C Tann-Starr's Outside Blog

Life With Wee People: My Fave Six Pack

This stuff is great... We are using it to build a small, portable play area. We are also using it to teach the shorties that they can design portions of their living space to take with them on the road. My kids and I are in Bob the Builder mode and are hanging out with a couple of very talented girlfriends who are helping me plan our list of eye candy to collect during our shopping and ski excursions. Noah needs incentive to learn how to read and we plan to give it to him in spades (LOL).

Can you say, "Autistic photographs," "Snow ball fights," and "Arts and craft time?" My goal is to take my budding photographer out on an eye candy hunt, label what we shoot into a digital scap book, then translate some of those experiences into art for their bedroom. 

This portable project (painting gym panels and hunting for eye candy) is going to take all weekend. It's a working weekend because I have a client upstate and I like to mix business with play-dates for the kids. I am always scoping something for them to do near what it is that I have to do because it gives them incentive to hang out with me while I work. We take turns having fun and today we are going to be hanging out at Joe's creating posts for Localism.

While I figure out what to show you guys later on, I'm creating music icons for Noah and miniature traveling paths for Step, pasting down blue painters tape for the straight aways and using paper cups and paper plates to create S-curves on the flooring panels. They are trying to help me so its very slow going because they really have no idea what we're doing (LOL).

Gonna build the Minion Blur a series of quirky roads so he can drive his hot wheel cars and trains on a comfy, soft surface I can assemble and disassemble at will. He likes patterns and textures so we plan on keeping him busy while we experiment with rug replacement materials. When you have kids who spill and one who is fickle with cooperation regarding the potty wars, at some point the rugs will have to go because some stains are harder to get out than others. Interlocking gym flooring is reasonably priced, easy to clean, thicker than carpet and hands down my fave six pack to paint and crayon. It is also light weight so you can stick it on the walls to increase your soundproofing and make quirky art puzzle pieces. If you haven't caught on by now I paint on just about anything... (so do my kids - LOL). I may even let the shorties do their own gym panels since it's their room we are painting. :-)

It snowed last night so we have to get our snowman groove on. I love snow and the shorties seem to be taking after their Mama in this respect. This is going to be their first ski trip so we are trying to figure out if we want to do sleigh or tube runs with the wee people after lunch. I love snow mobiles but I don't think Stephen, the Minion Blur, is up for that bit of mischief. Noah would enjoy the experience because every time I pick them up from school he asks if he can drive my car (LOL). We pretend drive in the garage a lot and I may have to add the game room to our list of things to do today because he does drive pretty good on the racing tracks and I could use a round of Time Crisis. Stephen likes Guitar Hero. He doesn't care if the guitar is bigger than he is either. He will prop that puppy against something and strum. Little Dude was plucking at a Cello the other day while we were looking for bongos. I freaked out for a second because he would go for one over a thousand dollars (LOL). I love my little noise maker but had to let him know that was not the instrument for him. I have to find him something more suitable to play with because he likes to sing and is on Noah's Yamaha just as much if not more than he is. :-)

I have a lot of sketching to do if I want to finish their room before Mikey gets back. I took them to Sam Ashe yesterday to take some photographs for reference material and let them play on the instruments while I visualized the make over of their walls. Seems I have to replace all of the Thomas the Train vinyls I posted the other day because Stephen pulled all the icons off the wall and crayoned my freshly painted hall while we were sleeping (sigh). I should have put the crayons away last night and I feel as if I'm starting from scratch. Now I have to buy more paint and cover his latest bit of wall art. At least I don't have to repaint the bookshelves (LOL). :-)

We really had a blast in the music store yesterday and we're looking at some of the photographs we took together after school. The visiting musicians were very kind to the wee people and the little minions got to touch anything that caught their interest. Noah even had a drumming session with a couple of customers while Stephen went crazy on the keyboards.

Gotta go. Will let you guys know how painting the matts and walls are coming along and will take a few shots of the developing layers of illustrations as they progress. I may start with sketching Noah playing the drums. I bet shorty would enjoy that framed over his bed. :-)