Swingers

Aven and Etta are swingers. They enjoy swinging together. We try not to interfere with their lifestyle choice.

Last weekend they went swinging at Liberty Park. 

Etta could swing all day long.

Nothing but giggles out of this one.

Aven enjoys swinging just as much as Etta but is much less giggly about it. 

Along with swinging, Aven also enjoys climbing to the tops of big hills and looking at baby geese:

Grace, Ian, and Aven waving from on high.

Honk!

Brave

Aven as Merida from "Brave".
Her hair isn't red and crazy, but close enough.

Aven's 4th

Aven at birth, one, two, three, and four. I'm especially amazed at the change
 between last year and this year.

 My beautiful Aven turned FOUR YEARS OLD today! I'm amazed at how fast the time has gone and I find so much joy in her every single day, when she's not busy making me crazy, anyway. 

A portrait of the birthday girl.

Aven being cheered on by her biggest fan.

Yesterday we had a family party for her. She was so amazed by her presents that her mouth hung open with surprise and delight through the whole present opening process.

Wearing the Merida (Brave) dress I made for her.

Wearing yet another princess dress and blowing out the candles on the poorly decorated cake I made her. At least it tasted yummy, right?

We love this girl!

Brass Rubbings

 Brass rubbing: a British enthusiasm for reproducing onto paper monumental brasses – commemorative brass plaques found in churches, usually originally on the floor, from between the 13th and 16th centuries. Brass rubbing is no longer legal as the soft Brass was starting to wear down from getting walked on and from the rubbings people made of them. You can now go to brass rubbing centers in Great Britain and create a rubbing from a replica.

I am lucky enough to work in a school that is full of all kinds of people with expertise in areas that are interesting and obscure. Our head custodian, Scott Bateman, went to Great Britain on an LDS mission WAY back in the 1970s. While he was there he was introduced to the art of "brass rubbing". He went on to create dozens of brass rubbings and became an expert on the history of the brasses he rubbed. He was generous enough to share his expertise with the art students about six or seven years ago and when I asked him to present again he was eager and did a fabulous job.

Most of our classes were well behaved audiences and were great about answering questions. Most of my Drawing 2 kids were jerks- grrrr.

Scott showing a miniature reproduction of the knight that is the second one in on the right side of the picture.

These multi-colored rubbings took Scott about 6 hours each to complete. I am amazed at how accurate he was at isolating different details in different colors.

This is, by far, my favorite of the brass rubbings Scott showed. It is evident that the original brass was extremely well done. There are very few mistakes and the details are very intricate.