New News

So to those who have loosely been following our comings and goings it may seem like we just moved...yeah, we did. We sold our house in Raleigh, NC in February and moved into this awesome west Nashville farmhouse. In May a tree fell on the awesome west Nashville farmhouse and we had to move, rather suddenly and unexpectedly, into a somewhat less awesome house in Belle Meade. In late July we moved out of the Belle Meade house back into the farmhouse. And now, in less than three weeks, we will be moving again.

Yeah. We just can't get enough of the thrill of packing up boxes and misplacing key components of furniture and electronic equipment that has to be disassembled each time we move. Actually, this time we are moving much farther than our previous moves. We are moving to California over Labor Day weekend. Good times. We are actually pretty excited about living in the Bay Area, but less excited about being so far away from family and uprooting ourselves once again.

We are so sad to be leaving Nashville. It has been such a rich six months. We have completely fallen in love with this city. We have become friends with the most interesting and cool kindred spirits and packed our time here with unique-to-Nashville experiences. We knew that we probably weren't going to be here for very long but we had no idea it would be so short!!

We really have no regrets. We made the most of our time here and lived it up to the fullest. We're leaving "wanting more" which is a good thing I suppose. We are moving with Ryan's job, so a new position with the same company.

We are not going to start Oliver in preschool in September but hopefully we'll be able to find or form a Joy School group. If not I plan to keep the boys busy with swimming lessons (Oliver is a fantastic doggy paddler already), speech therapy for Oliver, and hopefully teaching Ollie to read and ride a bike. Those are my pre-baby goals. We'll see how those go. I realize I don't have any goals for Elliot...potty training seems still really far out on the horizon. He is not even a little bit ready. Hmm...maybe I will just indulge him and let him make the most out of these last few months of being the baby in the family.

Speaking of babies...the other news is that we are having another BOY!! We are really excited. No firm ideas about names so we welcome any suggestions. I found a doctor out in Walnut Creek who is actually also a certified nurse/midwife. Although she has an MD she practices a midwifery-centered model of birthing. Which means that she is very pro-natural birth which is something I'd like to try this time. She also was finishing her medical training at University of Michigan at Ann Arbor in 1976, when I made my grand appearance at the hospital there. There's a chance she even observed my delivery since my mom said there were A LOT of students and residents at my birth. In any case, I thought that was an auspicious coincidence.
So that's what's going on around here. A lot of change. Hopefully relatively painless transitions. Elliot is screaming his blessed little head off so I better go give him some "nuggles". Why won't that kid go to bed?!?! Why is there always such bedtime drama?!?!

Happy Birthday Abby!!

Happy Birthday Abigail Alice Daisy Ford Winkel, MD! We love you! We also want to give a warm welcome to the newest member of the Ford/Winkel clan. Folks, meet Kermit:

Fresh from Michigan --whence all Winkels hail--, this little woodle (part Wheaton terrier, part poodle) is hypoallergenic, cute as a button, and probably as close as the Halverson boys will ever get to having a pet. Sad but true! We'll have to renegotiate in a few years but for now that discussion has been tabled. We can't wait to meet Kermit in the flesh and see his antics for ourselves.

Speaking of antics...Oliver learned that he could operate the elliptical trainer and has been really going to town on his new workout regimen. Ryan teases me for what I wear to the gym (you mean my Umbros and nasty old t-shirts from college don't look cute?!?) but I assure you I have never worked out in saggy Lightning McQueen underoos.

Friday Art Group Projects

One of the highlights of our summer has been our Friday morning art play group with my friend Suzy and her three kids. We take turns coming up with a project and hosting. In addition to the art projects, the kids play and we fix ourselves a gourmet lunch (PB&J or mac and cheese for the kids :-). Not too shabby. Here is a round up of our projects so far.

Week 1: The gyotaku project I posted about earlier.

