Tuesday, July 5, 2011

July 5 - Little Arteeest

After seeing how much Griffin enjoyed painting at the children's museum the other day, I just had to get him some finger paints to play with at home.  I had no idea how to go about preparing the kitchen for the mess of an 18 month old with finger paints, but I pretty much settled on spending my time cleaning up rather than attempting futile preventative measures :)  He absolutely loved the painting experience, although he definitely preferred using his "brush" instead of his hands.  Makes no sense to me, considering how much he loves smudging his food around with his hands.  When I squeezed the paint out, he kept saying "Oooooooooo!"  And when I asked him if he wanted some more color, he would say, "Color!"  Okay, it sounded a lot more like "coh-woh," but it was still adorable.  I can't wait to do this again with him!

Monday, July 4, 2011

July 4 - Family, Friends and Fireworks


For the 4th, we went to the zoo with Oliver's parents and had a great meal together, and we spent the afternoon/evening with friends over at John and Anna's house, eating and having fun with some little fireworks for the kiddos! 

Saturday, July 2, 2011

July 2 - Produce

This is from our museum trip yesterday.  They have this amazing miniature Piggly Wiggly, complete with mini carts, mini cash registers, mini aprons, and mini food aisles.  It's fantastic.  This picture captures how Griffin was seriously looking over the produce.  I'm not sure if this is because he found the fake fruit/veggies fascinating or because that's what he sees me do at the grocery store.

Friday, July 1, 2011

July 1 - First Masterpiece

This morning at the children's museum, Griffin painted for the first time!  I'm so glad he was placed at the station where several messy toddler had been because the paints and brushes were already mixed up.  I can't say Griffin had any regard for the correct paintbrushes remaining in their correct bucket either, and it worked out perfectly.  I would have felt pretty bad if my child messed up all the paint for the poor museum worker who was charged with the impossible task of assisting all these burgeoning young artists.  So, Griffin painted a very "earthy" portrait of .... a swamp monster?  We're not sure.  At the end, we had him "sign" his first masterpiece with his hand print, and said masterpiece now resides beneath the lemon magnet on our fridge.  I cannot say the experience ended very well, unfortunately.  Griffin loved painting so much that he threw an epic fit at the mere suggestion that it was time to wash our hands.  It was definitely not easy to maintain any type of order or discipline in a room filled with kids wielding wet paintbrushes, but it's even harder when tantrums come up, cameras are in hand, almost every surface of the place is covered in paint, and then hands/arms/aprons, etc. need to be washed.  The word "fiasco" comes to mind.