My little baby girl is growing up and it’s almost time trade in her crib for a big bed. The furniture in her current room is a very modern design in pink and brown (from Target’s Dwell Collection).
Here’s a peek at her current room decor:
But as I begin to shop for a bed, I can’t stop picking out more girly and traditional designs.
My Jenna dream bed at the moment is this daybed from Simply Kids Furniture:
But a more likely, budget-friendly option is this one from RoomsToGo:
Jenna Paints Easter Eggs
We have 3 trips between now and Easter so I thought we’d get a head start on our Easter cards. This made Jenna very happy!
Anything music themed is a huge hit in our house. Jason loves to hit the ‘hi-hats’ and the ‘bass drum.’ At three-years-old, he can name more musical instruments than his mother. For today’s art activity, I created collages of Jason and Jenna using recent photos and illustrations found online. I think they were a little hesitant to color on the pictures.
Rock n Roll Jason in Shades
Rock n Roll Jenna in a Tutu
Each day we try to take at least a few minutes – more if attention spans allow it – to focus on simple creative endeavors like painting, coloring, sticking and glueing. This series will capture the moments we spend together making messes, pretty pictures and objects that inspire imaginative play.
Here’s a look back at the past week:
Jenna's Watercolor Masterpiece
Jenna Decorates her Telescope
Angry Telescoping
Jason Paints the Window
Painting with Bubbles
Painting with Paint. Messier = Happier.
A Beautiful Mess.
My husband bought me a new camera lens for my birthday this week, and I’ve hardly stopped photographing the children ever since. I haven’t experimented much with the technical aspects yet, and still have much to learn about how to achieve the effects I’m going for. Instead, I’m learning mostly through trial and error, and luckily for me, my kids seem happy to indulge me in the constant flashing lights. Here are a few of my favorites so far:
Jason's Close-Up
Lots of Crayons
Jenna Drawing Her Hand
Jenna's Close-Up
Jason Makes a Mess
What a great Valentine’s weekend! Jason and Jenna hosted their first annual (maybe) Valentine’s Day brunch for several friends, we celebrated Daddy’s 30-something birthday, we built our first family snowman and Jenna charmed us all in her new (and first) tutu.
Here are a few highlights:
Valentine's Day 2010
Robot Collage
My son loves to run around, jump up and down, climb up things, crawl over things, chase people – you get the idea. But sitting still for “art time” is still a bit of a challenge. So nearly every day I try to invent new and unique ways to capture his attention and encourage him to focus on something other than running around, jumping up and down …
For today’s craft activity, I continued my trend toward “button and arrow crafts” (two ingredients that top the list of things Jason finds engaging) with the Robot Collage. I started with some basic shapes – rectangles for the body and limbs and a half circle for the head. Then I added a spinning arrow and cut circles for the eyes and buttons. I let Jason and Jenna assemble them as they saw fit, not sure if the resulting images would look like a robot or more like a car, refrigerator or abstract art.
In the end, they looked quite a bit like robots.
Jason Makes a Robot
Jenna Makes a Robot
Today I was reminded of just how much the simplest materials can spark Jason & Jenna’s imagination. Right after dinner, a box was delivered from Amazon and they immediately wanted me to open it. To me, it contained a smaller box with three packages of Huggies Wipes, but to Jason and Jenna the contents were much more elaborate. Jason’s box became a car that, for some reason, needed a telescope to operate, so he quickly ran to the recycle bin and found the requisite paper towel roll. Jenna’s box needed stickers, lots of them. And once it was sufficiently decorated, it served as a chair, a hat and even a horsey.
Here is our homage to Not a Box by Antoinette Portis:
This is not a box
A common request from Jason when he sees me in front of the computer is “see Grandma’s house?” And so begins a review of all of the photos taken during trips to Grandma & Grandpa’s house. As we reminisce, Jason usually invents stories – part recollection, part imagination – involving elevators, rooftops, statues and fireworks.
For today’s craft, we created a large “city collage” mural of Grandma & Grandpa’s neighborhood, incorporating some of Jason’s favorite imagery from trips to their house. We started with paper cutouts of tall buildings and then added the scenery - trees, cars, stoplights and, of course, pictures of Grandma & Grandpa’s building and surrounding neighborhood.
Jason & Jenna loved describing the things they saw in the collage, and Jenna even tried to hug Grandma. Here’s their finished picture:
Grandma's Neighborhood: A Photo Collage
My husband and I take lots of photos. Our iPhoto library has close to 14,000 photos taken over the past seven years. It might seem that they would blend together after awhile, but they don’t. So many photos stand out in my mind, and I love going through our library and remembering all of the times we’ve spent together.
Yesterday we took two photos that I think will stand out for a long time. They really seem to capture the personality and charm of our children and show what they were like on a typical day, just hanging out at home.
Jason’s picture was taken in the morning. He’s wearing an “I love chocolate” t-shirt that I bought at the grocery store the night before. He’s standing in the office, making different facial expressions – maybe because he’s recently taken an interest in emotions (whether someone is ‘happy’ or ‘sad’) or maybe because he’s started doing impressions of Pink Panther. Either way, adorable.
Jason *Really* Loves Chocolate
Jenna’s picture was taken later that same evening, while my husband was watching the kids in the bath. Jenna was drawing with her bathtub markers, but took a moment to look up at Dada as he snapped a shot of her with his iPhone. Also, adorable.
Vintage Jenna
