Since reading about Tall Paintings on
Teacher Tom's blog, I've just been itching to do it with the boys. Finally, this week, I got my chance. I love it when opportunity presents itself. While watching Wild Kratts (that's a whole post in itself), Clayton heard the phrase, "And gravity wins again!" He immediately asked, "What's gravity?" So we've been talking about what goes up, must come down. And then it hit me, tall painting is perfect!
First we had to build our "tall" part of the painting. Both boys were given some wood scraps that they constructed into towers. We glued them together on a big piece of scrap cardboard and let them dry overnight.
Clayton chose to make his like stairs.
Levi just wanted it TALL.
The next morning, as soon as Clarey was down for her nap, we raced outside and started painting.
The previous homeowners left lots of paint in our storage room and it was the perfect consistency.
The boys poured and poured - watching the paint go down, down, down.
Gravity just kept on working. Pulling that paint down the tower.
My favorite part is the swirling at the bottom.
Our surface wasn't quite level, but that ended up being okay. We got to talk about how the gravity works even more.
We set them off in the yard to dry. And while I ran in to clean up the paint mess, the boys decided to decorate their art even more with grass clippings. (Of course, I had already put the camera away...) When I walked back out, Clayton said, "Look! We're being even more creative! We're adding grass to our houses!" And Levi added, "Don't you love it?" I do. I do love it.
I decided to have a full-blown birthday party for Cyle this year: theme, decorations, dessert bar, games, favors and matching clothes!
I made Clarey a little camouflage dress ... 
... and the boys matching outfits with camo squirrels and camo shorts.
Our grandmas,
our friends,
and our families
were able to join us.
We played Pin the White Tail on the Deer and the kids had a hard time with the bandanna over their eyes.
Anna had a bit of a hard time finding the wall. Sorry Anna, I just couldn't resist adding in this picture of Grandma Arnold. Clearly she is afraid you'll walk into her. For the record, Anna totally missed the picture of the deer... but so did I.
Our boys had so much fun playing with Sawyer and Whitney. They are just adorable!
Later we broke out some weaponry and had a shoot-off. Two crow decoys, two turkey decoys, one child-sized bow and four arrows. I missed who won. At the end of the first round we had a four-way tie with two hits: Curt, Kathy, Sarah and Lorie.
To finish up the party we had some good-ole funnel cakes. We had a great time!
