their wedding is this weekend and i’m over the moon!  (sometimes, i’m pretty sure my excitement about a wedding comes pretty close to matching the bridesmaids!)  thanks for hopping off a plane, and going straight to hair & make-up for this shoot, elizabeth!!  i’m so excited to see the happiness that the next many years bring you and neal!

i love art & creativity – and this evening at my daughter’s school wraps up so many lovely things into one darling package!

creativity leads to great problem solving skills for children and here are just a couple ideas we love to help foster creativity in your little ones!

- preschoolers are copious artists so spread the love to family that lives afar by mailing boxes of their art (after scanning any you adore but likely wouldn’t frame) as a box of happiness…we sent one to audrey’s great grandfather before a surgery and it was a big hit!

- build a dress-up/musical instrument box/trunk or drawer…those funny little headbands around easter with bunny ears can be the perfect thing to add.  and don’t forget a tambourine & egg rattles!  far and away, the best addition has been three huge colorful scarves because they can be turned into anything a child can imagine clothing wise.

- ask for your child’s help…last week, i handed audrey a cookbook (filled with fast/fresh/yummy food) in the car on the way home from school and suggested that she pick what we should have for dinner and we’d head to the grocery for any ingredients we didn’t have.  dinner was prepped with glee as we pretended she was the chef on a cooking show wearing her apron & chef’s hat.

- have an art center that makes art easy…the part of me that wants to tread lightly on the earth winces just a little at all the paper we go through and often asks audrey to draw a bit more on a piece of paper but a friend recently gave us a newspaper roll and audrey has been in heaven!!  she promptly unrolled it down the hall and got right to work making a life size portrait.  we keep audrey’s crayons, colored pencils, brushes, watercolor paints in a metal utensil container inside a living room cabinet so she just needs to pull it out to begin a project and can easily pop it back in place afterwards.

- read…i’m so thankful for an example of a mother who read any chance she could.  and something else we’ve been enjoying are audiobooks…particularly for those chapter books like the magic treehouse that seem to proliferate without end.  we find them at the library and it’s the perfect thing to listen to as you’re creating :)

summer is right around the corner – hope there’s a little extra time for art!

This weekend I will be thinking about the wonderful woman who taught me everything I needed to know about the most important job I’ve ever had.  Thank you, mom, for showing me how to love a child.

-jennifer

My mom. It’s a good thing we have a calendar day that makes us really think about what our moms are in our lives. Praise and accolades for the sacrifice of a mother fall to the wayside more than intended. Many of the things my mother has done throughout her life are so tightly woven into her role as a mother, that they might often be overlooked or even come to be expected.  Wonderful family meals, piles of dishes, fresh laundry, a tidy home…my mom has been this silent star. She has worked tirelessly at loving her family and all that entails.

When asked to describe my mother the 2 things that come to mind immediately are what a hard worker she is that she loves her family like crazy. I may get my personality from my dad, but I’m thankful to have inherited the heart of my dear mother.  – Katiebeth