08 October, 2008

party like a rockstar


This past weekend, Berkley was invited to a rockin' birthday party. Her friend, Lily, invited her friends to "party like rockstars" with her... literally. It was a karaoke party... preschool style, and it was absolutely hilarious to watch these divas in action. Berkley was a little timid at first and unsure of the whole thing. She spent a lot of time just watching everything and everyone.
Before too long, she warmed up a little and decided to play some instruments with the band.

She soon grabbed a microphone and worked on a duet with her friend, Lexie. And before too long, she was partying like a rockstar and giving it everything that she had!After all, she had to keep up with the birthday diva, Lily. Look at those moves. She is a born entertainer!Here is the entire crew of rockstars. (And yes, Elvis AND Hannah Montana were both there!)
A big thanks to Lily for a super rockin' party! Berkley had a great time.

03 October, 2008

paintin' lil' punkins

Berkley has been noticing the pumpkins on all of the front porches around our neighborhood for several days now. She has been telling me that we needed to get our pumpkins for our front porch. I agreed. So this morning, since all of my beloved b's were at home with me, we headed to the store to pick out the perfect pumpkins for our porch. Berkley, Beckham & Brenner each got a small pumpkin to paint, and we also picked out one big "family" pumpkin. Berkley and Beckham both took their pumpkin picking very seriously. They each had to find the perfect one.

When we got home, Brenner was ready to take a nap. Berkley decided this would be the best time to paint pumpkins since Brenner wouldn't be crawling around trying to get into everything. (She does think through everything. I must give her credit for that!) So, we pulled out our art supply tub to pick the perfect paint colors and brushes to use on our pumpkins. Berkley & Beckham also put on their art smocks so they would be ready to be totally creative!

First things first. We had to get our pumpkins washed and ready to be decorated! Here is Berkley proudly showing off her shiny pumpkin.
Beckham really enjoyed washing his pumpkin. He made sure it was super clean.Once the pumpkins were washed and dried, we were ready to begin. Berkley & Beckham both got busy creating right away.Berkley put a lot of thought into her pumpkin design, as she usually does with all of her art projects! She usually likes to have a plan for her creativity! (I believe she gets this from her Marmie.)Beckham, on the other hand, likes to just jump right into his projects usually. He doesn't really take time to plan or imagine, he just begins his creation and goes with it. Both techniques seem to work quite well for my little artists. I love how Beckham's paints are already beginning to be mixed together. He might be more of an abstract artist!Berkley continued to paint with great concentration, taking a break every once in a while only to check on me and my little pumpkin I was painting. (We decided since Brenner was sleeping, that I would paint his little pumpkin.)
Beckham worked on his pumpkin for a long time as well. I was really surprised. Lots of times he doesn't last too long on art projects, but he was really enjoying this. He kept telling me, "I'm not done yet."
When Berkley finished her masterpiece, she decided we all needed to put our hand prints on our family pumpkin. She didn't want to be finished painting yet! She wanted to put both of her hand prints on the pumpkin, one rainbow and one plain purple.
Here she is making her mark on the pumpkin and pretty proud to be the first print too!
Beckham and I also added our hand prints to the family pumpkin. When Brenner woke up, we let him add his print as well. (He didn't have the same excitement about it though!) Berkley has also reminded me that daddy will have to add his hand print tonight when he gets home. She made sure we left a spot for him.

After lunch, when our pumpkins had dried, we took them out to the front porch. Here is our happy pumpkin family. Brenner kind of got in the way of Beckham's pumpkin.My lil' punkins really did have fun painting their perfectly picked pumpkins today. I had fun too. It is always good for the soul to create something, and I love that through the eyes of my beloved b's, the creation is always perfect!

After painting with the kids this morning, I was reminded of the art adventure that the boys and I had last week one day when Berkley was at preschool. We needed to get our thank-you notes out for the boy's birthday party, and I was trying to think of a way to include them. I decided since they can't sign their name yet, at least they could make their mark or their "print." So, I bravely got the paints out and decided to have Beckham hand print all of the thank-yous while Brenner left a footprint on each one. A project that I thought was going to be really tough and totally insane ended up being lots of fun for us all. Beckham really felt big helping with his thank-yous and Brenner tolerated the paint on his foot much better than I thought he would. In fact, he laughed quite a bit when Beckham & I painted his foot for each print. I realized in doing this activity that even though things are sometimes messy, that should never be an excuse to not do them.
And after all, messes can always be cleaned up. And sometimes, that part is just as much fun!