Warm Weather

It seemed like spring was fixing to come early the first half of February

Feb 7th at Chicken Scratch with Harper and Willa Feb 12th at Bel Aire Park with Rhus, Kels and Llyr – we play with these little dudes a lot but I have so few pictures to show for it. The kids were making “potions” with sticks   Feb 18th at Casa Linda Park (and case in point, Rhus, Kels and Llyr were here too – just not pictured)

Freya at 7 Months

I’m fake dating this post for end of February and but really this it is a month overdue. Looking over my pictures (unfortunately all from my phone) I can see that Freya has visibly changed a lot since end of February. I regret not taking some quality pictures of her rolls of fat because I think she already reached her peak chubbiness and may have lost of few of her rolls due to her extensive army crawling workouts. I do at least have this picture from her 6 month appt on Jan 30th: and these shots from Feb 5th: I must have been putting her in jammies and paused to admire her physique because this pic is a min later Feb 11: We had very warm weather the first half of the month and I was very excited to dress Freya in Alice’s pink railroad romper. I feel very sentimental when I get to reuse baby clothes from Norah or Alice. It seems like Freya has mostly worn Norah’s hand-me-downs and it was fun to be able to tell Alice that this outfit was hers. Freya has already out-grown it.  Feb 7: at Chicken Scratch with Harper and Willa Feb 16: Freya had her first taste of ice cream. I naively thought I could eat my cone while holding her but she has a surprisingly strong grip. I had a hard time getting my cone back from her.

Feb 17th: I take Alice and Freya to storytime once a week and we often see Brooke and Oliver there. Brooke is so sweet to Freya – she is holding her in these pictures Notice Sophie giraffe by Freya’s feet in the above pic – Sophie is Freya’s favorite toy Feb 20th: At some point in February Freya really started to move. She started out pretty slow but she was determined and given enough time she could crawl all the way to the playroom from the family room. First, a picture of sweet, sweaty Freya after nursing. Sigh Crawling with pride from the family room!

Jan/Feb 2015 Bryan Art

 

Bird from learning to draw book I got at Christmas

Jemima Puddleduck from Beatrix Potter

Santa Claus Figure from Angelina’s Christmas

Birthday card I painted for my mom’s birthday inspired by Afsaneh Tajvidi

N is for Narwhal study preparing for paintings for the girls. Also inspired by Afsaneh Tajvidi 

And my glasses…inspired by my glasses that were sitting in front of me and facilitated by my birthday colored pencils

Bryan turns 31

We celebrated Bryan’s birthday with a small dinner party with our friends the Prentice’s and the Harrow’s. Baby Florence is in the highchair, Benjamin is in the red shirt, then Norah and Alice, Jonathan in the blue shirt and Cecily is on the far right.

Norah Art - Backlog

Norah has been true to a couple of themes for all her artwork up to this point with some themes certainly more pronounced than others. Rainbows, flowers and princesses are perhaps her favorite subjects. She has also done quite a few different animal pieces but these are in the minority. Her color palette is broad, especially compared to her purple-focused sister, because of her love of the rainbow and Lisa Frank (which is really pretty much the love of gaudy colors, rainbows and unicorns). Here are a few representative pieces of Norah’s typical subjects.

This unique panoramic piece combines nearly all of Norah’s signature thematic elements: rainbows, flowers and princesses. As well as a few embellishments like a castle and a Texas, American and German? Flag.

And again…the same 3 elements

Of course, art from 2014 would certainly not be complete without a nod to Disney's Frozen

Alice’s Art Backlog

Alice’s art has been very focused on the color purple. It is her favorite color and it is an identifying feature of nearly all her work from this period. Occasionally the artist will show emphasis by adding another color but this is rare and these works are among the most precious. She has also had a flower theme. I believe her inspiration has been the trees in the Lorax which was a favorite around the beginning of this period. I plan to do a dedicated post to Alice’s exploration of the Lorax Trees soon to fully explore this.

My interpretation: boat and tree

Alice’s edificios from escuela

Alice is just learning to write her name and doing a great job

In very atypical style there was actually something drawn on both sides of this paper

These flowers have been a common theme of Alice’s work for a couple of months now. I plan to post some more representative pieces later

More work from escuela, note Alice’s name as written by the artist. Unfortunately the scanner can’t do a full 9x12 piece but you get the idea

La ciudad by Alice represents a heavily fortressed ciudad in the jungle. Its simplicity is the most striking feature.