5 year old party

The Girl

Olea: 5 year old, excited to go to kindergarten
loves art, swords, being a princess, dancing and puzzles
The Party

Printmaking: Lino cut style (also like woodcut) but we used foam trays and dull pencils and tempera paint. Then they picked their favorite print and they got to make a card out of it. Those children who were more art inclined made multiple prints and multiple cuts.
The Cakes

She chose Superman icecream... so it was a colorful treat. Gary and I decided that Superman icecream is partially eggnogg flavor. What do you think?
Happy 5th Olea!

According to Olea the party would have been better if all her friends had "deesles" (easels) to paint on. Sorry kid, that's not in my budget. :)

Zurich: Ladies man aka "the after party"

A hate/love relationship

HATE
That Genève needs to eat so often
LOVE
that she isn't lactose intolerant and is gaining weight so well

HATE
That Zurich steps on my feet with his Superman shoes on
LOVE
that he likes shoes so much and puts on whatever "pair" he can find

HATE
That Olea argues and negotiates everything
LOVE
that she is such and independent thinker and strong willed and self confident

Father's Day

Genève, faces, laptop

Can I tell you how flipping proud of this little tubber I am? She may not be as "tubby" as some babies but she's the tubbiest one I have ever produced. Though she started out weighing less than Zurich she has now passed him up weight/age. At this age Zurich was just under 12 lbs and started out at 8lbs 10oz where she started out at 7lbs 14 oz. Genève is my first baby to not drop weight but gain at great progress. At two months old she is my heaviest baby yet and has the little fatty thighs I have never had in a baby. She is so chubby cute. I just love it. She is 9 weeks old. Almost 12.5 lbs and soooo perfectly pleasant and smiley. She sleeps like a dream and rarely cries.

Look at my two babies.

Gary drew faces on the kids' bellies the other night, it was hilarious with their belly button mouths. I just love it. Such funny faces. Genève's was particularly funny because of it's rotundness.


And our latest project:
A laptop out of a cereal box. Olea LOVES it. We'll have to make one for Zurich so he stops stealing hers.

Cut cereal box big sides, tape hing. Let child draw on Keyboard and screen. (good letter number practice). Attach ribbon to hing to keep it propped open and a little ribbon top middle of it to open it.

You might be a Neugebauer if...

This is just the beginning of the shoe pile in the entry way when the Neugebauers come to town.

p.s. we took up more than the norm 3/4 of a row (1.25 rows), even when 4 of us were in the mother's lounge at the same time. eheheheh

Back in the Olea spirit

So I've been having a hard time with Olea lately.
Maybe it's because she's staying up late, maybe it's because I am always nursing the baby and she has to wait an hour longer for anything she wants, maybe it's my thyroid, maybe she's almost 5, maybe it's because I am not as cool as her grandma, maybe it's because she misses all the cool things we used to do together. Maybe I'm expecting her to be older than she is. Maybe I'm having a hard time with my time.
Maybe it is everything.

So last night after the kids were in bed and Gary was at a concert with my brother I started racking my brain... and the internet for things to do with Olea. I decided I love the site One Pretty Thing since it helped me find some swell ideas and get me thinking of my own. I made a list with hint instructions.

While eating lunch the other day Olea asked how I made this piece (a wood cut) and as I simply explained it she was smart enough to connect it to the one I did for her that hangs in her room (an intaglio copper plate). I wondered if there was a way to expose her to the medium since she showed an interest. So today after putting the babies down for their naps Olea and I sauntered down to the studio. At first I was worried this was not going to go well because her endless questions as I cleared a space for our project were driving me crazy. But it all worked out.
We did monoprinting.
Prep paper, cut glass, tape glass down and paint with tempera paint and design with qtips and tooth picks, we also used a comb

put paper down, brayer or rub with hand (we did both), tada!

We used two different sizes of glass and traded off, we used good art paper dry and wet

We experimented and learned as we went and she L-O-V-E, LOVE, loved it. Wanted to know if we could do it tomorrow.
Then we made cards with our prints and some pastels for a little color.

My Camera is Possessed

My Camera is Possessed.
It's true. And it's probably due to the amount of times the kids have grabbed the strap hanging of the counter and pulled it down to the floor... aka dropped it.
About a month ago Gary and I woke up to a strange noise. It took me a while to locate the noise.
The camera in it's case was turning off and on. This includes the lens coming out and in. It was in the camera case so the lens couldn't come out all the way so it just went back and forth and back and forth.
Fluke, right?
It keeps happening. It's freaky.
I could always run over the camera with the car and HAVE to buy a new one. That worked last time. Sorrows... It makes me laugh now, but it was NOT funny then.
So here's the picture I took today when the camera turned itself on. It was sitting on our dresser and Olea was reading to Genève (who you can't see behind the book and Olea) in the big chair. Notice, I even made my bed today.

