SENIOR PICTURES: TAYLER | NORTHERN UTAH PHOTOGRAPHER

Tayler is a close family friend. She and her Aunt asked if I would take her Senior Pictures. I assured them that they were thinking of the other "twin," my sister, the professional photographer. They assured me that I would do great and that they wanted to hire me. I was thrilled, honored, and nervous!!! Good thing I had my sister to turn to for advice and some editing help. Thanks Jen!

But I think they turned out great. Tayler's a great model and we found some pretty sweet industrial style backdrops.

Texture Painting and Printing

We had the best time together one morning doing this texture painting and printing. I saw an idea for this on the artful parent. I grabbed anything I had around the house with texture. The girls and I taped it all down to the little tables in their playroom.

We taped down a large Ziploc bag, construction paper with thing straws glued on, and Popsicle sticks, bubble wrap, and tin foil that I wrinkled up a bit. It would also be fun to paint on sand paper, corrugated cardboard, etc. if you have it around the house.

We used large paint brushes and tempera paint. But any paint would work just fine!

O-man (15mo) is just starting to get in on all the painting action at our house. He's pretty thrilled about it and loves art like the girls! This was so perfect for his age! He had a lot of fun feeling the textures. He even started painting his belly. He got a kick out of that. It feels pretty cool to paint your body!!

This is the "after" shot of the fun we had painting our textures.

Then we pressed our clean white sheets of paper onto our textures and got really cool prints. M(3.5) and C(2.5) really loved this part too.

Here is our print from the bubble wrap and the thin straws.

What a fun morning!

Roadways to Creativity

I intended this activity to be a learning numbers type of activity, involving shapes. It was so thrown together that it didn't really work.

The girls really liked the shapes that I taped down with some sort of drywall mesh tape that was in the garage. They decided to use the shapes as raceways for their cars.

And they changed up the raceway over and over again. They had lots of fun playing with this and I'm grateful for their creativity. Even when my activities seem to fail, they seem to always use them as jumping points for their own creativity and learning.

March Fun

Wow, this is starting to be a monthly visit to the ol' blog instead of a few times a month. Things have felt a lot busier. Oh well, here is the month of March, fun at home...and a couple other places.

Mia woke up one morning and threw her binkie away. She woke us up to tell us. I had told her a couple days prior that we need to think about throwing away the binkies because they are hurting her teeth and we need to get her teeth all better. I didn't think much of it, but apparently she did. So we had a big family celebration with a Plex cake over at Grandma and Pops house.

We played lots with our sensory tubs and even introduced them to brother.

We colored easter eggs with crayons while they were still hot. Daddy made the kids "Broby" from Yo Gabba Gabba and I attempted "Plex"

The girls made these cute little chicks out of egg cartons. They delivered one, along with a fruit basket, to our elderly neighbors who are ill.

Lots of easter Egg hunts this year. We had so much fun. The girls especially loved finding the eggs. Inside the eggs were plastic dinosaurs, confetti (cut-up tissue paper), colored erasers, colorful wooden blocks, paper clips...anything I had in our craft supply that fit. It was all a huge hit.

Trip to the Temple as a family

Dad made this foldable race track. Since then the girls have drawn houses around the streets. It's super cute

My sister threw this huge super hero party for her 5 year old. It was adorable.

My little cutie being a superhero!

Walking over the bubbling volcano

We went to a children's museum in Portland. It was really fun. My daughter loved these magnetic blocks! She sat and played with them for a really long time. I loved seeing her concentration

And this was genius. Plastic nails and styrofoam (the kind that doesn't break apart). Creative building!

O-man making bread with me. He's starting be my little helper in the kitchen. Oh how they grow up!

We made these cool planters out of 1 liter soda bottles. We got the idea from family fun. The top is downward facing in the water so that the evaporation is constantly watering the soil.

The first seedling
Lots and lots of playing doctor. My sister got the kids real medical equipment for christmas.

drinking hot cocoa at Multnomah Falls in WA