Shhhhh! Picasso at Work!

Note the intensity with which the artist displays her work. It speaks from the depth of her life experience; the things she has seen. It is a remarkable translation of societal movements viewed from the artist's vantage point. And her dexterity and range of motion leave nothing to chance.

She is...a fingerpainter.

That's what Kaelyn and Michelle were up to this week. Kaelyn's been harder to entertain as the day goes on, so they're taking up fingerpainting. And next week, we're working on a felt board because the Advent felt calendar was such a hit. So we'll see what cooks up on the felt board as the week goes on.

You certainly know you're friendly if you can outgreet the Wal-Mart greeter. Michelle was in the checkout so K and I were walking around the Wal-Mart entrance to the mall. Every time we walked by the greeter, she would say, "Bye bye." She charmed the Wal-Mart greeter. She's quite a bit of fun walking in the mall too, because she'll try and pull you in the direction she wants to go. Even if she weighs only 25 pounds, she can be persuasive. She leans back and pulls at your finger (she only likes holding one at a time) until the decision is made (sometimes we go her way, other times we go mine). For the most part though, if you keep going back to the "neighs" (the horsey merry-go-round), you're fine. Or just find a ball in a store. Or somebody her size who she can talk to. She's pretty easy going.

So this week was definitely a fast week. I put in 60+ hours in three and a half days working on an event at the church (which happened last night). And we had about 120 teens show up! That's really not the whole story though, because the band that we got was absolutely amazing. Gifted, talented, fun, relatable. It was an incredible night. For those of you who know him, Jimmy Rushton (who led the band) is an incredibly gifted individual. And a very good friend. Pretty stunning night though. We rented lights (which I learned how to set up), we had several high quality videos, a great actor, and then I got to speak at the end of the night. All in all, a fantastic night, and an exhausting next day! We were all pretty wiped today, so we sat back, did very little, and loved every minute of it. I really haven't spent that much time with Kaelyn and Michelle, so these next few days will be very nice.

So aside from work, things keep moving along here at home. Kaelyn continues to grow her vocabulary and opinions. She really likes walking around the house in her momma's "shees" (shoes), and today we found that she'll even wear her mom's jacket! She's playing more games too, and will sometimes just spend time exploring. But as always, just give her a ball, and she will play. Pretty enjoyable little one.

Michelle has been tutoring over these last few weeks and enjoying that quite a bit. Who knows? Maybe she'll start a tutoring business! She had quite an encouragement too when her student got a 94% on his math exam. That was a great boost to her week as well.

So with that, the intention is to post a bit more over these next few days, but I wanted to leave you with some recent pictures of our little goof tearing around the house! These pictures are getting increasingly hard to come by, because she doesn't like the flash of the camera. To get these coat pictures, I had to chase her around the house and surprise her with the camera. Little mover!