kirstencan

Children's Day

We had a little celebration last week - Children's Day!

We made carp kites out of tissue paper, decorated with marker and hung from bamboo poles.

Then we took them on a walk.  Which turned into a parade with the boys chanting 'Children's Day!  Children's Day!'

It's okay, our neighbors already think we're weird...

It was a beautiful day (finally) and a fun Spring celebration - I think we'll do it again.

Keeping it real:  my daughter was telling Aaron about this when he got home from work, and said that I took them out to do a photoshoot.  Not a parade, or a walk, or a celebration. Oops.

Oh well, I knew this would be a photogenic kinda project!  And they DID have fun!

 

Renaissance Fair(e)

We took the kids to the Renaissance (& Fantasy - which means Fairies (and pirates?)) Faire this weekend.

The kids wanted to dress up (You know, kinda.  They still wore tees and shorts underneath and crocs for shoes). The girl's princess dress from ...Christmas '07?  Is now almost to her knees and too tight to zip up.  But that's what we had, and we sewed some ribbons to the back to fasten it.  You couldn't tell with her hair hanging down, and it made me laugh anyway.

The kids loved the Magic (Magyck) and puppet shows.  We spied a fire-eater at one point. 

We saw lots of things we've learned about in history this year, including people dressed as monks and even a samurai.

Someone in the Fiber Arts tent explained card weaving to me - which is completely fascinating.

The highlight, of course, was the jousting.

I went to high school in Maryland, where Jousting is the official state sport.  Not that I ever saw any while I was there.

Way cool to see real chain mail, the huge horses, breastplates being screwed on and the lances breaking.

These guys weren't kidding.

Not sure we'll go every year or anything, but it was a really fun day, with gorgeous weather, we got lots of ideas for the girl's Halloween Fairie costume, and yay for field trips!

I'm not sure how this happened...

...but history became geography while sitting on the table.

Love him.  When he is interested in something in particular I definitely take advantage of that learning opportunity and go with it!

p.s. yeah, some of the Totoro decorations are still up.  I like them better than the quilt I had there, and will hopefully soon be painting in there anyway.

Art Museum {+ art worksheet download}

We took a random Tuesday off (with Aaron - yay!) to take some 'field trips'.  One to the BYU Museum of Art.  I love that place.  The upstairs was a little crowded due to a current popular exhibit, but the other areas were fine and AWESOME.  Best MOA visit ever.

I was way exited to see Dorothea Lange's Three Mormon Towns.  The At War exhibit was a really pleasant surprise - we all loved that one, too.

In short - an excellent time to visit this museum.

The kids LOVED this piece (Brian Knep Healing 1) which was interactive.

Very interactive (Monkey is the kid who starts with a somersault and ends with the Robot).  I love this kid.

 

I LOVED the Matter of Words exhibit and am definitely going to go back for a future (longer) visit.  Awesome stuff.

I made criticism sheets for the kids recently for an art lesson.  They LOVED them.  They picked pieces from art books or our art calendar to critique.  I think it would be cool to do one every week.  I brought them on clipboards to the museum, but only the girl wanted to use one (which is fine).  I think she did a couple, actually.

It's not perfect, but if you'd like a copy for your kids (it worked pretty well for all 3, ages 5 - 10) you can download it here.

I think.  Tell me if this doesn't work.

Bonus:  It is adorable to hear young kids use 'non-representational' properly in an art museum.  Or in conversation.  Super cute stuff and your friends will think they're a genius or something.

Arcade Fire

Another reason I love my husband:  When we heard that Arcade Fire was coming to town again, it wasn't IF we would go, but how many tickets to buy.*

We saw them a couple of years ago and they put on by far the best show I've ever seen.  So another two years to listen and love their albums even MORE plus a new album = I was silly excited about this one. 

I even took a picture of their tour buses as we walked in because I could see a box labeled 'Arcade Fire'.

Really I can't describe this event.  They are incredible.  If you've seen them live, you know what I mean.  They do not disappoint.

One friend said the night was 'life-changing', and my little sis said 'I can die now.'  That about sums it up.

I will note that my surprise high of the night was an INCREDIBLE performance of 'No Cars Go', which always reminds me of my boy, followed by 'Haiti' which I fell in love with when they played it at the last show I saw, and wasn't expecting that night.

Pretty much every song was a favorite (But Tunnels has always been my #1 fave - and they played it!).  I took some (bad) video clips, but could only record about 15 seconds of any given moment before having to dance again.

Being a part of Wake Up again was amazing.

And Regine, you are adorable with your twirly skirts and ribbons.

Thank you, Arcade Fire!   It was magic.

*After much deliberation we decided not to take the kiddos.  Just too loud, we thought.  Plus it was actually kinda hard to get seats.  Surprisingly, the one most disappointed by this was Monkey.  He asked over and over for me to tape it for him.  Month of May is his fave song - which they opened with.