Animals and artwork

Daddy had a whole day off last weekend, yay! He and Nora enjoyed their morning beverages together on the couch.

While I was in the kitchen making dinner on Sunday, I noticed that it was suspiciously quiet in the living room, where Nora had been playing. I went looking for her, and found that she'd transferred all her dirty laundry into one of her dresser drawers, pulled the laundry basket into the middle of her room, and was sitting in it eating some O's.
She brought her little red bag too, of course.
This morning we went to the Ray of Light farm with Nora's friends Luke, Taylor, Sebastian, Ziggy, and Arlo (and their mamas). We'd all been once before, but it was before the kiddos were walking - it was a whole different experience this time!

Nora checking out the rear end of Bullwinkle the mule.
Hey turkeys, come over here and see me!
I like the farm! Trying to reach up high enough to pet a sheep.
Convincing Taylor to try petting the sheep.
And finally, Nora's masterpieces from her first two weeks of art class. Week one was collage (with nontoxic, edible cornstarch paste - I got the recipe!). This was actually a little more involved before it came home - some of the more interesting bits got picked off while it was hanging down low on the fridge.
Week two: painting. This work features a combination of fingerpainting, brush work, and other objects (brush handles, sponges) in the paint. Nora's done a bunch of fingerpainting before, but she's never tried a brush. She really liked it! Before moving onto the actual paint, the kids painted with lots of different brushes and sponges with water on huge sheets of paper taped to a wall, and I think that was Nora's favorite part of class. She and the other two older kids in the class got a little confused about the whole "brush" terminology, though - Nora thought the wet paintbrush was for brushing her hair, and two others thought it was for brushing their teeth! It's really interesting to watch them make connections to what they know when they're learning new things.

Nora also has one more sign that I didn't list the other day - yesterday morning she came into the kitchen and very clearly signed, "banana please." I had no idea she knew the sign for banana! I gave her one, of course. :)