Modern Art

What is going on here? Are there two kids in a tree dripping paint onto a board? Is this some crazy painting method that will result in some crazy looking picture?

Yes! And here it is, though I must warn you that it looks much cooler in person. We visited the art museum in Milwaukee, and we were inspired. I am not sure where in the house this art is going to be displayed, but it sure was fun to make!


In other new, Reed is getting very good at standing and balancing.

highlights

Here are some highlights of our little lives lately......

Martin reading Archaeology Magazine. There is so much I love about this picture. Not the least is that I share his obsession with all things natural history. I love when he spouts out little factoids about ancient Egypt or Earth science. He is so my child. I didn't even teach him this, but he knows the Mohs Hardness scale and can recognize an Ammonite! This summer I hope to teach him the constellations.
We
Reed at the Library! He shares a birthday with Thomas Hardy, my first favorite author, and though I did not do this deliberately, he is appropriately named after one of my favorite activities! I credit reading with developing my own social and political ideas. I read my first 'real book' Les Miserables at 13, and though I didn't understand it all, I remember questioning some of my own ill-formed political opinions because of it. I hope to teach my own children about empathy and social justice, how to live their lives and be good people in part by reading them good books, then encouraging them to read great books themselves. (I mean, what can we learn about marriage from Jane Austen?)
YEAH REED!

We recently celebrated our own favorite psuedo-holiday, The Ides of March. We ate Caeser Salad and Caeser-bread. I wasn't able to get the Orange Julius I had oplanned, but it was still fun. I'm not sure the kids understood our synopsis of the story of Caeser's death, perhaps next year we will have to act out a few scenes from the play, complete with togas and tunicas!
This is a recent trip to the library.
Caleb is playing a video game.
Maddie is participating in the ' reading to Dogs' program.

That's about all we have been doing lately.

Caleb-therium

We have a book 'Ancient Mammals' It has some great illustrations of ancient mammals that existed after the dinosaurs and before modern times. The best pictures are those of the ancient mammals killing and eating each other, which is always a popular subject for young boys.
Caleb has recently become interested in this book and we read it every couple of days. It features a Brontotherium, which lived in North America, and Unitatherium, which was twice the size of the modern elephant and lived 45 to 40 million years ago in ancient Egypt. There is also Megatherium, the Ancient ground sloth and a previous inhabitant of North America. This book has influenced Caleb.

One day he was pretending to growl and bite things and said;
"I Caleb-therium"

Perhaps one day he will be a paleontologist. Or he will be ostracized when he starts Kindergarten and none of the other kids want to pretend to be a Glyptodon.