came upon this quote today

“If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.”

“When I examine myself and my methods of thought, I come to the conclusion that the gift of fantasy has meant more to me than any talent for abstract, positive thinking.”

~Albert Einstein~
Scientist
(1879-1955)

some favorites this week

* This quote:
There are two types of realist. There is the one who offers a good deal of dirt with his potato to show that it is a real potato. And there is the one who is satisfied with the potato brushed clean. I am inclined to be the second kind. To me, the thing that art does for life is to clean it, to strip it to form.Robert Frost

*Fuzzy little boy summer haircuts.

*Listening to Safety Kids

*Jenny’s necklace

*Welcoming my husband home from a trip and being SO thankful that I am not one of those moms whose husband is deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan.

*Looking at these bowls by Diana Fayt.

*Books by Shannon Hale (we particularly love The Goose Girl and Princess Academy )

*Fireflies on Jonah’s nose, in Brenna’s hair

*Rain

cat bird

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It makes me smile to walk down to the back of my yard in the evenings and hear my cat bird friend sing his heart out. One day he even sat on the fence, looked me in the eye, and told me everything he knew. I could hardly bring myself to breathe.

It has been beautiful beyond description outside. It has been dry by Ohio standards, but the lack of humidity makes the air so fresh I just want to lie in the grass and breathe it in through every pore. My kids are dirty from head to toe. My trees are well climbed, the sandbox well dug.

Thank you summer.

(I am having frustrations with our new scanner. With our ancient one, my drawings scanned in exactly as they were. This new one is fuzzy, the color’s off… Oh well.)

3 whole months

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Could anything be cuter?

It makes me so sad when people are negative about motherhood. It is so beautiful. As the my bagger helped me out to the car yesterday at the grocery store she kept saying, in her Vietnamese accent, “Oh, why do you have 4 kids. You must be so tired all the time. Clean up this mess, clean up that mess. No sleep.” I just smiled, kissed the baby I was wearing and said, “But they’re so fun. They are so good…”

Sure, I’m often tired. Sometimes I’m at my wit’s end with a screaming 2 1/2 year old who wants Superman fruit snacks for breakfast. But, when that 2 1/2 year old looks at my wedding picture he thinks I’m a fairy. Now, doesn’t that make it worth it? Someone thinks I have magical powers!

The joys of this day:

-watching interpretive dance in my very own living room

-mud pies and muddy toes

-4 sets of big blue eyes

-nursing a baby

-big sister attempting to change a diaper

-crazy curly hair

-soft baby breath and skin against my cheek

-a bike ride in the cool breeze

There are ideas swimming around in my head that probably won’t ever get to come out as art. There are a lot of clothes in my closet to don’t fit.

But, look at that little human up there. There really is nothing better than being his.