An artist is born

I started doing craft and art projects with my girls quite early in their lives. They were both painting before they turned one, but for some reason I have been holding off with Baby L. Not really on purpose, he just didn't show as much interest as they did at the time. And to be honest, I just hadn't been able to find make the time to take on such an endeavor. I thought about all of this last week as I set up the girls painting session and decided that he should experience what he was missing out on. I knew it was going to be a big messy ordeal, but I didn't care, he needed it.



I set him up with some paper that was given to us and a cup of Glob paint. I mixed the Glob pigment with just a bit of water to make it more of a thick finger paint for him.



About five minutes into our painting session I realized my paper choice was not the wisest one, as the paper literally fell apart in his hands. I admit I was being stingy with our artist paper since it's a bit pricey but then seeing how this paper worked out I wished I just started out with the good stuff. The saying 'quality over quantity' really applies to everything, doesn't it?



Confused by his paper situation, Baby L then noticed his sisters painting with paintbrushes. He felt that he should have one, too. Why not?









Much happiness was had over this! I went ahead and switched out his paper, too.
The mess grew and grew but so did his smile! Times like this make me grateful for child friendly (and safe!) products like Glob so I needn't worry about what is on his skin.



It might be safe and all but I wouldn't take it that far Baby L!



An artist is born! There will be many more of these sessions in the future along side his sisters.

I put him in the tub afterwards and spent about a half hour scrubbing his highchair. While I normally get a bit irritated about 'extra work', this was worth every last second of it. This was just all about him and isn't the mess making at least half of the fun?!



And now for something completely different - My girls and I noticed thimbleberries (Rubus parviflorus) growing in our front yard. These are native plants unlike the Himalayan blackberries we enjoy picking. The girls like to refer to them as 'toilet paper plants' instead. Charming, isn't it? They learned from a hike awhile back that the leaves on a thimbleberry bush are referred to as 'nature's toilet paper'. Of course, that tidbit of information is what they hung on to. The berries are quite tasty, but few and far between, so you usually only get to sample one or two at a time. Our bush only had three, just enough for each of my children.



I asked C is I could snap a picture of the berry before she ate it. She squeezed her hand shut and gave me this. Apparently she thought I was asking for a smooshed berry.



This spider was hanging out over the thimbleberry plant. According to C it was watching us as we picked the berries. I snapped a picture of her spider friend in the hope of helping her with her fear of bugs. Maybe she can see the beauty in it this way...

Please enter for your chance to win Phoebe's Birthday and make your own mermouse like K and I did here. Thank you for all of your encouragement with our project together. It means the world to us both!! I am a bit behind tonight but I will be back during the week to catch up on questions for the previous posts.

An artist is born