Art and Tea

A few more Camp Avonlea pictures to share. Ilex, above, snacked on an apple off of the tree as she practiced her photography. The girls, below, intent on their watercoloring:

A couple snapshots of the end of camp tea party. The girls created place cards and party favor bouquets. They picked wild plums and blackberries to add to a fruit salad, cherry tomatoes from the garden, and herbs to flavor the cucumber sandwiches. Lavender lemonade was delightfully refreshing. The girls served scones with Devonshire cream and blueberry tea for dessert. We ate while they recited The Lady of Shallot. (They each chose portions to memorize.)

The art work created during camp (watercolors, scrapbook notebooks, and jewelry) was on display in the art room.

I think the girls had a wonderful time!

Little Things #2,759...

Girl Camp, Year 1

~Camp Avonlea~

Artistic Camp for Young Ladies

(to be exact)

You've all seen what Boy Camp looks like in our lives. Drake (my nephew) has tagged along for the last two years. This time, it was his sister's turn. Ilex was one of four girls attending Camp Avonlea this week. (Heather's daughter was also in attendance!)

I've bragged about my sister Shannon before. Her shop. Her entertaining. Her home. She's done it again, hostessing the camp she wishes she could have attended as a young lady (and as an Anne of Green Gables-obsessed, artistic/creative girl).

Camping (4 days) in a large white tent, nestled in the garden. Poet's Garden, reinvented. Shannon as camp counselor. Dreamy, is it not?
I swear, I wish I was 12 again! (Who in their right mind would wish that?!)
While the original music score from the Anne of Green Gables movie played through outdoor speakers, the girls chose camp names for themselves: all characters from the Anne of Green Gables books.
And what to do for four days? Why, art, of course: living an artful life. Multiple classes each day including watercolor, scrap booking, jewelry making, gardening, and flower arranging. A nature hike at McDowell Creek Park providing collections for nature art. The girls created cards in the first few hours of their first day at camp, invitations sent to their mothers for a tea party on the last day of camp. Artful baking, decorating, and hostessing.

What do you think of the art room?

You might well ask what *I* had to do with any of this. (Particularly with a house-full of boys.) Other than the fact that I am a girl who is starting to feel that side of me ebb slowly from existence...... I (you may call me Miss Stacy) was asked to teach a two-hour photography class on the first afternoon of camp.

We sat on a quilt in the garden discussing photography tips. We then hunted through magazines (Victoria and Real Simple), cutting out pictures that inspired us. After that, we were ready to practice taking pictures!

What do you do at Poet's when you want to take a picture from a new perspective? Climb a tree!
I had just as much fun taking pictures as the girls did!

Hopefully I'll be able to share more pictures with you tomorrow!

Then Sings My Soul...

The beginner piano books Levi's instructor has provided him with have been a delight this past year! The Classics books feature very simple melodies from classical pieces, perfect as an introduction to classical music and very similar to the melodies featured on the Little Einsteins show (the exact melody, in some cases). Levi memorized several of the tunes and will often walk up to the piano to play them.


My favorite, however, has been Hymns! The book includes simple versions of Jesus Loves Me; Do Lord; Stand Up, Stand Up for Jesus; Holy, Holy, Holy; This Little Light of Mine; Fairest Lord Jesus; Joyful, Joyful We Adore Thee; O Worship the King; What a Friend We Have in Jesus; Come Thou Almighty King; and For the Beauty of the Earth. The words are included for each of the hymns. Usually this is the first book Levi grabs when he goes to the piano to practice, and the songs I hear weeks later.

As a way to reinforce the beautiful language of the hymns he is learning for piano, I write the words on his handwriting paper and have him copy them.


We have also read a few stories from Hymns for a Kid's Heart and plan on finishing the book by the end of the year. The book features true stories of 12 hymns, a corresponding devotional for each hymn, piano music and words, as well as a short prayer and Bible verse. I am considering purchasing Christmas Carols for a Kid's Heart and Passion Hymns for a Kid's Heart for the Christmas and Easter seasons. A CD of all the hymns is included with the book. We have listened to it many times and I enjoy listening to Levi sing along.
If you are looking for an inexpensive CD of Hymns for children, check out Cedarmont Kids. 16 Hymns (including O Worship The King, Doxology, For The Beauty Of The Earth, and Amazing Grace) for under $4! We also enjoy the Songs of Praise CD. Both CDs (and others from Cedarmont Kids) have been popular with the boys.