Week 2: Glow in the dark art. This project was more or less a bust from a finished product perspective, but the kids had a lot of fun doing it. I totally subscribe to the theory that art should be about process more than product anyway, so it was still a cool activity. The *idea* was to draw a picture with neon crayons and then paint over the entire picture with black tempera paint. In theory, the drawing in crayon would have resisted the black paint and the picture would have "popped" out from the black paint. We just had the wrong materials...turns out real neon wax crayons are pretty hard to find. (A google search turned up just one source...ebay, below.) 

That is what we should have used. Instead we used the Crayola Twistables Neon Crayons, which are much less waxy, closer to colored pencils than true crayons. So they didn't work as well in resisting the tempera paint.

 

Also the washable black tempera paint was more like a navy blue than true black. Even though I am so thankful for the innovations of "washable" art materials at many key junctures (thank you Elliot for choosing washable markers when you decided to draw all over our sheets and comforter!) they often just don't work as well as the real thing. So, this project is one that I would try again with better materials next time.

Week 3: Giant Self Portraits. An oldie but goodie. We traced the kids in "action poses" on butcher paper and then let them paint their life sized self portraits. This was a big hit from the process perspective. We traced the kids and handed out paint and they really took it from there. I was really impressed that Oliver decided to paint green and blue stripes on his shirt, which was what he was wearing that day. Other notable features he chose to highlight were his Sketcher sneakers that his friend Mark insists are skateboarding shoes (Mark's Sketchers may well be skateboarding shoes, Oliver's I picked up at a consignment sale and I think are just regular sneakers. Oliver thinks they are super cool anyway.) He also drew his leg bones, his underwear, and his penis...so, there you have it, all the important parts accounted for.  

Week 4: Eric Carle-inspired poppies. This was a fun lesson as well as a project. The kids are all familiar with author and illustrator Eric Carle's books (The Very Hungry Caterpillar; Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? etc.) Suzy showed them some examples of his work and explained how he creates his signature collage technique. Eric Carle doesn’t just paint his pictures, and he doesn’t just cut out paper to form his pictures, but he does both!  He paints beautiful pieces of paper and then uses those as his “palette” to cut out and create collages for his fantastic illustrations.  (Learn more about his techniques in his own words.)

The kids then used red and green tempera paint on newspaper to create their color palettes. They experimented with creating various textures by rolling spiral pasta, dragging toothpicks, and racing matchbox cars across the wet paint. We put their sheets of newspaper out to dry for an hour while we had lunch. Afterward, the kids traced and cut out petals and leaves for their poppies. Suzy had already cut out cardboard centers for the flowers. They glued the petals to the cardboard centers and then the whole flower to a stick they had each found outside. Lastly, they used a glue stick on the center of the flower and sprinkled poppy seeds on it. Viola! An Eric Carle-inspired poppy. Oliver was exceedingly proud of his creation.

   

Week 5: Faux Batik. This may be my favorite project yet. I came across this technique when I googled "batik for kids." This post on the Artist Woman's blog is two years old but some how is enjoying a minor resurgence around the web right now. In the past few weeks I have seen a bunch of other postings referring back to her original post. (Check out Teacher Tom's Tibetan Prayer Flags his class made...awesome!) Anyway, the Artist Woman link above describes the technique in detail so I won't repeat it. Suffice it to say, you'll need Crayola Gel Glue, acrylic paint and some fabric. We chose pillow cases but then when I saw how huge they were I decided Oliver would do better with a slightly smaller canvas. I cut a smaller square out of the pillow case that I will stuff and sew it back up into a little pillow.

This is a two-day project because the glue has to dry over night before you can paint it. So at first I gave Oliver the fabric square and a bottle of glue and told him to create a design. He is really into rocket ships and fighter jets lately so that is what he chose to draw. Drawing with the glue was a little tricky for him, so for the other side I had him draw his design with a disappearing ink pen (we also could have used a pencil) and then I traced over his drawing with the glue.   

The next day we painted over the fabric with watered-down acrylic paint. I was a little worried that it wasn't going to work because it looked like the paint had been absorbed into the fabric even where the glue was (where it was supposed to resist). But it came out beautifully. I guess the paint gets absorbed by the gel glue which prevents it from soaking into the fabric. The Artist Woman suggests soaking the fabric in a tub of warm water to get the gel glue off but the colors didn't run at all (since it is paint and not dye) so next time I will just throw it in the washing machine.

