Kaleidoscope

 Kaleidoscope is an art studio downtown, funded and supplied by Hallmark with all kinds of leftover paper goods and ribbons and stickers and art supplies. I have many fond memories there from my own childhood, so it was special to see Elli experience it for the first time!

I think she spent most of our time at the watercolor station, painting crowns with Mia.

But she also loved coloring and playing with all the musical displays.

After our time in Kaleidoscope, we ate lunch at Fritz's, which is a restaurant with a railroad theme.  Elli has been very into "choo-choo's" recently, so this was a huge highlight for her!  I wish I'd taken some pictures, but you can imagine the excitement as she watched the trains travel around the ceiling, bringing tables their orders.  We had a blast!

Watercolor

I have been a pretty boring Mommy lately.  Yesterday was a pretty good day for me, though, so I decided to pull out the watercolor paints.  Elli's really only painted with finger paints, so I was curious to see what she would think of the paint brush.  Turns out, she really loved it!

The wavy line at the top is from when I showed her how to do it, but the rest is hers!

She was so focused while painting, but every few minutes, she stopped to smile and admire her creation.  I enjoy this girl so much!

And you know it didn't take her long to experiment with alternate methods of painting!

We will definitely do this again soon!

And here's the finished masterpiece:

And now I feel like less of a loser-Mommy!

more painting fun

Elli and I have been doing a lot of coloring lately, but I wanted to give her the opportunity to get as messy as she wanted with lots of finger paint. I had pictured her stepping, crawling, and smearing to her little heart's content.

Well, Elli wasn't so into the stepping or crawling, but she did finally decide to try some handprints!
She was a little bewildered by her blue hands...
And I did have to wipe off her hands a few times...
But she finally warmed up to the idea and had a blast!Not in focus, but love that scrunched up nose!

Wrapping Paper

Well, we finally have our computer up and running! So, here's some more catch-up from the past couple of months before I try to load some new photos.
Elli and I had a blast making our own wrapping paper! If I do this again, I will try to find a thinner paper because it was pretty difficult to wrap (prettily, at least!), but it was a sweet way to get Elli involved in Christmas presents this year!
Ew... please ignore my IV bruises. This was a few weeks after my surgery, but that bruise stuck around forever!
And of course Elli was much more interested in tasting the paint than painting with it!

Projects

Last week was a busy one around here! Our weekend was supposed to be full as well, but Elli and I were feeling under the weather, so we stayed at home for the most part.

Despite a runny nose and trouble sleeping, Elli was still playful as ever.
And I had a blast finishing up a sewing project! Well, finishing for now. It's a size 3T, so I'll hem it when she fits into it. It also desperately needs an iron, but you get the idea!

And thanks to Kristin's how-to, we made Elli some cute little t-shirts.
Daniel's exacto-blade skills sure did come in handy. I knew there was a reason for all those sleepless nights in studio!
So, for not feeling very good, we sure did have a lot of fun!
Here's what my kitchen table looked like this morning. Yikes!

May 12 - Painting for Daddy

As a graduation gift for her daddy, Elli painted her first picture. She was very focused on her art and thoroughly enjoyed the creative process! All I did was squirt a little finger paint on the canvas and away she went!

She also had quite the audience... our neighbors (and their dogs) all came over to watch.
Focused!

Gotta get every corner...Apparently the paint needed a little thinning.
Checking to make sure it tasted alright.