afternoon painting

 Last week I brought out the paints one afternoon.  The house was clean (because we'd had friends over...I love how that works: we get friends and I've cleaned the house!), the kids were happy, and we sat together at the table and painted.

Ellie was very serious while she was painting

But she found it completely hilarious when she got paint on her fingers.
She tossed her head from side to side (so adorable I can't even stand it) and said
"Paint on mine-a-finger. Ellie silly!"

 Speaking of sillies,
this boy.  His stories.  His slight lisp as he struggles to get all the bursting words in his head to come out in a sentence.
His facial expressions.

 Gosh I love him.

 And me.  I painted a bit too.

We had to have scrambled eggs and a smoothie for dinner because I sat with them and painted instead of prepped the meal I had planned to make.

Honestly? They liked the meal better anyway.
And I got to stop, savor, and breathe for a moment with my darlings.
 So we all won.
(Except maybe for Kent.  He didn't get to be there with us, and he had to eat scrambled eggs for dinner...)

Our finished masterpieces:

Ellie just kept layering on color after color after color.  
I think we'll call hers "Boulder Impressions" or something like that.