Starry Night

Imagine with me you are in an art studio surrounded by Maglingers. Imagine with me that 4 or 5 of them have sold their art for actual money. Then imagine being handed a piece of paper and some pastels and being told to start drawing Vincent Van Gogh's Starry Night. Now you've got the feeling I had last Saturday at the Maglinger Men annual March birthday party. You can imagine my surprise and thrill when I look over to see my own little Maglingerette picking up her own pastel and jumping right in the fun! Musical families may break out into impromptu singing or song writing, sports fanatic families break out into impromptu football or basketball games, but artistic families break out into impromptu art lessons. Really, here's what happened: Bobbi has recently started giving art lessons for children on Friday nights in her home. She does a great job at everything she does and this is no different. (see the background of our family photo at the top of the blog? It's a mural she painted in her dining room) We asked her to show us her classroom upstairs in her house. One thing led to another and before we knew it there were 15 recreations of Starry Night....okay 14: my sorry try at it could hardly be recognized as the masterpiece.

How cute is this?! Her daughter Maggie dresses up each week as the artist they are studying and gives a little lesson on the artist's life. The best part is it was her own idea.

It's fun being a Maglinger.

Zoology

I never do this, I promise! But today I spent the entire day in my PJ's. Not until after dinner did I bother to dress and that was only because we had plans with friends. It was so nice. Hope and I are still trying to recover from our whirl-wind weekend last weekend. It was so fun, though. However, I do praise God for the rain today that beckoned us to stay in and stay in our jammies. Woody didn't get to recover he had to go to work despite the rain, poor guy.
Here are the last of our photos from our itsy bitsy taste of spring weekend we enjoyed. Sunday's outing was the zoo. See Hop-Hop in Hope's hand? Hop came with us to literally every exhibit. We were quite impressed with Evansville's little zoo. It was my first trip, but from what I've heard, they've made a lot of improvements from just a few years ago.

Hope makes a good little tourist. I expected bouncing from one exhibit to the next without really looking at any of them. Not at all! Hope lingered at each one as if it were the only one we'd come to see. Here we're on the path leading to...well I forget where but that's not important. See here she's so confident and proud to be walking instead of riding in her stroller. What she didn't know was that we were about to come upon....

this: right there in the path. He was strutting his stuff as only peacocks can do. I thought she'd chase it or laugh. She was terrified and wouldn't go past it.

Here she is keeping an eye on it. What a picture can't capture is how hard she's pressing against Woody's leg. We had to carry her past it. The lion, the hippos, a large snake, being literally right next to a donkey when it did it's amazingly loud "hee-haw" were all no problem for her. But this peacock was very scary.

Here was one of Hope's favorite exhibits. I'm sure she thought she was right there at the lion's cage. This was before we'd gotten to see the real lions.

Just a quick picture of me with Hope by the ducks. We could have stayed here forever! She really liked watching them.

And of course there was a children's petting section where you could pet goats. Look at their crazy pupils. Personally, I was most afraid of them. Who ever heard of rectangle pupils?! Creepy.

Typical parents of toddlers would have stopped at the zoo and said, "whew! what a good day!" Not us. We push Hope to her limits. When we were done at the zoo, we headed toward the mall. There we rode a carousel. (Hope's first ride of any type that I can remember) She loved it. I told her we were the princesses riding our horses. She just wanted to know where Pappy was 'cause where there's horses, there should be Pappys. She also was so extra proud of the stamp they gave her at the end: it was of a horse. (sorry for the picture quality: we left the camera in the car and had to use our camera phone)

Then we did some shopping. Here we are at Old Navy. Keeping in the animal theme of the day, Hope is visiting with this dog. In between the last picture and this, we enjoyed smoothies and pretzels. See the smile on that face? This is after such a long day that began with getting her up early for the 8:30 service at church, watching some UK basketball while we ate lunch, visiting a zoo and being drug all over a mall. All this with her only nap being in the car during our drive to Evansville. She was smiling like this all day. No fussing at all. Tell me how I got so lucky?! After this, we took her to Olive Garden with us where she was also a jewel. I know there's a lot more life to live for this little girl and who knows what lurks around the bend of the "terrible 2's" but we feel pretty blessed.

***note to all mothers of toddlers who may be hating me right now: I did pay for it on Monday morning with a little cranky pants who was just worn out!

Put a Helmet On!

