Elise.....you will be so proud.

So, my dad is an artist. His career was a furniture designer. He's retired, and now he paints. He's always painted, but never had the time. Now he does, and my house is filled with his art--I love it. While I am creative with some things, I do not have this gene anywhere in my body. I cannot even draw stick figures well. So far, my children have been quite deprived of a humanities education--I avoid doing art or even teaching them about it. I skip the poetry reading in our curriculum and have not taught them one spec of anything about music. My youngest son loves to draw and color. I suspect he may have my dad's artistic talent. My oldest son loves music and regularly asks for guitar lessons and even sleeps with music playing in his room every night. I am a bad homeschooling mother for not cultivating these loves in my children, so things are going to change around here.

You are aware that I recently switched curriculum to My Father's World and thankfully we will be doing lots of artsy fartsy stuff (that I will actually do). As part of their art this coming year, I had to purchase some nicer art supplies for them. My dad was in town, so we went over to Art Mart in STL and got what we needed. My dad was in a state of complete bliss while we were in that store. It made me want to do a math problem.

Anyway.

Yesterday the boys wanted to paint because they knew the new supplies were there. Although I did not get out the new stuff, I did give in and allowed them to paint. They were so happy. Here's what they painted:

A Spidey costume always helps get the creative juices flowing.

So, now I can actually say that I'm excited about doing these subjects with my kiddos this fall. Are you ready for this? I even played classical music for Michael while he was painting.

So, what else is going on? I'm still trying to figure out what I'm going to do with the boys this summer. I will be struggling every day just holding myself back from starting with my new curriculum. But I really do need to get Cal reading just a little bit more, so I'll wait. I was thinking about doing an extreme weather unit study, but Michael has been having crazy nightmares about earthquakes and the house ripping apart, so I'm thinking that's a really bad idea. I'm considering doing Potato Chip Science because one of my friends is doing it and it looks fun and easy. I'm also considering a Grossology book of experiments. I have it on hold at the library and am waiting patiently for it to be available for me to check out. I think the boys would absolutely love making snot and blisters and fake poop. Why do I even say "think"? I KNOW they would.

I scored big today over at a friend's house. Just this morning, I was looking at this book on Amazon.

I almost added it to my cart and bought it, but I kind of ran out of time and needed to go, so I figured I'd do it later. I get to her house and she says she has two bins full of stuff she wants to give away. I'm welcome to go through it and take whatever I want. What do you think was RIGHT ON TOP?

I'm considering going through this book so that I can obtain a well educated mind. I really don't have one. Yes, I have several degrees, but I was not educated classically and I feel completely inadequate about it. I have not read hardly any of the classics--those book lists that are floating around that are like the "100 books everyone should have read" type things?--yeah, I've read like 6 of them. So, anyway--I'm considering. It will take me out of my comfort zone, but I think it will be good for me.

I once almost made my friend Elise pass out when I told her I had not read "Anne of Green Gables"--tragical, huh? Can you tell I'm reading it now?