Of Books, and Used Clothing and American Idol

Well, I'm over 200 pages into Brother's Karamazov. I'm still enjoying it. Lots of words. Smaller print in the book I borrowed from the library. But, it's good. There are 776 pages in my book...still not sure if I'll make it all the way :)

Speaking of reading, we're trying something new with the kids this week. I'm reading to them around 4:30 instead of right before bed. Yesterday we started The Minpins by Roald Dahl. It's great! We're about 1/2 through and have a few more small Roald Dahl books that we'll read next like George's Marvelous Medicine. I read Charlie & The Chocolate Factory to the kids last year which was great. His works are just plain fun to read aloud. We've got another chapter book going called Summer With the Moodys which the kids like as well. So to the plan is to read for about 30 minutes every afternoon. After dinner we can have some family time before they hit the sack. They enjoy looking (and for those who can, reading) books in bed before they go to sleep.

We've had a bit of snow the past few days. It's beautiful and sunny today with the snow sparkling all over. Still cold today so this afternoon we'll attempt some Valentine art for our front window. I'm thinking painting hearts or making some heart stamps with sponges. Here's a link I found with some great ideas...I like the tissue paper one.

Today I'll begin to gathering clothing, toys & shoes for the next JBF consignment sale here in Denver. I have to print off bar code tickets and package & hang everything up before the March 10th drop off date. I'm hoping to make at least $75 bucks. It costs $12 to consign and I'll make 65% profit. I'll probably shop a bit at the presale for summer clothes for Hope & Owen as well. Last fall I found some great deals on winter items for the kids.

Tonight we'll be cheering Tori Kelly as we watch American Idol. Whether she makes it another few weeks or the whole way, she's definitely got a future in sharing her talent. She's one of the most amazing, kind, lovely and sweet teenager I've ever known.

Whether you're stuck inside due to a couple feet of snow out East, or you're enjoying the beautiful sunshine out West or here in Colorado, I hope you have a lovely day. Count your blessings, for they are numerous!
~Rose

EMBRACE!

My friend Erika and I went to the Denver Art Museum a few days ago. Every 1st Saturday admission is free and despite the crowds we were delighted with what we saw. The new addition was finished in 2006 and I can't believe it's taken me so long to visit! It's very angular and modern. I love the interior with it's odd rooms and slanted walls. I did feel a bit dizzy at one point but that quickly passed.

We arrived about 15 minutes before a free tour of the Embrace! artwork started. It was a great 45 min tour and we learned a bunch. Basically the museum (DAM) asked 17 famous artists to come visit the museum, choose a spot and create art for that spot. What they created was amazing! I highly encourage all you Coloradoans to come check it out before it's gone on April 5th. That gives you two more free Saturdays :)

I was allowed to take photographs but without flash...so some are blurry. Enjoy :)

The shadow on the wall behind this metallic quilt type thing...

This piece looked like plexi glass which was joined to a large white frame and painted.

These were long hanging things...looked like huge globs of paint about to fall. I guess they were made from panty hose filled with sand which was shaped by the artist and then had something applied to them so they became hard. He emptied the sand at the bottom, painted them and hung them up.

The painted wall was huge...4 stories I think. Then there were all these digital numbers on the walls (those bright lights in the circles to the right of the painting).

Loved these kitchen knives!

See how they are all pointed to the door. Our tour guide said something about how the artist chose to put the knives like that because people are familiar with kitchen knives and if there is an intruder coming through our door we're most likely to grab a kitchen knife. A bit macabre I know, but still I liked it.

Gosh, my photo does not do this painting justice...the artist's wife was some how connected to the museum so he was able to be around during construction and took lots of pics. This painting is a depiction of the building as it was being constructed.

This one started off to the left with a projector projecting images of swirling dark clouds or gasses. As you walked along to the right, it became a painting and got more and more detailed.

There was a long mirror starting at the place where you can see the two people from the bottom of their shoes. Viewing it from afar made it look like it went from nothing to this world back to nothing again...very cool.

In this room you could grab a photo block on the shelf and stick it in the red thing to have it play a time lapse video of the artist creating that piece of art. There were also photos of all the artists installing or creating their art in the building.

This room was our favorite!
It was called "Chamber" by Charles Sandison.
There were 10 projectors in this room. All over the walls and ceiling were various words, shapes and numbers in various colors and moving all about. If you walked in front of a projector the words appeared on you. It was brilliant!

Some of the words and sticks and such swirled around and it was almost soothing to watch.

There were some gigantic floor pillows to sit or lay on so you could gaze up at the ceiling and walls.

