Catching up on November (round one)

Hi Friends!  Sorry it's been a long 20 days since I last posted.  This month is speeding by (as well as this year!), and I'm scrambling to fit everything in.  As usual, life is full of moments with these two girls of ours and the daily joys and challenges.  At the moment, they are both sleeping peacefully and I'm LOVING the quiet... and free time. :)  Here are a few shots from the past few weeks...

Erik found Eliza Wren exploring in early November...

What are your bets - walking by Christmas or the New Year?  Mama isn't a fan...

 Meredith is loving any kind of "projects" of her own (yes, she's heard that word around here pretty often...).  And, she's been into rainbows lately - she drew a circular rainbow, and add some extra pink, of course!

 Then, she asked me how to write each letter of her name.  

I'm pretty excited about her letters - they are readable!

Romping with one of her best buds at the garden :)

 Chillin' at the garden while everyone else cleans up and preps for the long winter.

Arts and Crafts

Meredith's drawings of people are changing and progressing the more she does it.  I just love watching her draw all these little people and hearing her talk about who is who.  :)  Usually there's a Mama, Daddy and a baby...sometimes someone is "sad" and she will tell me which person is going to make the sad one feel better.  Love this little growing imagination!

You'll notice she's added arms, legs, hands and feet - as well as hair! 

Look at the change from just a few weeks ago. 

And, this week we dyed Easter eggs. :)  Meredith was a bit hesitant at first, and asked several times just to eat the eggs (she loves hard boiled eggs!)...but, once we got out the dye she got into it.

Drawing

Meredith surprised us recently by drawing faces!  

She can whip one up in seconds, and is very enthusiastic about her work. :)

Belated Pumpkins

We had a belated pumpkin carving event in our home last night.  Yes - it is November now and Halloween is over....but, pumpkin carving never happened in October and we thought Meredith would love it.  So, we went ahead.

The texture was a bit surprising at first...

..and finally she decided she'd had enough of the digging out part.

So...we moved on to painting.  Definitely a big hit!  She started this way for about 30 seconds...and...

...quickly moved into a favorite of her's - finger painting frolic!!  Erik and I were having a laugh here (as you can see from E's face) because Erik has a really hard time with how messy MJ gets while painting.  He has to bite his tongue so he doesn't say things like, "How about you use the paintbrush...oh, oh not that way!"  I encourage him to let her just be and explore - she loves it!  :)

And, does she ever!  She changed her orange pumpkin into a greenish-brownish creation.

And, on to carving to create these!

Autumn Art Projects

This week I found the box marked, "Meredith's art supplies" - woohoo!  So, we had some fun exploring creatively together. :)

We painted with watercolors.  I had seen a cool blog post about painting clothespins...so we tried it out.  And, Mer painted on paper too...as well as explore and experiment with the water/paint combo.

Wednesday morning we took a walk in between rain drops and picked up some beautiful autumn leaves.  Later that afternoon we sat down together and make autumn leaf suncatchers. :)  So fun!  This was such a great project for Meredith's level and she really got into it.

 She was so proud to show Daddy when he came home!

Around here...

We've had lots of home time these days with Mama still struggling with constant nausea.  Meredith on the other hand, is living it up in her toddler world...as you can see below!

green boots go with any and all outfits (or lack thereof) in Meredith's mind  ;)

I finally felt up to getting out the paints again for this little creative girl.  She loves to paint!

And...this week I taught Meredith to use her very own pair of scissors.  She loved this activity and diligently practiced until she had mastered the skill before nap time.

Art Projects

This week we experimented with painting and printing with bubble wrap. So much fun!

Art exploration is one of Meredith's favorite activities. :)

It's been fun to teach Meredith some basic drawing skills - long lines, circles, dots and short lines have been the recent focus. :)

Playdough

One of my goals for this new year is to do an art activity with Meredith each week. Meredith always has her drawing supplies at her level and doodles by herself most days. But, I've been wanting to do more constructive and explorative art projects with her.

She received playdough for Christmas and was our first week's activity!

She loves it, and I'm thrilled...because she can often be a girlie-girl about getting her hands messy. :)

She loves sticking toothpicks into a playdough ball and then pretending to blow the candles out.

yeah...it's time to wash our hands now. ;)