Future artists

On rainy, bitterly cold, or otherwise boring stay-inside days, the girls start to get cabin fever after about two hours. They occupy themselves nicely for the first hour, drawing pictures, building with legos, playing school, going on a bear hunt, -- and then they start to bicker over toys and complain that there is nothing to do. I spend the second hour responding to "my sister called me a name" and "my sister won't share the toy with me" and "my sister won't play this game with me." In situations like this, I tape a large sheet of butcher paper over their little table, replace their regular shirts with painting shirts, and pour some paints in an old egg carton. Voila! Happy, occupied kids for at least the next hour!

Here are some pictures of the girls painting one such day earlier this month.

We chose Broncos colors for this particular painting party.


Adelaida paints very nice pictures -- usually of our family.


Cordelia gets huge globs of paint on her paintbrush and paints one stroke on the paper, then goes back to the paint to refill her paintbrush. Oh, and she usually leans over the table to get more paint, which is why the painting shirts come in so handy!


Ordinarily Estella paints quite nicely on the paper, but for some reason this day she decided to paint her hand instead.


Painting is serious business.


Eventually the paper is covered, the paint tray is empty, and it is time to move on to the next activity!