I could have stayed in this room for hours! Our tour guide told us that the artist programmed this images to never repeat themselves...totally unique every second of every day.

This bungee room was so fun! Art you can touch (and walk through) is always a plus in my book!

We enjoyed our time and want to bring our families next time we come! This art is just too fun not to share! Hope you enjoyed my little tour. Now, mark your calendar for March 6th and go!

~Rose

Cell Phones are the Cigarettes of the 21st Century

Cell Phones are the Cigarettes of the 21st Century
Kind of crazy!!!! I do believe that cell phone radiation is not good. I don't ever put my cell in my pocket and do try to limit my time talking on it. Seems like children and pregnant women are most at risk.
~Rose

Gluten Free

We're making a concerted effort to stay away from gluten recently. Through our nutritionist we found out that Levi and Emma are sensitive to gluten. So, I found some gluten free flower at Costco last week and will attempt pancakes with it! We are enjoying some rice crackers I found at Costco as well along with their tasty hummus and veggies!I love, LOVE, love it when I find Levi in this position!
What a cutie!

~Rose

Hope's Famous American Idol Drawings

We thought it was only fitting to have Hope make a portrait for Tori Kelly. Love you Tori!

~Rose

Starr Academy Week 17

Yesterday we came to the half way point of Hope's school year! 17 weeks down, 17 weeks to go! We read about Jericho this week and Hope made a notebook page:Owen finished up with his addition facts last week. We used this chart to mark off the facts that he's learned.

He had his first subtraction lesson this week and doesn't seem to be having any trouble with it.

Hope and I are still studying Egypt and played a very fun game called Senet.

Emmaline continued her Kindergarten journey with a unit on elephants. I found this cool book at the library (well online at the library...I order books and pick them up at my branch) about paper crafts. We made this darling elephant that Emma named Ellie.

Emma's words to remember are "I will remember what God has done for me."

I thought Hope did an excellent coloring job on this coloring page. It's beautiful!

This is Owen's Bible reader. We use the back of a bookmark as a reading guide. I drew a red arrow so Owen can sort of keep track where he is. His reading is coming along slowly but surely. This story was 3 1/2 pages long and despite his less than glowing attitude, he read the whole thing in one sitting. Some days are easier and better than others with Owen. I just feel like he's on the cusp of reading fluently, but for now I'm being patient and encouraging!

We got this cool "Traveling Journal" in the mail on Thursday. A 5th grade class in Temecula, CA is sending out traveling journals in hopes of getting kids from all across the country to add a journal entry about their state. Connor (whose journal this is) mailed it to a friend in Texas, who added info about his state and then his mom asked if we'd like it. I said yes and today Hope enjoyed writing about her life and our beautiful state. We're mailing it off tomorrow to friends in Montana tomorrow. I love this idea...we may try one of our own "traveling journals" some day!

Another cool coloring page that Hope was working on this week while I read aloud to her.

~Rose

Museum Time!

We were invited to join one of our favorite families for an outing to the Museum of Nature & Science today. With their membership they got us in for free! Emma was with my mom for a special sleepover so she missed out on some fun but it was her choice to go with Grandma Kate and she was happy about it. This thing was so cool. It was a rotating table that could zoom in our out of a satellite map of Colorado.

This photo does not do justice to the absolutely beautiful view from the museum.

What cutie pies! I love how Levi is grabbing Collin's face!

This was in the Expedition Health area. It was so fun!
Here Levi is walking across a "rushing river"...he loved it!

We watched a live show about super foods. Hope Starr continuing in her stardom was called onstage with 2 other kids to help with the show. She was a spinach super hero!

These two get along so sweetly.
Here they are experimenting away!

This was such a fun game! I beat Desi pretty quickly.
It supposedly measures your brain waves and the goal is to have mellow brain activity rather than active brain activity...the more relaxed you are the ball rolls to your opponents side. It was wild! Our friends Sean & Jess tried it and were very evenly matched. Desi and Sean were evenly matched as well so we tried different tactics to distract and stress them out. Pretty funny.

Thanks for a GREAT day you guys!

~Rose

The Church of Facebook

Just finished this book. It was a quick, easy read (you can read it in a few days easily). I really enjoyed the various stories and statistics, but the last two chapters were the best. He talked about the good, the bad and the ugly in regards to living in an "always-on" internet world. I'm still pondering some of the things I read from the last two chapters (which if you can't read the whole book, just read those two chapters!). I thought there were some great points made and would recommend this book if you can borrow it or grab it from the library.
~Rose