Book Cover – Thea Stilton

Zoë did this for a project in school when she was in Y2.

Halloween Poster 2014

By Zoë – Halloween 2014.  We had this at our door to show that trick-or-treaters are welcome.

Happy City Girl

One of my all-time favorite drawings by Zoë.  Amazing details, lovely colors.  - May 2013

Keith Haring-Inspired Art

By Zoë – Dec 2, 2014

Letters to the Tooth Fairy

Here are a couple of letters that Zoe wrote to the Tooth Fairy this year. I love her drawings !

Letter to Santa (2013)

(Yes, Santa gave her what she asked for.)

A Star Wars Card for Josh

Josh is away at camp for two nights and Zoe’s been missing him.   As soon as she came home from school today, she set to work on this card for Josh –complete with cut-out letters and pop-up light sabres and a word search.  I was impressed with how much work went into this and how she stuck to it until the card was all finished.  Best of all, she did it “all by Zoe-self!”

So sweet!

Welcome Home, Daddy!

Part of the Welcome Home card that Josh and Zoë made for Chris…  They actually made a little A5 booklet and this was on Page 3.  Taped to some of the pages were mini chocolate bars… SO sweet!

 

Zoe’s Self-Portrait

Treasures

One of the joys of parenting is being on the receiving end of little treasures like these:

 

 

Zoë started working on hers when she came home at lunch time.  It started out as a simple ice cream cone.  Then she thought she would make punch-outs using glitter paper that we had lying around.  She had to abandon her project when we left to go to her dance class.

When we came back, Josh was home from school.  She showed Josh her project.  Josh wanted to make something, too. 

What a great afternoon it was.  The two of them –one on the floor, one at the little table, –working quietly together, occasionally offering an opinion or two.  If I so much as looked their way, they would both squeal out, “Don’t look!  We’re not ready yet.”

When they finally were, they proudly presented these to us.  They stood, one to each side, eagerly pointing out what they had done.   I love how earnestly they’d worked on these and how proud they were that what they did gave us so much pleasure.

Josh told us, “It’s more fun to give than to receive.”

Stones | A Poem

Josh had to do a poetry scavenger hunt as his homework last week.  He had to read a series of poems in order to answer the ten questions that his teacher had assigned the class.  These were mainly silly, goofy poems from GigglePoetry.com. He had so much fun reading the poems that he got inspired to write his own.

Stones are big

Stones are small

Rocks are everywhere

Boulders are gigantic

and stones are ugly

and pretty

Rocks are magnets.

Daddy and Zoë

Zoë is such a daddy’s girl, like every little girl should be.  When I see how they are together, it just melts my heart. 

Yes, the other person in the drawing is supposed to be Chris.  No, he is not in a dress.  According to Zoë, he’s wearing a pair of pants and he’s standing with his legs apart.  The pink thing on top of his head is not a flower, but a crown.  “Daddy’s the king and I am the princess.”  Under a rainbow canopy, with flowers on top. 

 

 

The yellow strips at the bottom were from those plastic packaging strips that hold cartons together during shipment.  She got some from one of the boxes that came in for me and decided to cut them into short strips and glue them to the bottom of her drawing to “make it prettier.”

Whiteboard Fun

How many ways could you find a use for those {red} round magnets on the whiteboard?  That was what Josh, Zoë, and I were trying to find out while waiting for Chris to finish work the other day.

 

Here are a few that we came up with…

 

I drew the clown and the birds; Zoë did the butterfly; the rest were Josh’s.

 

Zoë drew this one below and proceeded to sound out and write volcano (!).  The letters that follow –“dits it sl…” –are supposed to stand for “that is shooting…” and then she managed to sound out and spell lava.  Josh added Mount St. Helens.

 

Another one of Josh’s, of course –a bomber plane dropping bombs on a tank.  The shooting piece of the tank broke off, he said.

 

This is supposed to be a scene from the Angry Birds game –drawn by Josh.  The girl on the lower right corner playing with her pet birds was drawn by Zoë.

 

Princess Zoë’s self-portrait, with falling star.

Princess - 001

 

All of Zoë’s drawings lately are about princesses, flowers, cupcakes, butterflies, and all things pretty.  This one here is of a princess.  You could tell she’s a princess because she wears a crown.  The little green things near her neck are her “humps”;  I’d thought they were fairy wings.  When I asked her what those humps are for, Zoë said, “You know, those things on the shoulders of the dresses?” (The puffy little bell sleeves!)  For some reason, there’s a spotlight on the princess… and there is a “frog” on the roof of the house.

Art… by Josh

It seems quite a while now since Josh made a drawing that’s not Star Wars-related, not battle-related.  It’s almost like he’s lost interest in drawing anything else.  So it was a very pleasant surprise that he came and showed me this:

This is supposed to a drawing of an elephant in the plains of Africa.  But of course, there’s a boatman there, too. Hmmm…  I asked Josh where the elephant’s ears are.  He said they’re invisible.  Also, the trunk is not long enough because he ran out of room on the paper.

Butterfly

 

Josh made this butterfly all by himself. He drew the butterfly, cut it out, decorated it.  He was inspired by the butterfly that Zoë brought home from school one day. {If I could find where it is, I will scan that one, too.  After seeing Josh decorate his with glitter glue, she decided to put some on her butterfly, too, and it came out really pretty!}

Mommy & Me by Zoë

 

Zoë came home from school today and excitedly pulled this out of her bag and said, “Mommy, I made this for you!”  She then proceeded to point out to me which each person is.  She said that she made a rainbow over my head and that the words spell I love you.  (And she almost got it right –I L-V U!)

Totally made my day.

Paper Plate Face

 

Zoë was invited to an art jammin’ party last week and here she is with her friend, K, making paper plate faces.   The party was held at an art studio downtown and they had two small crafts table out for the younger kids.  They had googly eyes, pipe cleaners, glitter glue, popsicle sticks, foam stickers, etc. –dream supplies for the little ones.  Zoë didn’t want to leave the crafts table to join any of the games!

 

She needed help with getting the pipe cleaner in place, but did everything else herself.  Ta da!

Zoë’s First Canvas Art

 

Zoë’s Art

 

Zoë must have been watching closely whenever Josh would draw, because lately she just started to draw and draw and draw.  She’s been asking for pieces of paper and she turns around and comes back with these. With no help from anybody.

I particularly love this one above.  She played around with the “o” in her name and made lollipops and flowers and a smiley face and she colored each one!  How cute is that?  I love that she “framed her work, too!  Please excuse my mommy pride, my friends! 

She would usually draw quietly and then she would come up to me with her hands behind her back and tell me, “Mommy, I have a surprise for you.  Close your eyes.”  I would close my eyes.  I would peek through my fingers –because it takes her quite some time before she would tell me to open my eyes.  It turns out that she had folded up her drawing to a small square and then she would stand there slowly unfolding it before presenting the drawing to me.  She would do this each and every time.

This one here is supposed to be a field of flowers.  The people are tiny “because they are babies.”  The colorful squares are windows.  The black boxes are “clouds” and the blue lines are supposed to be “rain.”