My wild hair for this week.

 I had this genius idea a while back that it might be fun to take the girls to the art museum, have them sketch some of the works, and then go home and try to paint them.  We were talking to an artist last week at the Eno Festival who suggested we check out Jerry's Artarama rather than getting supplies from Michaels or something.

So we stopped at Jerry's this morning, and the staff was super helpful.  I told them what my plans were, and they helped me find the most appropriate, inexpensive supplies.  We picked up two 9x14 canvases, 8 3x3 canvases with mini easels, watercolor paints, 2 mixing palettes, two brushes, and sketch books for about what it would cost for us to go to the movies.

At the museum the girls were really good about finding something they liked.  They preferred modern and contemporary.

They were anxious to get to work when we got home.  They started with the small canvases first before moving to the large ones.

 This is Lily's take on Alison Saar's Tippy Toes - seen here.

 Madeleine's self portraits of them as babies.

The remaining 3x3 collection.

Hot, hot, hot

 For the third year in a row we headed out to the Festival for the Eno in Durham.  Since it was so hot this year, we planned to get there right at 10 and leave around lunch.  We really go just to wade in the river.  We did make it out before 12:30, but I was super hot and had a nice headache by that point.  Maybe we'll luck out next year and be able to spend more time there.

 The water seemed higher this year, and we didn't see many fish, but the girls enjoyed looking at what looked like clam shells.  As you can see from Madeleine's skirt they both fell in entirely and were soaked.

 Here Madeleine holds a crawfish.

 And Lily has a super cute turtle.

 Despite the defeated look on Madeleine's face, she won the game.

 The girls working on their own sand castle masterpiece.

One of our multiple trips to the mist tent.

Fabulous Fourth

Because of the high temps, we didn't do any of our "usual" Fourth of July festivities this year.  We headed out to Pittsboro for a picnic with some friends, but the girls were too tired for fireworks and just wanted to go home after.

Before settling in to watch the fireworks on PBS, we headed outside to do sparklers.  We had a few boxes of the "old school" metal ones, and then Mr. Mike had give us some new-fangled paper-covered ones.  They produced a lot more smoke than they had out in Pittsboro.

So much that a Cary Police patrol car cruised the cul-de-sac to make sure there were no illegal SC fireworks going on.  Nope.  Just sparklers.