not that i am complaining, but ava's art projects are completely taking over our house. as noted a couple of times before, she is not a 2-dimensional sort of gal. oh, no. paintings and drawings are fine, but she won't spontaneously sit down and do them (however, she will write notes and tape them all over the house--currently we have "hape estr estr bune love ava and carter" on our front door--what i love about these is that she does not ask for my help in spelling. she just does her best to figure it out, and it serves as a nice kesson in how many silent letters we have in our language, as well as how her ear hears certain words. for a long time, she thought "and" was just "ad." this is helpful when trying to teach her). but, if she is given her choice, what she would really like to do is make things. in the past 2 weeks or so, she has made 2 vases out of selzer bottles, in which she asked us to cut off the top, then tape the sharp part with duct tape, then she glues flower petals to the bottle. all entirely her idea. then there are the 4 plastic strawberry containers filled with rose petals drying on her dresser, we have 2 yogurt containers with rose seeds in them on the counter for planting later this year, and today she decided to cover a large yogurt container with yellow paper, then cut up a seltzer bottle into little 1/2 inch squares of plastic, which she is now gluing on top of the yellow paper, in a clear mosaic effect. this is also all her idea--and is based on a candle holder she saw in the indian restaurant that she and i went to (where she enthusiastically ate 2 plates of basmati rice, nothing else, and declared herself a fan of indian food. we'll have to work on that). then of course we have what seems like hundreds of "supply" containers--full of glue and water, water and soap (no idea what that one is for), empty tea boxes filled with a variety of things, and on and on and on.

carter, for his part is far more interested in things like mazes, and painting, and drawing. but his absolute favorite is tape, scissors and glue. most of his creations are easily hung on the walls, but the fall out from the effort is distressing. i am so tired of little pieces of paper all over the floor, but hey, when he announces "mom! i made pants for santa!" (out of black construction paper) all the vacuuming is worth it.