Today, Raine and Ezmah joined me. It was good for all of us to get some quiet, still air, after our busy weekend.
Archive for the 'Raine' Category
It’s Friday the 13th and we told ghost stories on our evening walk. I truly have an incredible little family.
It’s December and it’s nearly sixty degrees. So my children will play outside. all. day.
I’ve equipped them with a basket that contains the following:
1 old quilt1 drying rack
3 dowel rods
4 clementines
1 sling shot 1 rain stick 1 pair of sunglasses
3 planks of wood
1 plastic microphone
1 ball
We’ve had a pleasant holiday season in 2011. With friends, family, and belgian waffles, it couldn’t go wrong. We’ve vowed to not give our girls an abundance of toys and plastic, and this always results in a fun and cherishing Christmas morning! I hope your day was cheery and bright.
pin the beard on the president. designed by raine.
cake made by mimi {& raine}. table cloth made from 25cent bandanas found at a thrift store.
raine wanted to have pies thrown in her face.
the donkeys, elephants, and independents all showed up to celebrate Raine’s seventh year of life! Raine picked the theme of “president party” {not sure where it came from} for her birthday, it was fun making this happen for her.
i know its well into january now, but i have yet to show you all of our handmade christmas. this was raine’s gift to jonathan, her own version of a prayer book. she wrote three prayers for each day. i helped with the cover design, its a mock up of a page from the book of kells. jonathan says that this was his favorite gift.
here it is! raine’s first published book, including 4 stories written and illustrated by herself.
this turned out fantastic. shes says that she would like to make more. so perhaps this is merely the beginning. im proud of her and inspired by her stamina…she worked diligently to make this book happen.
and of course, a special thank you to the papa that spent endless nights making this book happen!
kiki, ezmah's doll, is on the left {named after the incredible artist kiki smith b/c her hair reminded me of hers}, and libby on the right, was made for raine {jonathan named her}.
front
back
these toys were not only made with tons of love, and no money whatsoever, but with 100% recycled materials as well.
all the fabric, rick-rack, and ribbons were hand-me-down scraps from a gracious soul {probably circa 1980ish}, the dowel rods were simply found, the dolls are stuffed with plastic grocery bags (they remain really soft and you can’t hear the bags), the inside of the wands are supported by 6 circle cardboard pieces cut from the bottom of my canned chicken broth package (this was really nice because the perfect cirlces were already made by the indentions that the cans left).
and to boot, the girls love them, though raine has renamed her doll “sam”….
ezmah likes spaghetti,
raine made shadow puppets,
we had a beautiful thanksgiving at the allen house,
later discovered that turkey really does make you sleepy...
ezmah experienced her first white christmas,
dasien was reminded of her heritage,
now we are simply trying to relax.
raine has recently began writing and illustrating her own books and coloring books. i am planning on marketing these real soon….no lie.
our friend suzanne recently made a limited edition coloring book with crayons and we were fortunate enough to get the artist’s proof. well….raine was lucky enough to get it!
raine averi
ezmah jane
hope you all have a great evening!!
our friends jonathan and valerie griesse harvested a beautiful garden this past summer, included in that was a surplus of watermelon. we were lucky enough to share in the opening of the “best” one last week while raine partook in her own mini-melon.
our big trip to colorado. these photos only scratch the surface of what we did the entire time we were there. for a trip that we almost didnt take…i think we had a great time.
chuck close’s painting titled “keith” featured at the st louis art museum. even though we made it to the museum 30 minutes before closing time, we were still able to see a few amazing pieces…..this being one of them. raine particularly liked this one.
the girls enjoyed seeing the animals and spending time with our friend valerie.
hope you all have a nice weekend!
{this is what happens when you leave a 6 year old alone with a pin cushion!}
…assuming they like peanut butter and croutons.
a few days ago raine had two of her bottom teethed pulled (because the larger ones were coming in)…..so through our discussions of the tooth fairy, she inquired whether or not the tooth fairy left presents for children instead of money. more specifically, she wanted to know if the tooth fairy ever left crystals for kids, and continued to state that she hoped the tooth fairy would surprise her with crystals.
luckily the tooth fairy is a clever little pack rat and was able to scavenge up these “crystals” from a bag of rocks and minerals i had been holding on to from my old college geology class.
checking out where to go next...
a little explosion of silent energy near a beckman piece...
angry at the "black suits" (aka: security gaurds) trying to control him
i had fun, and i think ezmah could have cared less...
recent trip to the nelson-atkins museum
before
during
after
after
shes one tough girl…. im proud of her; she didnt even cry, thats not to say she wasnt a little scared, but she definitely stuck it out!
today is my daughter’s 6th birthday. theres nothing more true than the cliche of time flying, and days like this only justify it happening.
happy birthday raine!
jonathan had the ever-so-brilliant idea to wrap our gifts in newspaper this year!
but wait…we arent just wrapping them in newspaper…but beautiful newspaper.
the new york times newspaper to be exact. have you ever seen their images? usually stunning.
but wait….we arent just wrapping them in beautiful paper. we are wrapping them in beautiful images that give you a hint as to what’s inside of them!
this is so much fun, and not to mention eco-friendly. well, as eco-friendly as newsprint can be. atleast we arent wasting money on rolls of christmas paper when we had an abundance of beautiful newspaper in the art studio just waiting to be used.
merry christmas to you all!
our recent trip to the fayetteville public library with our little family. their children’s section is breath-taking if youve never been. our girls always love it.
raine has two imaginary friends that she has known since she was two:. dee-dee (the nice one) and tada (pronounced Tah-dah, like the word you used to say as a kid when you finished something amazing; shes the misfit of the two imaginary girls).
the other morning, dee-dee temporarily came to life in the form of a shadow. raine drew her on our frosty glass door and we were pleasantly surprised to see the shadow ghost on the wall next to her. so when i got the camera out, she grabbed dee-dee’s imaginary shadow hand, then turned to her and said “smile dee-dee”.