New school

Miss Lu likes her second grade class at Columbia--and I like her kind, experienced, organized teacher! They had a parent night a week after things started, and all the kids drew pictures of their families. Miss Lucy's? The bright one. With a warning ...

A royal family

Just in case you need to feel special ... 

... Miss Lucy will make you your own customized crown ...

... and she'll make sure you wear it all day!

Puppets

Miss Lucy is currently in love with making all sorts of puppets and masks and the like. Such as Dog and Panda, who, after some consideration, Miss Lu changed to Siamese Cat.

Lucy's religious art

Miss Lu has been quite insistent of late that her job is to be an artist. And when we returned from church on Sunday, she let us know that she was going to spend the rest of the day making special Sunday art. Personally, I love the results.

The Tree of Life

Jesus coming out of the tomb

Jesus when he returns to Earth (with singing angels)

Miss Lucy's sweet testimony, which she wrote on the back of her Second Coming picture ("I know that Jesus and God will come again and meet. In their command they will show their selves. This is my testimony and I know this is true and in fact. Amen.")

Miss Lu also bore her testimony in Sacrament Meeting last fast Sunday. I was home with a sick Calvin Jesse, so I missed it, but I heard wonderful reports :) She went up all by herself, said that she believed in God and Jesus and that she knows that they love us and that Jesus will come again to the earth, said amen, and returned to a very proud Mr. Nick. I love seeing her own spiritual awareness developing and growing. And I love her artwork!

Gobble Gobble!

 

Miss Lu has been supplying us with fabulous Thanksgiving artwork all week long. We celebrated the day with what has become our Los Alamos tradition: Thanksgiving lunch with friends, followed by board games, pie, more games, and then dinner. (And then more games and lunch the following day.) It was fantastic :)

I've been practicing my photography with my new camera: I snagged a few shots of our food before we took it to the dinner.

And at the end of the day ...

Colors!

Ever creative, Miss Lucy's latest artistic trend is the use of color. Lots of color.

 

 

 

 

Rainbows for Miss Lu

Miss Lucy and I made the following rainbow to hang on her bedroom wall. We followed this tutorial. The whole time we were melting the crayons, she kept on shouting "Come on Red! Go Red! You can do it! Go, go!" to encourage the appropriate color to both melt and run clear down the canvas. Gotta love her enthusiasm.

Miss Lucy, artist

Miss Lu loved her art camp weeks this summer. Tons of creative projects, paint, and glitter. What more could you ask for? 

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At the end of the summer they held an art show at Fuller Lodge where certain pieces were displayed to the public for two weeks. 

At the closing reception (when we picked up Lucy's pieces), the curator told her that her oil pastel of Ashley Pond had been seen by people from all over the United States and even some from England! She was so proud, especially when he made a point of letting her know that people had said they liked her work :)

Breaking news

Miss Lu won a local coloring contest (sponsored by Atomic City Transit). She had her picture run in the paper, and they sent her a fun backpack with some art supplies inside. I'm the mother of a famous artist :) 

Best Mother's Day ever

They gave me love:

And a one-of-a-kind tile trivet:

It doesn't get any better than that!

Love and sharks

Lucy came home from kindergarten with this lovely drawing yesterday (click on the images for the full effect):

It's a home on a hill with music coming out of it. In the window sits a family of four around a table with a book (the scriptures?) on it.

She wrote the words to the song below: "I see my mother kneeling with her family each day, I hear the words she whispers as she bows her head to pray. The sum of the kingdom quiets her fear. And I'm thankful, Love is spoken here." The words are a little inventive in places, but you get the gist of what's going on. 

I felt like a great mom to know that my daughter was drawing such lovely pictures at school. Obviously it reflected well upon my mothering that she feels her home is safe, secure, full of music and love.

Then I turned the paper over.

What's that? A shark crying out "oh no" as he's speared in the head with a giant harpoon? And a sad octopus cowering in fear in his cave as another shark with many sharp teeth approaches (and has that shark just vomited? Or is he about to eat tiny fish?). 

Oh. Oh I see.

On computing

Nick and I have been laughing about the following conversation we had with Miss Lu for two days straight now.

(Background: we're in the middle of a conversation with Lucy regarding how Mommy knows lots of things too after Lucy let us know she thought Daddy knew everything and Mommy, well, Mommy not so much.)

Nick: "Lucy, Mommy knows how to use a keyboard to make an umlaut!"

Lucy: "Oh. What's a keyboard?"

Nick: [expecting to answer a question about the word "umlaut"] "Oh, um ... it's by the computer" [breaks into laughter ...]

Trust Lucy to ask you the unexpected question.

Self Portrait by Lucy, November 2010