CREATIVE KIDS

I feel lucky to have had the 'creative bug' most of my life, and I am thrilled to see it manifesting itself in these youngsters.  Iris and Elsa come by it rightly, as their father and his father, too, are quite artistic and musically talented as well.  Their mom, perhaps not a 'drawer' has plenty of creative juices of her own.

Both girls like to sketch and spend much time in detailed work.

 
On our last Nonnie day we had arranged to have Iris and Elsa's close friends Quinn and Abe come for a couple of hours.  Unfortunately I arranged for them to come in the afternoon and not the morning, because typical of children, every fifteen minutes or so I heard, "When are Quinn and Abe coming?"  

Awhile back I heard about a new game created by a Wisconsin man, I think called YOXO, but have never been able to find it.  The object of the game is to make things out of cardboard tubes, etc.  The 'game' provides connectors, etc., I believe.  At that time I started saving all the cardboard tubes we came across.  I had quite a collection.  So I put the tubes out, duct tape, masking tape, Popsicle sticks, other cardboard pieces, markers, and a random bunch of things.

The kids picked these up and immediately started making music, and having such fun doing it, too.

The I simply left them alone, with only one suggestion that they work cooperatively as a team.  

They worked long and hard and made the above ship from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

and the Chocolate Factory itself.  Their 'invention' was quite elaborate and took them a good long time of being a working team.

On another note when Jonel was growing up our household was rarely without multiple cats, both adult and kittens.  When we lived in the country we always had a plenitude of outdoor cats, so it was a real pleasure to see the girls get their first kittens.

They called me almost as soon as these two little ones got to their 'farm' and begged me to come see them, and without much hesitation I was on the road.

These cats are so adorable, and woke up my latent longing to have a cat as well.  Perhaps this is in my near future, too.

And not to forget my love of food...
Sunday mornings I prepare dough for fresh pizza, which we have with a movie each Sunday evening.  The batch of dough is enough for either 3 loaves of bread, 3 pizzas, or any combination thereof.  I usually refrigerate the remaining dough to be used during the week in some way or another,

...this time it was for calzones...

I fried lots of onions and garlic in olive oil, when they were soft and sweet I added Italian sausage removed from its casings and cooked until no longer pink.  I then added chunks of zucchini, and when that was soft topped it with a bunch of basil and cherry tomatoes.  Added salt and pepper and just a touch of sugar....

Believe me, I cannot tell you just how delicious this was...

It is amazing that it took only about 8 minutes in a hot oven to bake.

With the abundance of veggies I believe we will be having calzones on a weekly basis for the near future.