16 October 2011

Of Painting

Friday night, after much anticipation on my part, I finally got around to trying out this recipe I found on Pinterest a few months ago:

Micaiah was also very intrigued as I gave her no information what I was doing, but, in her general interest to always know what Mom is up to in the kitchen, she kept a pretty close watch over the proceedings, confused over the fact that Momma was cooking neither food nor drink.  It was like 20 questions and Mommy was not cooperating.

By the end of the day, these six jars just made me happy inside every time I saw them:


So, having still not told our daughter of our big plans, it was a great motivator to get her to finish her nachos last night for dinner when we announced, "But when you're done, we're going to paint - with our fingers!"

"'Pink' [this is how she pronounces the word - so cute] our fingers!  And I get a brush?!" she asks excitedly as she demonstrates painting her nails, an activity we have not done in some time, but she loves all the same.

"Well, no, we're not painting our fingers, and we're not using our brushes.  We'll use our fingers to paint on paper!"  At this point I realize we may have done things backward when our daughter is quite adept with paint and a brush and yet is baffled with the concept of finger paints.  But anything involving paint is a good thing for her, so she's all set to finish those nachos.

"I want green paint!"  This is what we hear non-stop for the entire process of spreading newspaper and preparing palettes on paper plates.  Surprisingly enough, from a girl who doesn't always name her colors correctly, she actually reaches for the green paint first.  Go figure.


And the rest of the rainbow follows quickly after.  She may not have understood at first, but she is loving this!

Emmett, though, is still having difficulty with the concept.  Though Mom repeatedly dips her finger in color and smears on his canvas of brown packing paper, he still insists the best place for the paint is his mouth.


Not wanting to encourage him, but curious as this corn starch/sugar/salt combo seems to be quite delectable to our little man, I sneak in a small taste, too - not too bad, actually.  It's at this point I remember corn starch is a primary ingredient for home-made pudding.  I have essentially made our son a plate of very vibrantly-hued pudding.  So, whatever.  I tried to take the plate away after he finished orange and yellow, but he was so darn disappointed and it really wasn't that bad for him, so I let him finish.  He never did do any painting (other than of his lips).


Micaiah finds this all very strange.


"All done!"


Meanwhile, Micaiah has run out of brown paper and turns to Mom's method, just using the palette as the canvas - we're all about re-purposing in this household.


Overall, a rather fun evening and, I think our kids would agree, not a bad way to spend a half hour.  But we might wait to give Emmett his own paint again for awhile.

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