This is what happens when the kids get ahold of the camera....

The girls like to experiment with our point and shoot camera every now and then. This is what ends up on the camera when that happens:




I think it's fun to see what they want to take photos of and some of them crack me up! :-)

June Randomness

Ella and Lily wanted to make a lemonade stand, so Andrew "built" them one! He dragged the log cabin to the front yard and got it all set up with signs, cups, a pitcher of lemonade and even some extra change for people.


Lily lasted about 10 minutes waiting for people to come and Ella made it about an hour. They didn't get that it might take a while for people to come by. And it was Sunday morning so there weren't too many people out and about. I think the girls had a total of maybe 3 sales. But they had fun!


Just a cute Lily and Kellan moment. :-)

Summer Reading!


We've made several trips to the Ridgedale Library this summer. We've never been there before and we LOVE this library. It is much more kid-friendly than our Eden Prairie library. There are letters of the alphabet leading you into the library. You can find all the Spongebobs in the children's section and then get a sticker. They had free pencils and bookmarks. Not to mention a kitchen play area and a dramatic play area that changes monthly! The last time we went they had a castle built out of cardboard, fun dress up clothes, chalices, crowns and more! If you live in the area, I HIGHLY recommend going there.

Spring Soccer

Ella was in her fourth season of soccer this spring. This time she was on the orange Pumpkins! I believe they may have had an undefeated season! Which is a huge contrast to the previous season when I think we may have lost every game. Ella didn't score any goals this spring, but she played hard and really enjoyed being goalie. She moved up a division and is now in the Girls 6-8 age group. An added bonus, Andrew and our friend Robb were Assistant coaches! We're actually starting fall soccer this week. Ella is excited that a few of her teammates from the Pumpkins are on her team again. But she has also informed us she's a bit bored with soccer. So we may be trying tennis in the later fall and then softball next spring!

Below, the peanut gallery: Kellan, Lily and Claire (our friends' daughter).










Coach Andrew, Coach Robb, Ella, and sisters Isabelle and Hope. :-)

Guest Blogger!

I'm a guest blogger today over at Greening Sam and Avery! Check it out when you get a chance. It's a great blog and Abbie is hosting a giveaway if you comment on any of the posts this week! :-)

Milestone Post

I meant to do this post FOREVER ago, and kept forgetting. The first weekend in May Ella lost her first two teeth two days in a row!

And they were the first teeth she got as a baby. Here's photos for you!Her top two front teeth are loose now as well as one next to them. So look for another tooth photo in the near future! In case anyone is wondering, the tooth fairy is bringing a dollar per tooth and something else fun. She got a new toothbrush with one tooth and a pack of sugarless gum with the other.

Minocqua 2010

Picking up where we left off...June...

Ella's last day of school was June 10th and that same night, Andrew and the girls packed the car up and headed east to "the little red house" in Minocqua, Wisconsin. We thought Kellan was too little to truly appreciate the Cottage so I stayed home with him and had a nice quiet weekend.

Andrew and the girls had enjoyed their time with Bubba and Grand Pat doing all the usual Minocqua things: fishing, shopping, eating, mini-golfing. :-)

Here are a few pictures from the weekend:

Art Journal Wednesday: Project Six

Today's project went much better than the previous two. I made sure to do it in the morning and the girls really seemed to enjoy this one. We had better attitudes and they were much more enthusiastic.

The topic today was Henri Rousseau. He was a painter from France who is known for his jungle animal images. Interesting to note: He never visited any exotic places or saw any jungle animals in person. I told the girls some artists paint what they see and others use their imaginations and paint images from their heads. I also asked the girls what jungle animals they could think of. They said tigers, lions, monkeys, zebras. Then we looked at Rousseau's paintings with many of those animals.
Here's a few examples of Rousseau's work:
I used this image from Art Projects for Kids as inspiration:

And the girls went to work:
In the above photo, you can see the orange circle we used to make our tiger face and body. I simply cut down a small paper plate.And here are their finished projects, Lily's is on top, Ella on the bottom:

Art Journal Wednesday: Project Five

The next project was slightly more successful than the last project. But I decided I really need to do these in the morning because when the girls are tired they are not as cooperative as I would like.

After the less than successful attempt at pointillism, I decided to take a break from artist inspired projects and just do something I thought would be fun.

I found this on my favorite art blog:
The point of this is to use warm colors on the hand and cool colors on the outside. Great for teaching the concept of warm and cool with colors. However, my girls were in a mood. So I decided it would be better to not try and teach them anything and just let them pick whatever colors they wanted. The effect is not quite the same, but I think they sort of enjoyed the project. At least better than Seurat. Top is Lily's, bottom is Ella's.