. I pulled this paper bag mouse puppet out of the backpack yesterday afternoon and had to laugh. Upon further review last night as Robbie was taping his brother's artwork on the wall, the chuckles kept coming. So many layers of funny to me! Happy Friday all.

No baseball?

The boys both received mini-dry erase boards for Christmas. Noel has said they are a "genius" gift. I completely agree. (And I've only had to scrub off words written with a Sharpie pen once! To my surprise, permanent ink fades away with a little 409 and some time.) Robbie uses it more than Cub, but I guess that is to be expected. What we would never have predicted was that the white boards have ushered in a new era of child-parent communication for us: the written negotiation. Here's Robbie's attempt to get out of t-ball practice yesterday afternoon. Other favorite pleas include "No bath" and a detailed, ordered list of what he gets to do before bedtime.

Farmer's Market find: Peppers

Impulse buy at the farmer's market this weekend! I don't even know what to call this variety of pepper. They're tiny (each less than an inch long) and I've never seen them used in a dish here, either. But Robbie picked up a bag to look at them, I asked if he liked them, he said yes, and then said we should get them. At a dollar a bag, I figured, why not? My first thoughts were to use them to flavor broth in a soup. We'll see if I get creative and come up with anything else.

Cal and the artwork

If you want to keep things in good shape (or sometimes just simply keep things), you've got to keep them off the floor at our house. Our dogs are pretty good but we can't say they're perfect. Far from it. I have a half-dozen small Lego parts perched on the windowsill above the sink, items I found Brady chewing on. Cal likes tissue and paper towels, so we have to be careful about those, too. A not-so-destructive habit they have is laying down on anything on the floor. Towels, clothes, blankets, soft bags and toys....they will attempt to rest on it. Even artwork! They're just looking to be comfortable, but they end up getting lots of things very dirty. Here's Cal on a recent drawing. I snapped this picture and tossed the paper later when he moved.

Play ball!

Guess who's playing t-ball this year? And guess who's more excited? We signed Robbie up last month for youth baseball (at his age they still hit off tees) and practices started a few weeks ago. The team has a practice tournament a week from now, league games start in a month or so. We picked up his uniform this week.
Unfortunately, I'm not liking practices so far. Cub comes along and doesn't sit still. Nearly two hours of following and/or running after him in open areas drives me nuts. Plus he wants to follow his big brother around and I sometimes find myself on the field with the team, pulling Cub away. Lord I hope he's old enough to play on his own team next year.

Christmas Day 2010 painting

Happy Friday all! And a three-day weekend, too, for most of us. Here we'll be drying out and watching football. More rain and one whopping storm came through the islands this week. Knocked over a couple trees on our block. Of course, they were young trees with thin trunks, but they went down and will be missed until their replacements shoot up.
This painting is one of Robbie's works, painted with new paints received for Christmas. I love that we can archive our kids' art with photos, allowing me to toss them or re-purpose. I turned this and another painting into thank you notes and a birthday card for Grandpa Tipon.
Noel looked at the "piece" and swore he was in a restaurant last month where they had local works on the walls for sale (some as much as $5,000 ?!?) and he claimed Robbie's was "better."

Remains of the (painting) day

Here's what was left of the paints after Robbie (and a little bit Jacob) painted a couple of masterpieces. All gone! Nonetheless, I still consider this gift "a gift that keeps on giving." I saved these mini-containers and washed them out. When I'm up for another painting session (yup, I have to mentally prepare!) I'll refill the little cups and let the boys paint until the cups are empty again. Seems like a good way to control paint in little hands. Plus a good old-fashioned lesson in color mixing awaits!

2011 Postage Stamp News

This post hints of a PSA, but I just learned this yesterday (and only because I was standing in line at the post office) and thought I’d share with those who have the good fortune of NOT having to stand in line at the post office. All commemorative stamps issued in 2011 will be “Forever” stamps. ALL of them! One of the first to be issued is the “Year of the Rabbit.” Purchase any of these for the current rate of $.44 cents (note in the new design a number is not shown, just "Forever") and in the future when a price hike happens again, you can still use them without those pesky additional-cent stamps. 2011 releases include a Ronald Reagan stamp, Mark Twain, artists, actors, scientists, inventions, Owney the Postal Dog, and…wait for it…Pixar stamps! Although there are posters up in the post office, this news is surprisingly hard to find at www.usps.com. Even the “Forthcoming Releases” page is currently blank. I’m curious as to why they haven’t screamed it to the world. Or at least used the modern equivalent…creating a special banner for web pages. This is great news for those who love the practical aspect of the forever stamp and want to mix up their stamp purchases with special commemorative issues. A win-win! Thank you USPS for this year-long gift.