Pigs

AJ awoke this morning determined to paint pigs.  Why?  No idea but it was of utmost importance.

So I dragged out the colors she requested and the sharpie and the watercolor paper and she got to work.

First little piggie turned out great.  The second...well, let's just say that he's not quite right.

"This is a pig."

"This is a sick piggie.  Oh poor piggie."

AJ thought it important to point out that the piggie has purple dots because he has some sort of illness.  No mention of the 8 legs.

Budding Artist

AJ worked really hard on creating little paper dolls based on one of her books.  She had a little help with the circle portion of the head, the hands, the shoes, and the general gluing but everything else including the planning of how it would go together was all her. She originally wanted to cut out actual stars for the head but quickly found out that its kind of hard to do.  The circle with triangles was her solution.

The best part was when I told her I was impressed with her skills, she replied, "Oh Momma, don't you know that your little girl loves art."  heh.  Well actually I do, Miss AJ, I do.  

Proud little artist. 

Designing Dresses

AJ has been watching me sew clothing and toys for as long as she can remember.  The poor girl desperately wants to learn to sew and I want to teach her, but she's a bit short on patience and a wee ambitious at the moment.

She has found a loop-hole or so she thinks.  She'll design and I'll sew.  Yeah....

She wins

Phil bought a 12 pack of Session.  If you've ever had Session, you'll know that the bottle caps contain one of three possibilities: rock, paper, or scissors.  You pop the cap off and flip it to see which you got and per the usual rules of rock, paper, scissors, you determine the winner. I never drink because it just makes me tired and I have too much crap to do to mess around with being tired.  But we were camping so I figured a few beers would be okay.

Phil popped his cap and announced he had scissors.  I popped my cap and found I had paper.  Drat.  Phil reveled in his victory.  And then Aria came sauntering up and announced, "I have rock.  I win."  In her wee little hand was a rock she picked up from the campsite.  Well played little child, well played.

She wins.

On trees

Daddy got AJ a pocket knife as a gift before our camping trip this past weekend.  Admittedly, I was a wee nervous about handing my 5 year old a pocket knife but I also firmly believe that children are far more capable than we give them credit.  I remember whittling away at wood with a knife when I was a little girl.  Is it possible that she will cut herself?  Of course.  But its also possible for her to injure herself in a number of other ways just running around being a kid.  So pocket knife she has with a good dose of knife safety lessons and under the watchful eye of her parents.  *No, she is not allowed to tout her knife around.  Its for camping and its put up until the next trip.*

Anyhow, she was practicing how to use her pocketknife, whittling away at a stick.

AJ: Momma, see this nut?
Me: Knot?  The knot in the wood?
AJ: Yes, the nut in the wood.  I am scraping off the bark around it to get to the tree zap.
Me: What?  The tree sap?
AJ: Yes, the tree zap.
Me: Sap as in S-A-P.  Ssssssss...ap.
AJ: Yep. Tree ZAP.  I'm scraping off the nut to get to the tree zap.

Fine.  Heh.

Marshmallows

We went camping.  Camping = smores.  I busted out the marshmallows, Hersey chocolate bar, and graham crackers and asked AJ if she would like one.

AJ announced she'd like hers with just chocolate; no marshmallow.  Her reasoning?  She's trying to cut out marshmallow.  The funny thing is she has been saying this for a few months now and she really has been turning down all offers of marshmallows since then.  She did eventually have one on our camping trip, but just one.  Apparently marshmallow is serious stuff and needs to be rationed out carefully.

Photo opinions

Momma, that is TOO close!

Okay. Better.