New art lesson this week.

Today we had a lot of fun with the girls doing our weekly art lesson. We moved from Impressionism to Expressionism. After doing some research on line about the movement, we found out that Wikipedia had a nice write up and plenty of art works to view. It was a bit difficult for the girls to understand, but after we read it and then I tried to explain it in my own words, in simple language, they seemed to start enjoying the art work and expressing their opinions about what they were seeing.
We stopped on two artists. They decided to chose a German artist, Franz Marc, and a Russian one, Wasilii Kandinsky. Ivana wanted to draw horses and Leona went with the "clock" and wanted to work with construction paper, cutting shapes of different colors and arranging them in free patterns. At the end, she ended up drawing horses as well.
I had some fun myself and tried to encourage them to use bright, bold colors in their art work.
Outlining everything with a black oil pastel worked out great, as it created sharper images. We've been using oil pastels a lot lately and definitely developing a preference.
Milana was busy cutting and gluing for her own art work, and then was helping us to peel off the paper from the pastels.
We had a great time together! I asked the older girls what they were trying to express with their art creations, and both said that it was about freedom. Ivana named her painting "Horses, running to freedom".

Our little guy.

Our little guy is three months old and we just can't have enough of him!
He has brought so much more joy to our already pretty joyful lives, that life without him seems to be illusive. He filled our hearts with more love, laughter and happiness that they are bigger than big!
Ivana wants to have another 2 brothers so that our family is well balanced. Leona plays and sings to him like the best big sister. She also likes to play with his ears, folding them to make him look like "Cheburashka". Well, when he is big one day and has big floppy ears we'll know whom to blame.
And Milana wants him to play with her dolls so she keeps on putting one or two by him every now and then, and she thinks he really needs to have glasses on, so she is putting the pink ones on his cute little face every day with a determination of a 2 year old.
Mirek loves to talk to his son, and it seems that it is pretty mutual as Evan is screaming from joy when with his Tata.
Life everyday with our kids is a true blessing!

Love of reading.

This is not a set up picture...
And neither is this one....

Pizza party.

We had a Pizza Making Party at our house today. What a fun day it turned out to be! Even though I was a bit tired after organizing the St. Valentine's celebration at the co-op on Wednesday, pizza making went pretty smoothly! We had three families over, but since each family has 3 kids, plus ours, do the math. The house was full of kids, and due to the holiday it seemed like we had an ocean of red, pink and purple.

I bought the frozen dough at the store, shredded cheese and the sauce, prepared three types of topping (black olives, broccoli and zuchini). The kids were taking turns since we don't have much space at the counter. We started with the little ones, and Milana was a star! She just was the master Pizza Maker instantly! And her favorite topping... black olives! Since I had to hold the baby at some point, Leona took care of the pizza for the Moms!

The kids did a wonderful job truing to make their heart shaped pizzas, just for the Valentine's!
We had chocolate dipped strawberries and bananas for dessert, played gamed with the kids and just had a great time!

In preparation for St. Valentine's.

Working hard...
Half way done...
TA-DA!!!

What a day we had. Actually, it is a second day in a row for us that was so busy my head is about to fall off. We even had to skip our dance class on Monday, the to do list was too long.
On Monday we made all the Valentine's for the girls' friends at the co-op and the boxes to collect the Valentine's into.

We had to stop to write the cards to teachers because their little hands were hurting. All that penmanship Leona did, I was so proud of her. She was trying to write using the low case alphabet since that is what she is currently working on in our homeschool. And Ivana was writing in italics, also a practice, since it is a part of her English language program right now. She did awesome! It was actually pretty easy for her , since she knows the writing in script in Russian, and many letters looks very similar.

We finished the notes to teachers today and then started planning the wardrobe. Everybody at the co-op is supposed to wear red, pink and purple. The child with the most items of those colors would win a prize. Since the girls are in two different age groups, they will not not be the rivals, we went crazy! They really thought my idea of making rings for each finger with a red, pink or purple bead on it was very clever! Besides the usual dress, skirt, top, stockings, shoes, we have two pieces for the girls' hair, color coordinated, two bracelets for each hand, color coordinated, a necklace, also color coordinated. And the rings! That will add a lot of points as each finger will count as one!

The morning was pretty busy as I was trying to take the opportunity and do as much as I could since Mirek was home till 1 pm. Dipping strawberries into melted chocolate was a lot of fun! I hope I will have enough for everybody at the co-op.

Milana was an eager helper, and was upset when she wasn't allowed to double dip her strawberry after licking the chocolate off it!

Ironically, just last year I posted about how we DO NOT celebrate St. Valentine's , that we are trying to show our love and appreciation to each other every day. And this year, I am the organizer of the St. Valentine's party at the homeschooling co-op, celebrating the holiday of love at our house with three local homeschooling families (that's 12 kids total), and are being invited on Saturday to go to a friend's house for, yet another, St. Valentine's celebration!
Wow... So much Love is in the air!

Healthy start of the day.

It has been a little over two weeks since we started to do our stretches and exercises in the morning with the girls. It is a wonderful way to get a positive boost of energy for the day and for me to get my thoughts together. I have noticed such an improvement in my ability to handle the day if we do those exercises. And 20 minutes is all I need to make myself happy, teach the girls some basic physical activity and work on my post pregnancy body. It is about time! Spring is around the corner, and I am not buying jeans a size larger! No way, Jose!

And this morning we had a surprise, a healthy bonus from our Tata! While we were sweating in the summer room, Mirek made this awesome berry salad with fresh oats. Well, he actually made it for himself... (selfish, right?). Guess how much of it he had to eat? The girls were racing for the biggest spoon and, of course, wanted more when the salad was literally swept from the bowl a few seconds later!

Ingredients:
Raw oats, kiwis, strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, could be also bananas, mangoes or oranges.
What to do: soak half a cup of uncooked rolled oats in some milk/almond milk. Let stand for 10 minutes, meanwhile working on the fruits/berries. Drizzle with agave nectar or some honey, mix together, add some love... and enjoy!

Note: it is easily digested, so you'll be hungry again in an hour, or sooner. Then you'll be ready for some scrambled eggs and buttered toast!