fall break at the beach

my parents got the family together for a family reunion in Newport Beach.  it was kind of like this:

saying goodbye to summer!

this photo belongs in the series "eating with dad."

 we said goodbye to summer swimming, with a swim and a scrumptious dinner.  

goodbye summer...see ya real soon!

week 2 of summer art camp!

this weeks project came from this post over at Deep Space Sparkle.  (really all of our projects will most likely come from this site because it is awesome.  

i wanted to explore the color wheel because i am fascinated by the process of mixing color, and feel like learning about primary and secondary colors is the real basis of art.  (color art anyway)

since we did black and white line drawing last week, the girls were itching to paint.  

 we started with the color wheel, and i had them paint the primary colors first, then mix up each secondary color and paint it in the appropriate spot on the wheel.  no matter how many times we do a color mixing project, the girls act like it's magic as orange, green and purple appear.  

 it really is fun though, to see what mix they come up with.  Avery's orange was spot on pure orange, orange.  but she kept wanting her purple to be more grape and less violet.  

 Anna was surprisingly the messiest with this project due to over mixing. 

 Madeline was surprisingly meticulous about her mixing and painting "in the lines" not wanting to spread one color over the other.  

once we were finished with the color wheels, we painted a face and body, and had a color wheel clown!  

clearly this was a fun project, but it was also good and long.  it took us close to 2 hours to complete, perfect for a hot summer day!

corn season!

we are a corn family!  and here in Arizona there is some of the yummiest sweet corn around!  one of our families very good friends grows the best of the best of that sweet corn.  in June i make near daily stops to the corn stand by our house.  here is our baby boy enjoying his first ear of AZ sweet corn!

welcome to the deliciousness son!