AMDG

Balla-neenas

How sad I will be when there are no toddlers calling the dancing girls "ballaneenas" anymore.  Here is my favorite ballaneena at her recital.  She was Chinese Tea from the Nutcracker. 

Stick people are some of my favorite kind.

Can you tell I am catching up?  I have had these things sitting in my "to do" pile since the end of Advent, and here it is nearly the beginning of Lent.   Taking a small break from regular school here to tend the hearth fires, let my dd convalesce a bit, and feather the nest a bit before the arrival of our newest member of the Castell Clan. 

So, humour me while I add things in non-chronological order, because if neatness, tidyness, and temporal pertinence are prerequisites for blogging, I'm not gonna make the cut. 

This year we followed some of the suggestions from many lovely ladies over at the Real Learning boards for our Advent Family Activities.  I got the idea for the family nativity art project from the lovely Alice over at Cottage Blessings.  Each evening of Advent, a different child added a figure to the scene.  We were all pleased with the outcome. 

Van Gogh has nothing on me....

We've been studying Van Gogh at our house and on Fridays we like to try and study a picture, read a bit about an artist, or school of art and perhaps dabble in some mucky paint ourselves.....this is of course the part the kids are patiently humoring me to get to, of course.  We recently studied Van Gogh's Starry Night.  Here are the Children's swirly representations from their own brushes:

Masterpieces in their own right, wouldn't you say?