This past Saturday, we took the whole family (Daisy came too!) to Ben Hawes. We had a blast. When you think of Ben Hawes, if you are like me, there's an element of fear attached. I remember coming to church picnics here as a kid and getting lost on the trails and busting my lip on the rocket slide. Can you believe they still have the rocket slide?! Please forgive me for not getting a picture of the entire slide where you can actually see the rocket, but the wind in Woody's hair tells the story here. I have no idea how the park is allowed to keep this slide. Juxtaposed with the new blue plastic play area, you can really see what I mean. First, it's metal. Second, it's WAY high. Third and most important: The sides are only about an inch high. A kid could very easily fall off the sides. Still, when we were growing up it was all this way. Now, we are all too safe. Where's the real adventure for kids? Woody- always one to buck current parenting trends of say...safety...made a bee line for this slide and took Hope down first thing. For more on this subject of over protective safety in our children's worlds, see Christian comedian Brad Stine's DVD "Put a Helmet On." If you can loosen up enough not to be offended, you'll laugh your head off. On to safer things... After the rocket, these slides were a breeze.

I'm not sure who had more fun Saturday afternoon: Hope or Daisy. Maybe it was Woody.

After and hour and a half of running, we decided to let Hope and Daisy play together (something Mom never allows. She's still pretty hyper and is used to playing with Woody not babies.) But, it went GREAT! Here's Hope waving.

And asking Dad if her tongue is as long as Daisy's?

Hope recently has gotten the concept of kissing boo-boos. She is kissing Daisy's boo boo here. (We had to get Daisy 2 shots and they shaved the area).

And finally, a group kiss. Mom wants no part of this. I love dogs, really I do, but not this much.

Spring Fever! and other matters

We are LOVING this sunshine and the rising temperature! Yesterday we played outside just for a little while, today we're heading to a park, tomorrow a bigger park and bringing our dog then Sunday to the zoo! Bring it on! Other matters: Hope was given this basketball by our friend Wesley. He thinks he sees potential basketball stardom for Hope as her genetics would suggest she will grow very tall (despite her current standings in the 46th percentile for height and mere 12th percentile for weight) and also her very obvious interest in basketball. She is a magnet to the basketball gym at the church CLC and "dribbles" every time she sees a basketball or game or really anything relating to the sport. I...well I really don't like basketball. UK basketball, yes but the rest...well you can keep it. So here lies my first true test as a mother: will I let Hope play with this ball or will I try to steer her towards past times I enjoy? So far, I'm letting her play.

And well, she does have talent! (wink wink) See that follow through action in her wrists?! Please Hope! For the love of all that is good in this world DO NOT PLAY FOR LOUISVILLE! If she does, Wesley Dunn: I'll blame you!

My Sun Beam

Please prepare yourself. This is so cute. Maybe if she wasn't wearing those overalls...maybe if she wasn't dancing to the lyrics..."A sun beam, a sun beam. Jesus wants me for a sun beam." But, without further ado, here's Hope:

This One's For the Girls!

Last week was lemon bars, but this week is chocolate cake! Hope has a favorite book: "Spot Bakes a Cake" and mom has a favorite website: thepioneerwoman.com. Together, these make the perfect recipe for a day in the kitchen making the Pioneer Woman's Chocolate Sheet Cake. I measured everything out while she was napping and turns out, that makes the cooking with a toddler process go much more smoothly! First, we read our Spot book to really get in the mood for cooking:

Then we started stirring and pouring: Yes I really let her pour in the buttermilk and yes it really went in the bowl.

Now, Hope, allow Mom to introduce you to chocolate. mmmm!

Folks, this next picture is not staged or prompted. She went to the fridge asked me to open it and then got out the chocolate syrup. As if to say "now let's really get this party started!" I've never been so proud! But I do have questions as to exactly who taught her what that wonderful brown bottle in the fridge was all about! Grammy? Big Pappy? Dad? Anybody want to own up to this?!

Yes, I did let her lick the icing spoon (no eggs in icing!)

Then, just because she's so darn cute, we finished off with chocolate's best friend: Whipped cream....squirted right in the mouth. Am I a fun mom or what?!

Finished product: There's Hope's corner in the bottom without the pecans. But just between us, the pecans really make it better.

And, in case you think all we do around here is cook, here's a few more pictures. We also play with our hair...

and play dress up....and go to the store, have play dates at the museum, play basketball at the CLC, work puzzles, do laundry, read books, dress up Elmo (more on that later), and color pictures. And that was just this week! Also...for the winter fun update: We've almost made it folks! Just 11 more days until daylight savings time!