Art Alive

Marley is attending an "Art Camp" this week at the Black Creek Arts Council. She goes for 3 hours each morning and is going to work with several different art mediums over the course of the week. When I picked her up yesterday I asked her what she painted. I knew she had painted because she had paint all over arms and across her chin! She said "an abstract". She continued to explain to me that she painted it all black because she didn't like it. While some might interpret this as frustration with her ability to create something beautiful, I choose to interpret her work as the channeling of a great artist such as Jackson Pollock. Since I won't get to see her work until the end of the week, I am figuring her work looks something like this:

Jackson Pollock Convergence, 1952

Jackson Pollock Number One, 1948

Week in the Wild

Last week Marley attended a summer camp at Kalmia Gardens here in Hartsville. The camp was called "Week in the Wild". Personally, I think that our home these days could be considered "wild" by definition, but she had a good time venturing out in to the real wilds of South Carolina. During the camp they fed fish, caught snakes, talked to "Dude" the 3 legged "Green Iguana", and looked for birds. I was a little worried when I found out that they had rats, snakes and iguanas in cages in the building at the camp, but by the time Marley was finished she was a pro at dealing with the creatures. She even gave me a tour of the building on the last day and explained to me that the snakes we were looking at were "nocturnal" that is why they were sleeping. Marley came home with this cool mask that had snake skin, bird feathers, shells and seads on it. I will try to get a picture of her wearing it soon. Whenever she puts in on Jack wants to take it and destroy it, so currently it is put away from little hands! Below is a picture of the collage that they made of the activities she participated in throughout the week.

Why are you so far away from me....

So there is one thing that has bothered me about our house here in South Carolina, that is the fact that several teenagers with booming stereos live in the neighborhood. Now, it isn't the noise that bothers me it is the feeling of familiarity that comes with cars with booming stereos!

Let me explain....

In New Orleans I always knew when Mac was arriving home from somewhere because I could hear the stereo blaring...pounding...pulsing in the car when he drove up. Sure there were other cars that had loud stereos, but more often than not they were driving really fast and the bleeps in the music could be heard way before the car got close to the house. Therefore ,I always knew when it was Mac. Plus, obviously the music stalled near the house as Mac usually waits in the car to finish the song or sometimes even the finish the next song. Well here in South Carolina, the teenagers drive by and I hear the familiar stereo sound and more often than not for a split second I think it is Mac, even when the car is parked outside!

So as I sit here with my husband in Washington DC, the kids asleep and the car parked in the carport, the repeat of familiar stereo songs are making me miss Mac...

You've got my letter....I've got your song

No boys allowed

I have seen this book a couple of times in the last little while and I was able to thumb through it today online. It looks like it would be a great book to have around for girls. I think it would be an excellent Christmas gift for Marley now that she can actually read on her own. There is also a boy version that I will most likely purchase at the same time for Jack.

So if there is a little boy or girl in your life or you just want to add to your knowledge base or add to the bathroom reading lineup, I suggest getting these books.

Description: The Daring Book for Girls is the manual for everything that girls need to know—and that doesn't mean sewing buttonholes! Whether it's female heroes in history, secret note-passing skills, science projects, friendship bracelets, double dutch, cats cradle, the perfect cartwheel or the eternal mystery of what boys are thinking, this book has it all. But it's not just a guide to giggling at sleepovers—although that's included, of course! Whether readers consider themselves tomboys, girly-girls, or a little bit of both, this book is every girl's invitation to adventure.

Guilt Free

So in my pregnancy fog a month or so ago I "tapped" the wheel of Jack's Radio Flyer tricycle with the car when pulling into the carport and bent the wheel. It still worked okay, just required a little more effort from Jack when peddling around the yard. About a week later I backed over the same said tricycle when running to Sonic for Happy Hour and seriously bent the same wheel. I also made Mac furious for about 1 minute and then he just laughed at me. It was pretty pathetic watching Jack try to push his tricycle around the yard getting really frustrated.

Luckily the weather here has been pretty hot and humid, so we haven't done much tricycling in the yard, so I was able to keep it hidden from him. I found out that you have to order parts directly from Radio Flyer, not just anyone carries the part, and ordered new wheel last week. I figured that I would have to take it to a bicycle shop or something to get it fixed. This is frustrating because I probably would have had to take it Florence (30 minutes away) to find anyone to work on it. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that I was able to fix the tire myself. Yes me! It was actually fairly simple and all the guilt I felt for smashing his toy was for naught. As of tonight I successfully switched out the tire and we are good to go! Now hopefully he doesn't figure out how fast he can actually pedal. These days it doesn't take much to out run me!

"FREE"style

"THE SHEAR GENIUS"

Ok, just a quick post to note that Marley has once again struck with the scissors. I thought she was old enough not to do this again. I guess she forgot our chant "only a professional can cut my hair" that we recited for weeks after the last incident a few years ago! She snipped a section of hair right in the front, but just shy of the front hairline, so I think I will be able to hide it until it grows out a little. The exciting addition to this every few years occurrence is that she moved from herself to Jack. I noticed last night before he went to bed that he had a little chunk of hair missing as well! It took me all day to get her to tell me WHY she did it. She was really creative at attempting to explain HOW it happened. You know, you have the scissors in your hand and you are looking at your desk and it happens to cut your brothers hair! Ya, totally believable. Or those crazy scissors just cut your hair while working on your sticker project and then the locks somehow crawled under your bed. Wow, even better. She certainly has an imagination.

I will not post pictures of the offense, but I will post a nice picture of my kids so I can remember when they had good hair days, rather than one showing the bad hair days ahead.

I also found out that you can be so mad that you can't even think of a proper punishment for the offense. I am still working up a plan. I have informed Marley that she is going to be punished, I just haven't come up with anything adequate yet. I told her she could never use scissors again, to which she replied with deep concern for any 1st grade school projects she might have to do in the future. I also told her that if she cut her hair again I was going to shave it all off. She attempted to say that is what she wanted was a short haircut, but that line of defense didn't last long. On a positive note, she did empty the entire dishwasher yesterday by herself, which she has never done, and helped me clean up the kitchen. Here I thought she had turned a corner on her chore issues, but no. She informed me that her doing these chores could be her "punishment". Needless to say, the official punishment is still to be determined!

"Clippity-do-da"

Shout out to Grandpa Rxe!

Marley's last day of school is tomorrow, so she brought home all the journals she has been keeping this year. Last night I was thumbing through them and came across this entry from April, a week or so after we returned from our visit to Utah. I thought it was cute, especially because she put "Rxe's" for his name. Although the picture is a little vauge, I think it is her listening to music. They both have ipods and love music.

WE LOVE YOU GRANDPA RXE!