Baby update.

Well... Milana is already 5 month old and thriving! She is 18lb, rolls from back to tummy (only in one direction, though, for now, but it is enough for her to move across the room. Time to clean up those small objects!), almost sits on her own, has started eating baby cereal with fruit for breakfast, almost holds the water bottle, enjoys tremendously herself on the swings. Grabbing is her favorite, and the big sisters have learnt the hard way not to let Milana pull them by their hair.

She also has been "working" very hard as a lifeguard, watching her bigger sisters splash in the lake and getting a sun tan! I would bring a chair and put in in the water, having her on my lap, to be close to Ivana and Leona, while they are in the water swimming.

Tata is the love of her life, as she starts wiggling and blabbing, smiling with her whole toothless sweet mouth the moment she spots him.

"When the baby laughed for the first time, the laugh broke into a thousand pieces and they all went skipping about, and that was the beginning of fairies." -James Barrie

"Drawing with Children'', by Mona Brookes.

I've come across a wonderful book! I think it's a must read for ALL parents! I've been reading it for a couple of days, taking my time to digest what I'd read, re-reading some chapters again... It's a book about teaching kids to draw. Exactly, TEACHING...

"Drawing with Children", A creative teaching and learning method that works for adults, too, by Mona Brookes.

Ivana has been enjoying herself drawing since she was 1 years old. I remember spending countless hours with her by the table, drawing FOR her, then letting her color the pictures. Her hand has become very steady, her pictures pretty intricate and her desire to draw has been growing rapidly. She loves to draw animals, a lot. We have a few books that provide instructions on how to draw a lot of things, and we've been using them quite often.

And then I started noticing that she wants more. I found an art studio and went to investigate the program and the costs involved. It turned out that it would coast us $100 a month to let her take the classes, and for a single income family it is a lot. So I started thinking about what can I do about it, and finding and reading the book by Mona Brookes was a true blessing for me. The book has opened the doors for me to teaching my kids how to draw...

I have a pretty good eye for things, I have a creative and artistic approach, and has always been interested in drawing, painting, self expressing through art. Intuitively I knew a lot of things that are described in the book. But to read it and clearly see and understand the possibility to be able to draw just about everything was an amazing discovery for me! And we are on a roll with both my girls, ages almost 6 and 3.

I've started giving them drawing lessons! We are having so much fun together, and they are looking forward to learning more every week and spending that special time with Mom (since we have the baby, it's been quite a challenge lately, to spend some quality time with my older daughters!)

First, we talked about and found the 5 basic shapes that everything around us consists of (dot, circle, straight line, curved line, and an angle). We do a "warm up" exercise to practice the eye and the hand, and then we draw a picture, together.
What the book teaches you is how to verbalize and use the simple, but understandable instructions to teach the kids follow you in their own drawing. The transformation form being able to draw "stick" people for Leona, who is 3 yo, to be able to draw a still life with overlapping objects is amazing! And Ivana started exploring more on her own, and be more creative in color choosing and finishing the picture with the fine details.

There are a lot of ideas in the book on how to encourage the children to see the possibility of self expression and overcoming the fear of something "being difficult or impossible to draw". At the end, everything around us is made of the same shapes. But it might take a bit longer to complete a "Panda" drawing than a simple flower. Satisfaction and joy in kids' eyes after completion of the project are indescribable!

What we've been doing.

It's been pretty busy and I couldn't find time to blog. So, I'll just write a few lines about my recent "projects". I was helping Mirek to build a deck. It was a pretty big deck to build (12x24) and he didn't have a helper. So, I volunteered and after my dear hubby showed me how to hold and operate the nail gun the work went much faster and more productive. He was cutting the wood and I was nailing the planks down. He said he was very impressed with my abilities!

Then, I helped Mirek with staining the table. Also, we started painting the front of the house to finally be able to take a picture of it and put it up for sale (the fixer upper we bought 2 years ago).

My stained glass door took me almost 3 weeks to complete and it's done as well. First, I have one design in my head, and then I had to simplify it to safe on materials and time, the most important asset. I'll post the pictures later.

We've been also having a lot of visits, spent almost every day (weather permitting) on the beach, keep on collecting bugs for our "Summer Bug Collection". We don't catch them, really, but when we go for a walk in the neighborhood we take the dead ones we find. This year there are a lot of Gypsy Moth caterpillars. We've been observing them grow from a tiny ones to a gigantic size. And yesterday we found two chrysalises and took them home to see them hatch.
And for the bug collection, we are trying to identify each of our "treasured finds", learn a fact or two about them, find a Latin name and have it displayed on the wall in the wooden box.

And I've learnt a new trick on how to have the bugs spread out their wings if you want to have a nice exhibit. But it has to be alive... What you do is you put it into a plastic bag and into the freezer for half an hour or so. When the bug freezes it spreads the wings...