A Visit to the Mud'kin Patch

We took a drive to a local pumpkin patch today with Maya and Jeramy. It was more of a crowded, muddy petting zoo than pumpkin patch, but we were saving our pumpkin purchase for the church sale anyways.

I always have a hard time taking pictures at petting zoos (every picture opportunity always seems to start off from the side or back), but I kept at it today so I could get some extra shots of Maya for some of her relatives.

Of all the kids, I think that Keira had the most fun. She was literally climbing out of her seat to try and touch the "Gah"(which is her word for cat/animal). She LOVES animals.

Halloween Preview

The kid's Halloween costumes are beginning to come together.

Katharine, fresh off a Daddy date to see the musical "Mary Poppins", went to a thrift store with Iria and picked up a bunch of pieces to transform herself into the famous nanny. Here she is showing me (and Lukas) a few of them.

Lukas and Lennon will both be going as Peter Pan; or will one be "Peter", and the other "Pan"? They didn't have Lukas's size at the Disney store, so Iria had to endure a week of Lukas waiting for it to arrive in the mail. 3 year olds don't have much patience, so you can guess how that all went...

Dear Santa

I was cleaning up in the drawing studio tonight when I saw this unfinished note from Katharine on her art table. The girl sounds a little bit worried about whether or not the big guy is going to show.

Fleece, Felt and Frousins'

Earlier this week, Iria and Meghan both approached each other with the same crafty idea of making some capes from felt and fleece for the upcoming Halloween season and beyond. So we went over their house today and did just that. I snapped some photos, but the subject matter would prove to be a lot more interesting than any of my pictures. First up was some play time.

Prep work complete, the kids began to filter in and get to work.

Katharine made a flower cape, that was more abstract than realistic. We had to explain the word "abstract" to Katharine on the way home.

Liam made a rocket ship cape.

Lukas asked me to make a Spiderman cape for him.

Brian and Meghan collaborated with Aiden on a "cookie monster" inspired cape.

From top to bottom: Lennon's lightning bolt cape, Keira's flower cut-out cape and Nolan's lollipop cape. Keira has a bit of growing left to do before she will be able to wear hers...

Mission accomplished! We finished off with some dinner, more play, and then a movie on their cool new TV. Another fun evening with the Martels!

Under the rainbow

Yesterday we had one of the best rainbows that I have seen in years.

Backyard and Butterflies

I feel like I need to elaborate a little bit on Erik's wonderful post. The kids have been very much into catching fairies these days. Katharine has a big beautiful book with all kinds of fairies in it which is used to base her research on. Katharine has built a little fairy garden using an old flowerpot, dirt and assorted plants. She faithfully waters it when the soil gets too dry. The boys are really into the fairy adventure, too.

We have had A LOT of the little brownish orangish butterflies around the house and when the kids discovered that they would sit on their clothes or skin, they started naming the butterflies or butterfly fairies, according to the experts. The kids truly believe that the same two or three butterflies keep coming back to them. I will not tell them otherwise. It is so much fun to watch them get all absorbed in the magic of their daily play.

Backyards and Butterflys

Our new camera is both fiendish and forgiving. On the one hand, there is nothing automatic about it; so when I crank the ISO up to 1600 to shoot at night it stays at 1600 until someone notices and turns it back down to 200. On the other hand, while shooting at 1600 during the day with most cameras would turn your photo into a Seurat painting; this camera produces some surprisingly cool pictures. You can still see the pixels when you zoom in all the way, but for the most part the blacks and colors came out really rich and saturated.

Anyways, the top pic is one of my favorite Lukas pictures ever. Thanks, Iria and Nikon!

And oh yeah, I’m supposed to mention that the kids chased around butterfly fairies named “Brownie”, “Orangie” and “Sparkles” the grandma. It sure must be fun being a kid, but not so much fun being a butterfly around a kid.

Pencil art

Sorry for the lack of posts as of late, we have had no internet connection at our house for over a week.

Before we start sorting through all of th recent photos, here are some pencil sketches that Katharine has drawn over the past week or so. She still likes crayons, but I think that the pencil enables her to create much more detailed art. I always make sure that I leave a few sharpened pencils in the studio for her every morning when I leave :)

Self Portrait

Alladin and Genie doodles

Family portrait (done during church service)