Saturday Outing: Raven Rock

Our Saturday mornings are filled with gymnastics and ballet now, but we were feeling the need for an adventure a few weeks ago so we headed to Raven Rock State Park for an afternoon hike. It's located less than an hour away and was a great spot for a winter hike. The rock formations were really cool and many had icicles hanging from them. The kids loved climbing all over and exploring. They were distracted enough that they didn't even complain during the 3 1/2 mile hike. There weren't many other people out on the trail which was also nice.

fun with sculpey: marbled clay dishes

I picked up a bunch of Sculpey clay a few months ago to try a few projects and finally got around to using it last week. I made these marbled clay ring dishes (tutorial from A Beautiful Mess) and then tried out some hearts in preparation for Valentine's Day. It was my first time using gold liquid gilding (for painting the rims) and it was really fun to work with. It was fun to experiment with the Sculpey and try different color combinations. It was an easy project to do with the kids too.

after school art.

I set up the girls' easels (an awesome gift from Aunt Stephanie) and some paints after school one day and let them postpone their homework and paint instead. They were thrilled. The boys had to join in too and it was a total mess by the time we were done. Which was okay since this is the room meant for messes. And we didn't even have to clean it up in order to have dinner! We are really loving the art room.  

snack time: a retrospective

And this just amused me.

simon sleeps.

I snapped this picture of Simon sleeping when I went in to check on him one night. Amelia has taught him to surround himself with stuffed animals. I liked the penguins surrounding his head.

art room: mini eames

I found these kid size (knock-off) Eames chairs at Hobby Lobby of all places and there was no way I was going to pass them up. Miniature versions of our art room chairs. Too perfect. I still haven't blogged about our dining room to art room conversion. One of these days I'll take some pictures in there with my real camera and give a full tour. I'm still trying to finish some wall decor though.

Dumping everything out is way more fun than coloring.

simon in a suit.

We can't get enough of this kid and his crazy curls (which are actually kind of tame in these photos). He is at such a fun age right now and makes everyone in this house happy.