In Our Little World

If anyone has been wondering what we've been up to lately (Hi, Grandma and Grandpa!), we've been doing a little of everything. The boys have been playing outside like crazy (soaking up the last of summer). We've been trying to work on a few projects like the side porch/theater.
Saturday night we headed over to the park to hear Little River Band in concert.

Leif thought it was terrific, but he wanted to dance all over the place (running here and there), so we had to take a walk.
The night was beautiful!
We headed to our car when the last song was playing. We watched the whole fireworks show from there. The view was terrific...and no crowds! (Pretty pitiful picture. It really was a nice display!)
Russ went out early the next morning with Leif to chase hot air balloons.

Later that evening we had a belated birthday party for Leif.

Monday night we played softball at my parents house, again. No pictures. What was I thinking?!

I have some fun photos to show you of an event going on this week. Maybe I'll have them up Friday.

Other than that, it is normal life around here. School should probably start next week. The school room is an abysmal disaster, and I have tons of planning to do!

The book stack on my bedside table is ridiculous. The Olympics really cut into my reading time.

Library fines are piling up. My laundry pile has overtaken my bedroom... I know. I'm killing you with all the excitement.

What about you? What are you up to this week? Ready for school to start? (Or has it already started?) Does it feel like summer still lingers, or is it heading out the door?

Jeeves

Irreverent, sarcastic, full of dry humor, what? Slang, metaphors and similes of the most imaginative sort, Jeeves delivers the entertainment. Life With Jeeves is a volume containing three Jeeves books: The Inimitable Jeeves, Very Good Jeeves, Right Ho Jeeves. I only made it through The Inimitable Jeeves before having to loan the book to my mother so that she could read it before our book club meeting. She promptly made it through all three. I suppose I'll have to keep up.

A friend who falls in love with a new girl every two weeks and ends up 'in the soup' and in need of rescuing, a butler of the highest caliber who becomes cool and distant when Bertie insists upon wearing outlandish clothing, a haughty Aunt who meddles in everyone's business... what more could you want?

pg. 132

A bit thick I mean to say! We Woosters are all for the good old mediaeval hosp. and all that, but when it comes to finding chappies collaring your bed, the thing becomes a trifle too mouldy. I hove a shoe, and Bingo sat up, gurgling.

pg. 137

The thing at the outset was merely one of those weird dramas which you dig out of books published around Christmas time and entitled Twelve Little Plays for the Tots, or something like that. The kids drooled on in the usual manner, the booming voice of Bingo ringing out from time to time behind the scenes when the fatheads forgot their lines; the audience was settling down into the sort of torpor usual on these occasions, when the first of Bingo's interpolated bits occurred. It was that number which What's-her-name sings in that revue at the Palace--you would recognize the tune if I hummed it, but I can never get hold of the dashed thing. It always got three encores at the Palace, and it went well now, even with a squeaky-voiced child jumping on and off the key like a chamois of the Alps leaping from crag to crag. Even the Tough Eggs liked it. At the end of the second refrain the entire house was shouting for an encore, and the kid with the voice like a slate-pencil took a deep breath and started to let it go once more.

pg. 158

Once a year the committee of the Drones decides that the old club could do with a wash and a brush-up, so they shoo us out and dump us down for a few weeks at some other institution. This time we were roosting at the Senior Liberal, and personally I had found the strain pretty fearful. I mean, when you've got used to a club where everything's nice and cheery, and where, if you want to attract a chappie's attention, you heave a bit of bread at him, it kind of damps you to come to a place where the youngest member is about eighty-seven and it isn't considered good form to talk to anyone unless you and he were through the Peninsular War together. It was a relief to come across Bingo. We started to talk in hushed voices.

'This club,' I said, 'is the limit.'

'It's the eel's eyebrows,' agreed young Bingo. 'I believe that old boy over by the window has been dead three days, but I don't like to mention it to anyone.'

If you are in the mood to watch British comedy, Jeeves and Wooster might be just the thing. It will have you in stitches. It took me a little while to adjust to House (Hugh Laurie) as a young, cheerful, and clueless English chap, but it added to the humor.

Gorgeous, Gorgeous, Gorgeous!

I could go on and on about this beautiful, intimate, simple, tasteful, relaxing wedding for hours. The bride. The weather, oh the weather!! I could describe the stunning location in thousands of words. Instead, I'll share my favorite images of the evening.