Just thought I'd share our little Sunday afternoon creativity this week. It continues to amaze me how their personalities shine through so vividly when we sit down to create something.
Elijah can't wait to start painting. He requests specific colors, paper, and paintbrushes, but once he gets all of the materials in front of him, he freezes. "Mommy, what should I make?" "Whatever you want buddy. It's your chance to just create something you like."
He decides on a thin red line of paint, looks at it with disappointment, and asks, "Mommy, can I have your paintbrush instead?" Apparently after looking at my painting he thinks that he can be more effective if he uses my brush.
"Sure, we can trade, " I say. He tries again. This time he makes some dots then sits back, again discouraged by the fact that his picture just won't mirror the complexities of his vivid imagination.
After painting contentedly for 5 more minutes or so, he makes up a story about his series of dots and lines and proudly announces that it is finished. I of course enthusiastically affirm his efforts and proudly hang his art on the fridge.
Isaiah comes in next. He prefers to sit on my lap while he paints and chooses a brush and color indiscriminately. Being 2, I think he really just prefers the textures and motions of painting. He loves to squish his chubby fingers into the splotches of paint on his paper, swirling them around. He too ends up with a series of swirls and lines and stays engaged about as long as Elijah did.
Micah joins the painting party last, but when it comes to art, the boy has stamina. Elijah and Isaiah had gone outside to play, so Micah sat alone at the table. I was unable to participate as fully WITH Micah as I did with Elijah and Isaiah since I was starting to make dinner, but he almost seemed to prefer it that way. I'd stop by the table between potato peeling and mixing to affirm his efforts and he barely acknowledged me prefering instead to focus on filling every square millimeter of the top of his page. He painted contentedly for as long as the other two boys combined.
Here is a picture of all three pieces of artwork on our fridge. See if you can guess who made what?
Pictures from the Icthus campground. The boys love to play there, and I think Eric has taken them almost every morning since I've been in classes. He really just asked me to post something to cover up his belly picture. He was tired of seeing it every time he opened the blog page. 
You'll notice Isaiah telling on Micah. He jumped out of the car before he could be implicated.
Eric sent me this picture while I was in class today. You don't think he might be grooming his son for a particular sport maybe?
Here is our most recent pic of the cousins. This was Memorial Day weekend at Nana and Papa's house. We, of course, had a wonderful time visiting and the kids enjoy each other so much. We all noticed that we didn't have to break up any major fights the whole time we were there except for the occasional scuffle between siblings which happens even when we're not all together.