   

I adore Oliver's batik. I think the stars came out particularly well (he had a lot of fun with those!) and I'd like to point out his depiction of the moon and the planet Saturn (in orange). What a treasure!

Next week we are out of town, but the following week we are going to try making marbleized paper with liquid watercolors and shaving cream. I'll let you know how it goes!

The Power of Prayer

Tonight when Oliver was saying his prayers he asked God to "bless Mommy that she can have power to fight bad guys." So that either means that he thinks of me as some sort of superhero (which, admittedly, would be pretty cool), or... that my superhero skills are in need of divine intervention. Either way I thought it was pretty cute. 

Summer Storms

Around 2:00 am last night there was another bad thunderstorm. It was the worst we've had since "the storm" that brought the tree down on our house. Lighting flashed like klieg lights outside our windows and the thunder that followed shook the whole house. I'll admit, it was pretty scary! As I tried to go back to sleep I thought to myself, any minute we're going to hear crying from the boys' room. But before we heard a peep, Ryan got up and padded down the hall to Oliver's room and snuggled into bed with him.

At that moment, in my half-sleep I was so filled with love for Ryan. He is such a great dad! He knows that Oliver is still so afraid of thunder and lightning and he anticipated that he would need comforting. In the morning Oliver didn't even remember the storm, but I know that's because Ryan was there to make him feel safe. What an awesome dad!!

Model Airplanes

Two weeks ago I woke up with a feeling I dread but one that has become all too familiar during the summer. It was 7:00 am, Ryan had already left for work, and the entire, empty day loomed before me. We had NOTHING on our docket. Nothing to do...nothing that HAD to be done...no errands even that needed to be run.  Having a whole gaping day with nothing on the agenda sends me into a slight panic.

In order to stay sane I really need to get out of the house and see people and DO something.  Being at home all day with the kids is not exactly relaxing for me.  (Are we going to spend the whole day in our pajamas in front of the TV????)  For some people, like those who lead rigorous, busy, relentlessly productive lives a day in PJs in front of the TV probably sounds like not too bad a deal--for me that would be torture. By far the toughest part about being a stay-at-home mom for me at this stage of the game isn't the "work" it's the potential for boredom and grinding monotony.

Anyway, feeling like this day was already headed in a bad direction (at so early an hour!!) I called a friend to organize a playdate. She had a better idea. She told me about this model airplane demonstration at Percy Warner Park. Percy Warner is this huge park complex about 5 minutes from our house. They have miles of hiking and biking trails, an amazing Nature Center, a golf course, an equestrian center, but who knew they also had a model airplane strip?! We packed up a picnic and joined them. IT WAS AWESOME! It turned out to be one of our best summer activities. The boys were absolutely transfixed by the model airplanes. They did amazing stunts like barrel rolls and flips and flew fast upside-down. For the finale one of the biggest planes did a candy drop over the runway and all the kids ran out and grabbed candy.

When Ryan came home from work we went to the playground and flew paper airplanes until it was dark. Ryan is a crack paper-airplane builder and those planes glided on air currents like nothing I've seen before. The boys had a blast and then once it was officially dark we went to this cute little frozen yogurt place in Belle Meade called CeCe's. It was delicious and I can't wait to go back.

So this day that looked from the outset like it would be a total wash turned out to be one of our best summer days yet!

 

Ollie & Elliot at Abby's Wedding

What handsome fellas!!

Again, these pictures are from my very talented friend Dante Williams. You can check out all his work at www.dantewilliams.com

Hilarious, just look at that scowl.  I wish he hadn't been so nervous and took that hand out of his mouth for one second!!

 

We had to wake Elliot up from his nap to get him ready for the ceremony. He does NOT like being woken up! He was pretty spaced out for a while.

 

These pictures totally capture my kids. Elliot is fascinated by the world around him, checking out the band, running around, seeing what else there is to explore.  Oliver is giving himself an ulcer worrying that Elliot is going to get into trouble.