Painting the day away

Well not exactly "the day" more like painting 20 minutes away. Maybe 25 minutes. I would let them do this everyday if it weren't for the set up and clean up. It's not part of my contract.I let Lucas use the finger paints instead of the acrylic paints that Grace was using. Acrylic? Yep, we don't have any tempera paint (I'm not even sure of the difference, although I'm sure it's an important one). You might be confused because I said Lucas used finger paints and yet he is using a brush. Well, I gave him a brush because when the paints were in a more accessible area, he was always into the brushes. Besides he wants to do things the way Grace does. Monkey see, monkey do.
The artist herself. What you can't appreciate is how much she was talking. So chatty! Send earplugs.
Look at that brush action.
A little dab here....
A big dab here.
Lucas's work in progress.
And Grace's completed work. The paints got themselves all mixed together, "like the Color Kittens, Mommy!"
Hopefully those finger paints weren't too toxic if swallowed (licked off fingers) because look who's taking a little taste. Should I be calling poison control? Hmmmm.*
It needs just a little more. Each time I squeezed more paint into Grace's tray, Lucas insisted (with his super banshee screech) that I give him some more too. He liked "helping" me squeeze the paint onto his plate.
Tah-dah! You can see the completed paintings hanging up on a fridge (or a piece of yarn strewn across the window) near you (if you lived near us).

*As of the writing of this post, Lucas has shown no ill effects of his paint tasting. Luckily, he has a doctor's appointment tomorrow. That way if anything happens, I can always blame it on the vaccinations.

Thinking inside the box

I hate Mondays. Even though I don't have a job in an office, I still hate Mondays. Monday means there is no hope of sleeping in again for at least 5 days. Hummfp. Monday is grocery shopping day, laundry day, changing diapers day and banshee baby screaming day. I guess the reality is I do all those things everyday, but there's something about Monday that makes it that much more painful.I finally had it and spent the morning trying to find a box in which Grace would fit so that I could mail her up the street to my parent's house or to McKinney (to her Mimi's house). Only kidding. I would never do that, besides there's not enough room for Lucas. The box actually came with our BBQ grill (free of charge, too!). She thought it made a comfy bed.
Pretending to be a kitty cat. She sometimes likes to act like a kitty cat and some (not me) have indulged her and let her eat out of bowls on the floor. And guess who I caught pretending to eat out of a pan he'd taken out of the cupboard? Oh, Lucas, if only I'd had my camera handy. See we don't need any pets around here.
Our afternoon activity---hammering golf tees into a large styrofoam pad (also free with the BBQ grill, woohoo!). If you're thinking to yourself that her mouth looks slightly discolored, you are correct. The culprit is sitting (really laying) up on the couch. Cotton candy.
Lucas getting into the action. I was surprised at how well he did with his little hammer. He also liked pulling them out after he hammered them in.
A double action shot. You'll be happy to know that no bodily injury occurred during this activity.
Here's the activity that I got to do today during Lucas's nap.
I made the bird a while back as part of another (of the 456+) project that I'm working on. I'll show you when I'm done. After the bed was made for the mouse, Grace insisted that the bird have one too. And after I finished the bird bed complete with flower applique, the bird had the nerve to say "But it doesn't match me." and Grace said "Can we make something else?" I was only a little disappointed. Okay a lot disappointed. After all, I made them while Lucas was napping which is usually my take a shower/brush my teeth/go to the bathroom time.

The day though was saved by another delicious dinner thanks to our new grill. We had grilled chicken and roasted corn. No pics--my battery was dead. Steve's becoming quite the grill master.
After a busy day grilling, he got to sit down and relax with Grace.

Overall, not a horribly terrible Monday, but still a Monday.

A new addition, 2 additions

We have two new additions to our family. The first was bought at IKEA today. I love IKEA. So much. One day I'm going to hide in one of their bedroom displays. When they close I'll sneak out from my hiding place and spend the whole night looking around the entire store by myself. No kids, no other customers. Really. If Steve ever reports me missing tell him to check IKEA first before calling the police.

Anyway we bought something that was much needed.....Can you tell what it is?Luckily, Steve had two helpers to help assemble it. And luckily for us, no tools were required.

Grace liked putting on the black spacers.
Lucas just liked getting in the way. Everyone working very hard to put it together........
Yea!!! I love it and am so happy to finally have a place to put all the kids' paints. Even the bean box has a place. They were previously stored on the very low and Lucas-accessible breakfast nook area. When he was around they had to be put up on the table. There's plenty of space for other things---cookbooks, cookie cutters. I just can't decide. There's even a makeshift bed for Miss Allah Rosie.
Looks comfortable, huh?

And our next addition.....
For daddy. Yea!!!! A new BBQ grill. Finally. You can't see the old grill in the background. It was one of those camping grills. It was quite small but we did use it quite a bit but this bad boy means that we can cook meat and vegetables at the same time. I mean Steve can cook.....While this may seem like a gift for Steve, it's really for me because now I can conveniently make our menu consist of grilled chicken, steak, fish, veggies. Can you bake a cake on the grill?? Hey, I'm taking the night off. Ha!
The second thing that Steve grilled. We actually got the grill yesterday but had some early frustrations. I guess kabobs weren't the best thing to cook first time out. Shrimp kabobs no less. I thought they turned out well but Steve was frustrated by it. This is a pork tenderloin.
It was perfection. Really tender. Even Lucas with his 6 teeth could easily eat it. Yummy.
Steve thought I was a dork for taking pictures of our dinner but I thought it turned out well. I made the sides which was made much easier because I didn't have to wrestle everything into the oven. I know that secretly he will be happy to hear me praising his tender tenderloin. Good job, honey. He should cook more often (read---all the time).
I couldn't resist this picture of Lucas carrying his tin box full of rocks up the stairs. He had to carry it up by himself, one step at a time. I made the mistake of trying to help him and got a foot stomping in reply. Silly boy.

And that was our Sunday fun.