Another Teenager!!

 Bella turned 13 today.  I can't believe she's officially a teenager.  She's been acting like one for a while now, but today it's official.  She's really a great girl. Straight A student, great pianist and saxophone player, great artist, great friend and sister, thoughtful, friendly, and helpful.  She listens to the spirit and makes good choices and I know she'll do amazing things in her life.  I'm very proud of her.  Due to Covid, we couldn't have the kind of party a 13 year old should have, but she never complained.  I suggested an out-door party, but she decided what she wanted was to have a get-together at the mall.  She invited 3 friends to have lunch with her at the mall after school on Friday.  They walked there together from school, walked around the mall buying matching shirts, and then ate at one of the restaurants that was open.  (They were the only customers).  I came as they finished their meal and paid for them and took all the girls home.  Not ideal but a good compromise and I was happy that she felt like she got to celebrate.  Today she was allowed to have every meal she wanted - crepes, croissant sandwiches, sushi, etc. and got a bunch of presents.  Otherwise it was a rainy, cold Sunday and between church meetings and the rain, we didn't do a whole lot.  Hopefully next year will be a bit more exciting.  In any case, so happy to have Bella in my life - my little mother's day baby.  I learn from her every day and in this family full of boys, we girls have to stick together!

A couple cute pictures of Peter from a few days ago:

He wanted to play playdoh so I got it out and then decided to add some other things we don't usually use with playdoh but that I thought would be fun - beads, googly eyes, gems, pipe cleaners, etc.  First we made bugs - eyes, antennae, spots, etc.  but he wanted to just mess around. We made a little animal bead zoo on the table with popsicle sticks and then  I let him do some fine motor skills practice.  He randomly placed every animal bead and gem he could fit onto the circles of dough, peeled them all off and placed them all over again and again and again.  He had a wonderful time and we got to talk about the colors of the beads, the animals, and the textures of the various items he placed.  It made playdoh new again and was a fun activity for both of us.

Bella had been painting rocks and he wanted to do some painting too.  I decided to do a little shape practice. I got out some sacrament cups we had leftover from when we did it at home during the first wave of covid last year. We used them like stamps and made circles in the paint with the cups.  We tried various colors and tried drawing the same shape with paintbrushes too.  I love doing little crafts and art projects with kids.  Everything is so new and exciting to them and it makes my inability to do any actual quality art inconsequential.  The fact that I can draw a complete circle makes me a rock-star among them.  It's pretty gratifying. :)