I don’t know ’bout you folks, but I’m a-runnin’ out of winter ideas.  I can come up with major craft activities (check out Do They Have Salsa In China’s rainy day list here…my ideas are quoted twice…you’ll recognize them by the sheer mess factor; I blog comment under the name “Indiana Lori”), but what I need are the “30 minutes before bath time when everyone is bunchy” ideas.  Or the, “late afternoon, nothing to do for an hour before dinner” ideas.  Wait?  How about the, “Saturday late morning, can’t watch any more cartoons, need something fun and not ridiculously messy” ideas?  I could use some of those too.

Tonight I pulled out the pencil bag and asked the girls to do my portrait.  At first they were very, “Let us watch a Pooh Movie instead”, but after I put on some of their favorite recorder music (look up classical recorder music on iTunes, you won’t be disappointed), they were ready for a good 15 minutes of fun.  And at our house, 15 minutes is a LONG time for anything. Click to see their art: 

I’m not going to lie to you and say Sara put her whole heart into it.  Or at least, I hope she didn’t.  I don’t have blond hair, or, um, blue whiskers.  At least I don’t think I have blue whiskers.  If I do, then you had better be a friend and tell me. Mostly, this portrait reflects the cats playing with new toys in front of her while she drew, and her frustration that I wouldn’t let her have root beer.  She’s tasted root beer twice in her entire life, and suddenly tonight, she just HAD TO HAVE ROOT BEER.  Sugar withdrawal has had some ugly moments at our house in the past week.  We are STILL off the sugar.  Everyone is STILL sleeping better, so again, sugar?  Maybe when they get to college.

I thought Kelly’s was quite accurate, if you are into abstracts.  She seems to really have a grasp on my essence.  Her finger is on the pulse of my spirit, if you will.  At the very least, you must applaud her use of every color of pencil.  Inside this chaos is real talent.  I’m her Mother.  I would know.

In the end…I like this idea.  I’m going to start setting out interesting objects and asking them to draw or paint them.  After all, “You Gotta Start Somewhere”.