Spring Break Week, aka, Arts & Crafts Week

I had a good time with the kids during their Spring Break.  We were able to find a pretty good balance of activities and down time, and the weather was mostly cooperative.  We had rain, but were still able to get out and spend some time outside.

When we were home, we ended up doing several arts and crafts projects, which I hadn't planned in advance.  It just kind of happened that way because the week fell right after Easter (when Cat received some new art supplies in her Easter basket) and during our baby countdown (when I was working on a quilt for our upcoming addition).

Cat's first project was on Easter Sunday after church.  She used the watercolor pencils

that she received in her Easter basket, which, until shortly before Easter, could have been

found in my stash of scrapbooking stuff.  I'm pretty sure they'd been used twice before

Cat received them.  Since I couldn't instruct her very well, we found this

YouTube video for her to watch.

Monday
The day was dominated by a fun playdate & picnic with a bunch of friends.  We went to a nearby playground and had a great time, enjoying the sunshine and the company.  I have no pictures, so just imagine happy kids enjoying nice springy weather at the playground and eating everyone else's food, in addition to our own.


Tuesday

Jack wrote out the entire alphabet on Cat's chalkboard.

(While wearing a pirate pajama shirt, sweat pants, and cowboy boots.)

One of Eliza's friends from her nursery class invited her over to play on this rainy morning,

so I took advantage of the time without the 3-year-old around to help Cat practice sewing.

She sewed onto these worksheets, which helped her with manipulating the paper and sewing

in a straight line.  Jack ended up being pretty envious and kept begging to try.  I tried to distract

him by having him help me with my baby quilt, and I told him that Cat needed to finish her sewing before he could have a turn sewing.  He was still determined to try when she finally finished, so...

He did.  Cat had drawn a maze for him before I printed him his own copy of the original one.

And he did a great job.  Check out how that bottom seam is perfectly aligned with the line on the

maze.  I pulled a little stop stool out for him to put the pedal on, and he kept both hands on

the paper while sewing at a nice, slow pace.  The only thing that worried me was that once

in a while he would make a mistake or find something funny and turn his head to look

at me, while still sewing.  But he didn't sew over any body parts, thank goodness.  And he really

enjoyed himself.  So.  Looks like we might have a Seamster in the family.

Wednesday

Cat wanted a chance to finally try out the oil paints she'd received for Christmas from Grammy.  She hadn't used them yet because we didn't have any gesso to prep the canvas with, but Cat received a small container of it in her Easter basket.

On Wednesday, she and I looked through our unused house decorations from Georgia and pillaged a few canvases to be used for painting.  Cat gesso'd two small canvases for Jack and Eliza and a bigger one for herself.  We let them dry for a day before painting.

Thursday

Cat was thrilled to finally get to use her oil paints.

She felt very official and provided some great narrative as she worked:

"Your arms make the strokes and they tell you what you're painting.  You can just get the idea from the paints that are in front of you.  Sometimes when you paint something that makes noise, you can actually hear its noise.  Like the ocean.  If you're doing a self-portrait, you can hear the person talking even when they're not."

The whole experience reminded me of this video, which a friend posted on

her blog last summer and has made me smile many times since:

Note to self: oil paint is really messy.  And it can't merely be wiped up like other paints.
It requires special ingredients to be cleaned.  We made do with baby shampoo to wash Cat's

brushes, but really they should be cleaned with other stuff.  Yet the canvas may need 

up to four weeks to dry completely.  So, future self, you've been warned.

To keep Jack and Eliza occupied while Cat worked on her painting,

I did this painting project with Jack and Eliza, which I've been wanting to try for a while.

Jack wasn't very interested in doing the watercolor painting at first, but when I

kept telling him to fill in the white parts, he finally got into it.  He said, "I look like a real artist!"  He thought the addition of salt and glue was pretty cool at the end.

Eliza seemed to really enjoy the process and said to me at one point, "Mommy, I'm doing hard work.  Why don't you do your work?" With Cat's encouragement, Eliza was very liberal with her use of glue and salt.  See below.

(Top image shows Jack's painting on the left, Eliza's on the right)

She had a few spots where she'd pooled so much glue that it still had bubbles when it dried.

And the bottom right picture shows what's left of a glue and salt mountain she'd created on her canvas.  I let it dry for a couple of days but when we finally put it upright a lot of the salt just fell off.  This is what's left.

Friday

When I was sitting down with Cat for her piano practice on Friday morning I looked over

to see Jack doing this on the fireplace.  In the picture, he's actually on his way back down.

And, no, he'd never done this before.  I considered climbing the walls an indication that he

was ready for Spring Break to be over.

It was chilly and rainy that morning so the kids requested some hot chocolate.

Poor Eliza was the last one to finish, so Cat and Jack offered to help her.

That night, I let Cat stay up late so that she could help me do some sewing for the baby

quilt.  (Hence, the sewing practice worksheets earlier in the week.)  She'd also had

a conversation with her cousin, Drew, earlier in the day and offered to make her a blanket.

Apparently she considered herself to be quite the professional after completing the worksheets! 

Anxious about the queue of sewing projects I already had in my mind, I didn't want to start 

a new big project that Cat would supposedly complete.  So I convinced her that we could make

a mini blanket for Drew to use with her baby dolls.  Cat agreed.  She did a great job with both projects! 

Doll Blanket - one of Drew's old crib sheets (which had been passed down to us for Eliza)

on one side and a scrap of white minky on the back.

Saturday & Sunday

The weekend was dominated by General Conference, though I didn't take any pictures this year.

We had our typical experience of relative quiet alternating with relative chaos, but were able to

enjoy it anyway.  I appreciate the moments when the kids are paying attention and hear something they recognize, and for a little while Cat was diligently taking notes in her journal.

Oddly enough, I think my most vivid memory of conference this year is from the very beginning of the Saturday morning session when we were trying to get the kids to quiet down during Pres. Monson's talk.  I said, "Listen in case he announces any new temples!  Maybe they'll build one in the southeast?" And just as I said that we heard him say, "We are pleased to announce new temples in the following areas... Cedar City, Utah..." and Ben and I just burst out laughing and didn't even hear the next temple location.  I know, not the most spiritual moment, but so funny after the time we've spent in Utah.

Sunday evening we did some baby prep by packing bags and getting out sleeping bags for the kids, in case they end up having to spend the night at someone else's house when I'm in labor.  They were so excited about seeing their sleeping bags that they begged to sleep with them.  So all three of them went to sleep on the floor of Jack's room (though only one stayed there the whole night).

A fun way to end a good week of Spring Break.