Creative Outlet

Most of you know that arts and crafts are not my gifting. I think it is a combination of my lack of skill and desire to come up with or even peruse the internet for creative and stimulating art projects for boys and my extreme lack of patience when it comes to using glue, play-doh, or anything that involves glitter. It could also be the fact that for me to get Caleb to actually sit down and partake in any arts and crafts fun would involve me literally having to use the glue on his bottom in order to get him to stay put for longer than two minutes to actually finish the project. And I can not let any project go unfinished. I think that is either the student in me, or the perfectionist. Or both. I am working on that. Unlike my wonderful friend, Kristin, who is actually making dinosaur fossils out of old coffee grounds with her boys tomorrow (I am so impressed!), I do not have that same artistic flair or creative mind. Or patience! Did I mention the patience?!

I am a pretty concrete person and I like things to move in a predictable, sequential, and organized fashion. Although I am not nearly as rigid as I once was (having kids has helped a lot with that), I am work in progress as I move toward becoming a more flexible person. I think I am moving away from being a total Type A person. I guess I am more of a B+ now. Eric thinks I have some traits of an abstract thinker, but I don't really think those are my dominate traits. I love working on the ABC's and 123's with the boys. Now, I do have some skill there since most of my life experience has involved being a student in some capacity, so teaching the boys their colors, identifying states on a map, or reviewing reading concepts just comes natural to me. I love academia! I know, I know, I need to branch out and dabble in my artistic juices that must be hidden somewhere in the recesses of my brain.

For now though, I choose to fill in those gaps in my KITCHEN!! My comfort zone! The boys and I may not do many pencil and paper projects together, but we do have a lot of cooking adventures together. In the beginning, I was pretty reluctant to have little helpers in my kitchen, but I finally had to get over it and myself and learn that some of the most fun times are not had on a clean kitchen floor. (Now if I could just have that same mindset with the art supplies.) God has given me much grace and therefore, I am able to extend that grace to the boys especially when we are making pizzas together, soup, pancakes, or tonight's special treat...Oreo balls. Completely Daddy's idea, the boys ran out and got all of the ingredients and then came back home and the mayhem commenced. It was a lot of fun and we had some tasty hands after rolling all of those Oreos into balls.

Ahh...Art!!!

Here are some pictures from our little "art" project.

Each boy got their own bag of Oreos to crush. Eric told them to crush them in any way that they wanted. As you can see, the boys did just that, using their feet, bottoms, and occasionally their hands.

And the Workmans are probably the only ones who should eat this batch of Oreo balls, since much taste testing took place from package to cookie sheet. I am sure many health codes for public consumption were violated.

Fun night! And I have already eaten too many. I am cutting myself off NOW or else they will all be gone before morning.