Markers

Beatrice loves art. Every morning she points to the baskets of paint and markers and says, "pai, pai" (paint) or "mo, mo" (more). We do paint a lot, but she works with markers even more often because I assume it might be a little easier for her to work independently while I clean up some dishes. She does pretty well with them and loves opening and closing the tops, coloring on her pants, the table, her chair and even on the paper once in a while. (thank goodness for washable art supplies!) She also likes to put the markers in her mouth. I generally catch this pretty quickly, but one day I learned a new fact about markers. You can actually suck all the color out of a marker! If one were to nibble off a small piece of the marker tip and suck very hard for a little while, all the color will come into one's mouth and the marker will be left with a white tip! Thanks for that discovery, Bea!

Papa's Waiting in the Treehouse

Nathan's Papa in California built a treehouse in his front yard. He described it to Nathan on the phone and told him to come visit. When Nathan found out that we weren't going to California today, Papa reassured him that the treehouse would be there waiting for him to play in when he visits. At the time, Nathan didn't say much in response but I guess he took it pretty seriously. Now Nathan has told me several times that we need to get on an airplane to California to visit Papa because he's waiting for us in the treehouse.

Yes, this was a pretty successful way to make everyone in our household want to come visit Nana and Papa soon... but I think Papa also had a pretty good time building it. This is no simple treehouse but is just as elaborate as the 3 level treehouse he build for my sister and I. The new tree house has a swing, a climbing wall, a pirate flag and now after a trip to New Orleans it is covered in Mardi Gras beads. I think Nathan's right, Papa is probably waiting for us in the tree house.