Sunday Fun

Lydia has taken to drawing. The minute she gets a chance she'll sit down with paper and some crayons and markers and carefully scrawl a composition that, though often hard to discern the subject matter, is often perfectly balanced and pleasing colorwise.

What we've found though, is that regular crayons are too weak to hold up under the pressure of her enthusiastic grip. I found this post on Hop Skip Jump last week and decided to give it a try on Sunday. What fun! The resulting crayon biscuits are perfect for grasping. Even Papa had fun with them.

The muffin tins in the photos are mini-sized, though I guess with more crayons you could do this in a medium-sized pan. Each mini cup holds about two crayons. In some of the biscuits I added an additional piece of white crayon to mix up the colors a bit.

My first batch I put in the oven at 260˚. The 10 minutes suggested by Hop Skip Jump wasn't quite enough, so I let it go to 14 minutes. This was a bit too long. The crayons became too molten and the colors separated. On the second batch I tried at 270˚ for 10 minutes. That was just perfect.

Cool at room temperature and then chill in the freezer to make it easy to get the biscuits out of the pan.

I've got another box of crayons ready to go. I'll definitely do this again. The hardest part was getting the paper off. Seriously. We've got the drawings to prove it!

Bath Time

So many toys, so many suds, so little time.

Good girl, bad girl

This what the world gets when Papa dresses Lydia for school. Some may
say "it doesn't go," but I beg to differ. Both pieces have pink in
them and Jolly Jill looks good with flowers.

What I've Been Up To...

I had the opportunity to work on a great freelance project, designing www.ejordanphotography.com for London-based photographer, Elizabeth Jordan. She is the sister of a friend and took some amazing images on a trip to Rwanda with Women for Women International last year. She'll be having a show in London in May and needed a Web presence. Fun project. Beautiful photos. Check it out.

Pepto Bismal

We weren't paying attention and the child safty seal on the Pepto was falty. Needless to say Lydia found the bottle, opened it and poured it out on the carpet in the basement.

It seems that I'm not taking it well, but I'm cleaning it up anyway. I fear the rug will be forever stained with Red #22 and Yellow #8 or something like that. Ugh.

Critique

The artist discusses her work.

Corndog or Paint Brush?

Lydia Violet ate part of her corndog tonight, but then the dog became
a brush. With katchup as her medium, she began to paint the table like
Jackson Pollock. Such talent.

Obama Nation

H St., walking west to see what 5 million people looks like.

In a Hoodie

On our way to school. Jen forgot that Lydia's coat had a hood.

Favorite Uncle

Awwwww... Lydia loves Uncle Josh.

--Dima

"Sent from my eye fone!"

To School We Go!

--Dima

"Sent from my eye fone!"

Tire Swing at the Vortex II

Mama and the Bebe in the tire swing at the Vortex.

Tire swing at the Vortex

Lydia and I go for a swing at the Cavanaugh's house.

All Done!

Lydia's learning new things every day and as usual she's putting her own spin on basic concepts.

Albino Monkey

This morning we gave Lydia Violet a banana for breakfast. She doesn't
know how to peal a banana yet, so we can more or less regulate how
much she consumes. What a cute primare.

27*

Lydia and I on our walk to school.

Book Worm

Here is Lydia Violet with one of her favorite pass times, reading books, well kinda. She does love books, I'm guessing for now the words aren't as important as the colorful pictures and turning the pages.

Much to our chagrin, she doesn't know the difference between her books and ours. She makes a daily mess of our bookshelf in the living room. But, how can one get angry when she is so gosh darn cute.

Unofficial First Phrase

On our walk to school today Lydia was being very squirmy. At one point she threw her body weight forward, more or less stopping in a parallel position to the street with her face pointing down. At which point she uttered the "words" "uh oh!"

She has of course said this phrase many times before and at completely inappropriate times. But this time felt different, she was reaching for the ground and was trying to look around my hip to the back. On a hunch I turned around to see what had sparked her attention and there it was, about 15 feet behind us, her pearly white mitten.

Vapor

Today on our walk to school it was 40º outside. I decided to show Lydia my breath vapor. I picked a sunny spot and took a deep breath. She looked at my puffed out cheeks, I'm sure trying to figure out what Papa was doing. Then I opened my mouth and slowly let puffs of breath out. Lydia looked on in amazement.

At one point she leaned her head forward and tried to chomp on the vapor as it passed by her face. She giggled and had a puzzled look at the same time.

Getting ready for the job.

Construction Baby, sporting the latest in Long Johns, jeans and work boots.