The Tree of Life

Sometimes, having an art teacher for a dad is simply fantastic.  OK, most of the time having an art teacher for a dad is fantastic.  Especially when he helps you re-create famous pieces of art, like The Tree of Life by Gustav Klimt. Here’s the original:

Here is Rowan’s version:

And here is Anneke’s:

Now dad is ready to take this lesson to his 1st graders!

Ice skating

The kids made HUGE strides in ice skating today using these little supports that Powderhorn Park has. WHAT FUN!

Winter at the falls

We finally got some snow! And a beautiful day for a short hike at our favorite local waterfall.

Dad spent some time studying the construction of these trellises at the park…

Rowan showed off his newly-white-again front teeth. A fun morning!

Christmas 2011

Gifts, ice-skating, eating, more gifts–including giant stuffed vegetables, more eating, wearing matching shirts with Grampie… oh the fun went on and on this year. Check it out:

Kick-off to Christmas

Before a feast, a good hike is in order.  Even if it is a super-duper short one. We kicked off our brown Christmas at Fort Snelling yesterday:

Then today, we celebrated Christmas with the Miller family, who continued their Ugly Sweater contest again this year.

I actually think the sweaters they picked out for themselves at Savers are rather cute, but since they were the only ones who participated in the kids’ contest, they won!

They celebrated with a turn on the rock climbing wall at Monticello Community Center (where the party was held).

Anneke’s horse parade

Anneke worked very hard this week on a new invention — a way to connect all of several of her horses together so they could all be in a parade:

[ Dangit. I see now that Flickr cut off the end of the video, where she demonstrates her invention. Well, suffice to say it works!  As long as the parade is very, very, very slow. ]

November

Nearly a month since the last post! We’ve really enjoyed a string of nice November weather. We got out for a hike with cousins Joseph and Justin:

We found out that Anneke will only have to suffer being the only girl until spring when Auntie Lisa is going to have… A GIRL!  YAY!

We had one cold, snowy Saturday spent reading books by the fire.  But the snow has all melted again and we’re back to being outside in sweatshirts. Such a strange fall, but really we can’t complain. Happy Thanksgiving!

Halloween 2011

Well, Paul Bunyan and the Nice Witch had a pretty great Halloween.

Fortunately they shared *some* of their candy with mom and dad.

Now they are both sleeping — in their own rooms. The transition has gone off completely without a hitch. The only person to cry about it so far has been… Mom.  One of the features of their new rooms is the paintings they each did.  Here is Rowan’s:

It’s of himself and Blake at a park, 18″x18″ acrylic on canvas.

Here’s Anneke’s:

It’s a winter scene of a cat going poop on our front steps and Anneke, Rowan, and mom are all watching it out of various windows. 18″x18″ acrylic on canvas.

A busy fall

What haven’t we done this fall? Thank goodness we’ve had such a long stretch of beautiful weather. Here’s a sampling of what we’ve been up to since the last post:

The moment I’ve been waiting for since, well, since we decided to have kids has arrived: we’re reading the Hobbit! Yay! Dad feels very relieved that I now have someone else besides him to discuss elves, dwarves, and other totally real things with.

The kids did their first real paintings on canvas. They turned out great (pictures of the final thing coming soon). And we painted the pictures to hang in… our… new rooms! We finally got the spare bedroom totally ready for Rowan. This involved combining my office and Adam’s studio, purchasing some gently used furniture, and painting the new room.

Rowan, new room, new bed. It’s looking a bit spare in there; we’ll post more pictures when we have it totally done.

Rowan and his new craigslist dresser, with Anneke photobomb.

Anneke and her new bed, with Rowan photobomb.

Anneke with her dresser. Both beds and her dresser came gently used from our next-door neighbors. Handy!

We celebrated by carving our pumpkins.  The kids each designed a pumpkin of their own.  Rowan’s is on the top left and Anneke’s is on the bottom right. Tomorrow’s the big day, and we will post costume pictures tomorrow night.

Renaissance Festival

Is there any place on earth that is more fun for a kid than the Renaissance Festival? I’d guess not. Rowan and Anneke had the time of their lives on Saturday with Mom, Dad, Grammy, Grampy, Auntie Colleen and Silly Uncle Dan.  There was belly dancing:

Corn on the cob and other delicious foods:

Fairies!  Princesses!  And such!

An elephant ride for Rowan and Grampy:

Anneke rode a warhorse named Kahlua:

They took part in a pre-joust children’s event that involved racing broomstick horses around an obstacle course. Rowan went first, on “Oscar”:

Then Anneke went on “Horsey,” taking her time to do the thing properly. If only there had been a prize for slowest rider.

After the races, all the kids got to walk out with the royalty and the knights onto the jousting field and then onto a special viewing place of honor to watch the joust.  (You can’t see Rowan in this pic)

Then after the joust they got to meet a knight named Jacob (picture from Auntie Colleen, thanks!)

Later they rode a giant rocking horse:

And finally at the end of the day when they were almost too tired to go on, they found the strength and courage to participate in a sword fight:

We were all covered in dirt, exhausted, hot, and thirsty at the end of the day, but Oh What Fun!