The Month of June Comes to a Close!

(Jane Maus Photography)

30 days of Creativity has now come to a close. Whew! But we had a lot of other neat things go on in June that I wasn't able to talk about. I'd say it's time for a quick montage, as June was such an incredible month!

We started it off with our second birthday party ever! Baby N, one of our baby besties, turned one. At her party, there was a cool balloon animal expert who made W a purple sword. Pretty fun.



We brunched at Patrizio's with the family. W loves family events because he has a captive audience everywhere he goes.

Let me try that baby Bellini, Gabby. It's for babies, right?



We got better at the getting on/off the slide, fake crying, and we finally started really, really walking. It looks a lot like Frankenstein's attempts, but...he gets places and now prefers to walk over crawling.

fakey!!
(Jane Maus Photography)

Of course, we went swimming quite a bit. Dub's new favorite game is called Baby Dolphin...where Gramps takes him all over the pool, splashing him in and out of the water.
We've been having a great time at Gabb'y and Gramps' place!


We read books with Dad and even got to watch a little tv (scandalous!).


related? the ears match...

We had wild dancing at The House of Blues for Abby's B-day.

We had Mavs watching parties with Nick and Jen! That was a bunch of fun that involved cooking, friends, and champagne! Cheers! We won!


And finally, we had our besties come and stay with us while their kitchen was being remodeled. That has been a real blast.

Phillip & Keisha & the baseball

July holds some fun events as well, so we are looking forward to what comes next - especially a visit from our Colorado bffs, the July 4th weekend, a new media room, and much, much more!

June 2011

Day 30 of 30: Van Gogh

Today in our class at the Museum of Nature and Science, we studied Van Gogh's works and then did our own recreations!
After viewing Starry Night, we played in a pile of shaving cream, then added some blue and yellow coloring to our shaving cream, pressed our paper down into the shaving cream, pulled it up, and scraped off the excess cream. The result was our Starry Night canvas. We then added our cypress tree, our house, and...done!



Our next art to replicate: Wheatfield with Crows.
We started by painting half of our paper yellow. The paint had bits of straw in it to help make our wheatfield. W didn't care for the straw, however, and kept picking it out and throwing it on the floor and into my shoe.


For the top half of our painting, we put blue paint on blue paper and then glued that to our yellow paper.
The final touch involved sticking down some black crow cutouts.



Today was a very fun day in class and both Dub and I enjoyed creating!

Day 30 of 30 (THE FINAL DAY!!!): replicating Van Gogh's magnificent works!

Day 29: A Froggy Mask

When we were in line at JoAnn Fabric the other day, and Dub started losing his mind (much like his father). To distract him, I grabbed this mask and it made him giggle so much that I absolutely had to buy it. And today, I had to spruce it up.


We started with a marker...my hands are now green! I'm still terrible with markers!

Then I got out my glitter pens and embellished!


Day 29: A fun playtime mask!

Day 28: Butterfly Snack Clips

This craft looked fun to me and glitter pens were required, so: check! It would be super cute if the class was studying butterflies or if you were bringing the snack to the group. They're really easy and quick - plus if you have older kids, they could help color the clothes pins...which is what took the longest!

First things first, paint/marker up/glitter glue your clothes pins so that they look like fancy butterfly bodies.

Then add googly eyes. It was surprisingly hard to work with such eyes. At one point, I do believe my fingers wanted to stick together. That's when the toothpick came in handy.


After the eyes, I did a little glitter glue accenting.
I finished it all off with some pipe cleaner antennae super glued to the top of the clothes pin.


These babies may be landing on a doorstep near you. Keep an eye out!


Day 28: Butterfly Snack Clips

Day 27: Maggiano's Apple Crostada

With Phillip and Keisha over as our guests of honor, Keisha and I decided that we wanted something special for dessert tonight. Our favorite "out to eat" dessert is Maggiano's Apple Crostada, so we found a recipe and went to work.

We made our dough from scratch, using the food processor to pulse the cold butter.
Then we put it in the fridge for an hour to chill.


The apples were next: we peeled them, Keisha cut them, then we cooked up a syrupy sauce.



We folded the dough around the apples and then tried to form a lattice over the top. We then brushed the top with heavy cream and sugar. I will go ahead and say that it didn't look pretty, but it was tasty!





Day 27: Apple Crostada

Day 26: Banana Bread - Grandma's Recipe

A few weeks back we visited Zen Bakery where they serve two pieces of banana bread with Nutella inbetween. Well, really, who could resist that combo?

Tonight I dusted off my trust recipe book and prepared banana bread using Grandma Griffiths' recipe.
The handwritten, multi-generational recipe!

Everyone knows that brown bananas make the best bread - these were fresh from the freezer.

Artistic Whippers!

Now, one of my ovens is broken and awaiting repair. The other cooks unevenly - hence one loaf looking overdone and the other looking underdone. Really, they turned out perfectly. I didn't make a Nutella sandwich, but I do look forward to serving Dub some banana bread French toast in the morning!

Day 26: Homemade Banana Bread

Day 25: Kitchen Collage

Since we spend most of our time in the kitchen, we decided to make a kitchen collage after dinner. Aunt Katie came over and helped us create. Dub and Jason added contributions. We used all of the materials that helped create the dinner experience...including the cork from our wine bottle...don't judge. :)

Day 25: a collage from our dinner experience

Day 24: A Healthy Snack

W has bananas almost every day. He loves them - banana was even his first word, but I get bored serving the same old same old.
Today, we put a twist on a classic.

We covered our banana in peanut butter, then...



we rolled that in Rice Krispies.



I think he enjoyed it. :) He was hungry after swimming all afternoon at Gabby's place!

Day 23: A Matisse

This morning, we copied another master of the paint, Matisse. We were mimicking The Snail.

We started by finger painting with orange paint. For a fun twist, I let W get his feet in the paint, and stomp around on the table. Successful!
After our paper was sufficiently orange, our leader, Margie, told us that when Matisse was very ill, he would tell his assistants where he wanted the pieces placed and would create art that way. Since W can't quite speak, we copied this pattern to create our own snail...



In the end, this is what W picked for his layout:

Day 23: Art from Matisse