(holy crap is that red paint on her foot?! it is...I better go check the studio... and the carpet the whole way upstairs)

In other news, I am really looking forward to this weekend for a number of reasons:
1. We are finally getting a family picture with everyone ... except Lincoln who went to China.
2. My mother hired a photographer... so Dad doesn't have to do it.
3. I get to tat on the drive and Genève needs a few tatties (all the colorful ones I have given away or sold and she's left with the first few that I did before I started selling them).
4. We're going to Chitty Chitty Bang Bang with my in-laws and my sister's family
5. I get to see my sister and my brother whom I have not seen for over a year at least, and all their new kidlets.

If obedience were always so exciting...

Zurich is still a binki lover.
call me a bad mom,
I'll disagree with you anyway.

He's a good boy.
He often surprises me.
Since he's sleeping in his big boy bed now, there are days he chooses only one nap, and 1 hour of "play in his room since the door is shut and he can't get out and he's not sleeping."
Either way, when the door is open and Zurich is free to roam the binki cannot accompany him.
Binki is strictly a bed item.
I thought we'd have fights about this.
No,
we don't.
He's so sweet.

The first day after I opened his door to help him slowly get up from his nap and he ventured out with the binki still in his little chomps I said to him, "Bobo, go put your binki away. Put binki back in bed." He promptly pulled his binki out of his mouth and set it in his bed and then came back to play.

God loves me. He surely does. So many of the things I think will be battles with my kids end up not being, granted I sure do have enough battles. But life is good.
Since he continues to be so great about it we continue to aplaud him esp when he sits up in bed, pulls out the binki drops it on his bed and then comes out to play.
"TICKETS!" Gary and I cheer.
(tickets are a form of reward system in our house)
Zurich claps and runs to the counter where the tickets are.
He currently has more tickets than Olea.

So we get all excited when our kids are obedient. What parent doesn't? When does it go from exciting to be obedient to expected? And when does obedience go from being exciting for the child to absolutely repulsive?

Third Person

I'm not talking about adding a third child to our "collection."

that's what the nurse called it as he cleaned off Genève after she was born
I'm talking about talking in the third person.
When I was in elementary school I had a music teacher and about 5 months into the year I was still wondering,
Who is Mrs. Bagley and when is she going to be here?
Mrs. Bagley was referring to herself in the third person.
Mrs. Bagley wants you to sing it like this. That will make Mrs. Bagley so happy. etc.
So when I figured that out...
I thought it was really dumb that anyone would refer to themselves in the third person.
It was so confusing.
Yet
here I am
a mother
confusing my child
by referring to myself in the third person.
I don't always do it, but I find myself doing it enough to annoy my third self.

Olea's board

When Olea and I do crafts I try to let her do them herself. But of course I make suggestions and if our project is somewhat costly I do make suggestions. Latest project is a magnet board for her room. Gary will love this, because if it doesn't fit on the magnet board... it's in the trash. She's generally quite good about throwing old pictures away but I think this will also help the general cleanliness look of her room. And I think it turned out cute. While we were at Robert's buying the board there was a make and take. I was quite proud of myself for making ZERO suggestions and just letting Olea create the way she wanted to. I think sometimes as adults/parents we are just sure something is supposed to be a certain way and stifle our kids' creativity. Considering who I am... and who I claim to be, I really don't want to do that to my kids.

So we bought a Extra Large Magnet Board from Roberts ( 50% off)

Cut paper strips (to width of border, from paper Olea picked out from Archiver's Hotspot)
Then Olea cut with scalloped scissors the strips into smaller pieces

Then She helped me ink the edges with a vaired color ink pad
Spray adhisive and lay out the papers on the border.

Modgepodge the whole thing

Let dry obviously
Vinyl lettering of her name on the board (thanks to Grandma's Cricut)
Then she used Jewels (from Roberts) to add some bling to her board

I totally had to refrain from commenting on where to put the jewels.
TaDA! Now we just need to hang it up.

See the magnet board behind Olea? So now the question is... do I let Zurich help decorate his?
P.s. Zurich was taking his nap in a big boy bed. (the bottom bunk in Olea's room) Thanks Grandma and Grandpa who helped him make this transition while he was at their house.