Budding Artist!

I am one proud Mama today! About a month ago Nicole participated in an after school art time called "Reflections." It's a contest where kids do a painting based on a theme. This year's theme is, "The Magic of a Moment." Nicole painted "Shooting Star for the Eiffel Tower."

I decided to interview her about the creation:

She says, "At first I actually wanted to do the Eiffel Tower standing up but when the lady told me you could do it standing up I was kind of disappointed." (Standing up meaning a 3D type of project.) First she painted the paper black because it was nighttime, then she "oil-pastelled" the Eiffel Tower. "And then what I did was, um, I got yellow and I painted the stars and the moon and I messed up on one of the stars. I kind of thought that looks like a shooting star without a tail. So then I added a tail and that's how I came up with the Shooting Star for an Eiffel Tower."

Here is the masterpiece:

This is her filling out the paper with her entry information.

And here is the email I received today! The coolest part is, regardless of how she places at city/state, she will haver her art displayed at the Battlefield Mall in town. And, it's been mounted and shrink-wrapped to go to the next level. I just think this is pretty cool as it's the second time her artwork has been displayed locally. (Last year she had her haunted house painting displayed at Discovery Center.)

Hello Parents of Participants in this years Reflections contest!

First of all, we were thrilled to have such great participation in the PTA Reflections program this year.  Your children had some really fabulous interpretations of this year's theme: "The Magic of a Moment".  We want you to know that EVERY child that participated will be recognized for supporting the program at an assembly in the future.  We would love for them to participate again in the years to come.  I wish all of their entries could advance to the next level of judging.  Unfortunately we are limited in how many from each school/ age division can move on.  So a local art instructor (not affiliated with sps schools in any way) graciously offered their time to do the judging.  They were given a judging rubric used by the National PTA which assigns weights to different aspects of the piece, such as interpretation of theme, mastery of medium, creativity, etc.  Based on those parameters, the following pieces were selected to represent Harrison Elementary at the City and State Wide levels of judging!  (3 from each division, in no particular order)

Primary (K-2) Winners:

Visual Arts:

 Brooklyn Scott.... "Just a Kiss"

Nicole Davis........ " Shooting Star for the Eifel Tower"

Bethanie Koone.... "The Magic of the First Leaf Falling in Autumn"

Photography:

Zoe Allie..........   "Magic Mummy"

Intermediate (3,4) Winners

Visual Arts:

Eriannah Jackson........   " Magic Through a Lense"

Ariel Gonzales..............  " Christmas Morning"

Avery Pezzani.............. " Night Sky"

Photography:

Isabella Molea............ " Flying High"

All of these students had their work mounted and shrinkwrapped (thank you PTA!) to move on to the city level. The pieces have been dropped off and they are on their way!  There will be a City Wide Reflections Showcase at the Battlefield mall on January 13, where all of these pieces will be on display (whether they place at City or not).  I encourage your families to come out and take pics next to your winning entries!!!  I will send a reminder email closer to the date with times attached.  Then all these pieces will move on to State level of judging.

If your child's piece was not advanced to the next round, I will be returning the pieces to Mr Z in the art room tomorrow morning.  Please assure your child that the judge had a very difficult job and really loved all the work.  If you have any questions for me at all feel free to call.  Thank you again for encouraging the kids to participate, we were so impressed!!

-- 
Amy Molea

Reflections Chair for Harrison PTA

Turkey Tumbling Meet

The girls had their first gymnastics meet over the weekend. The entire thing was new to all of us and I was quite stressed running back and forth between the girls, trying to not miss their routines. 

Allyson wasn't too worried. She just kicked back, enjoying it all.

They each had a floor and trampoline routine. They were scored by judges on each routine. 

This is Allyson's trampoline routine. I didn't think the judges were paying very much attention, especially when they made her do a salute she had already done... oh well.

She scored 850. (She was oblivious to the scoring.) 

Here is Nicole's floor routine. I thought she did a great job.

Evidently the judges did, too. They gave her a 950.

And Nicole's trampoline routine.

She scored 900. 

Here is Allyson's floor routine. Love how she's not afraid to "dig" when it's necessary. Ha!

She scored 920. 

After all the routines there was an award ceremony. Before ribbons and trophies, every child received a bag with some candy and a pencil, a little toy and silly bands. Just little stuff. But, for Allyson, it was like winning the lottery. She was so happy about the candy! Good thing, because she didn't even notice the fact she got last place on her trampoline routine. Notice she's the only one up there holding her little brown sack with candy. (And, trust me, none of these kids will be winning the olympics anytime soon. They were all just cute little girls bouncing around the gym.) 

Sorry this picture is fuzzy. She did get 4th place on her floor routine. All the girls, except Allyson, are holding up their ribbons. She just made me laugh so hard because she was so completely oblivious to 1st place, 2nd place, etc. All she knows is gymnastics is FUN and she won candy! 

At one point the teacher took her brown sack until she was done with the award ceremony. Lol 

So, our little cutie pie got 5th place overall. But, who cares? She got a trophy. Look at the excitement on that face! I am SO in love with this precious girl!! She brings me soooo much joy!

Holding the trophy AND the brown sack of candy.

Nicole understood a little more about placing so it was super exciting when she got 1st place for her floor routine! Go Nicole! 

She got 3rd place on her trampoline routine. 

And 2nd place overall. She was very proud of herself. Mom and Dad were excited, too!

Allyson was excited about her sucker! 

A great day for our two little gymnasts! 

Trick or Treat!

Happy Halloween!

My "plan" this year was to have pumpkins carved a day or two before Halloween so we wouldn't be rushing as we so often are. As with so many of my plans, they went out the window like a stiff breeze. Thirty minutes before we were to have friends arrive, I was still picking out a pattern for Allyson's pumpkin. Nicole's didn't get carved. I stuck a wooden scarecrow head and hands in it and it became our scarecrow pumpkin. In case you missed it, you can read about our adventure getting the pumpkins.

Normally, the girls help with the carving of the pumpkin. But Britt had (mercifully) come home early from work to rake the ridiculous amount of leaves in our front yard. (Yes, it was that bad.) The kids were more interested in "helping" Dad. This is something they look forward to every year. Britt and I, not so much.

So, while all this was going on, I was inside carving Allyson's pumpkin. I did get the girls to come in and help me clean out the guts. 

I have always loved carving pumpkins. I love the smell, the slimy feeling of cleaning out the insides, and the fun of picking out a great design and making it come to life. Well, since I had about 20 minutes, we made this pumpkin super simple. But I still thought it was unique. One of the things we like about this pumpkin was it's great stem. So, I decided to use that as a "focal point" (lol) and let it be the nose. Here is the final product. 

This year we had our friends, Doug and Sarah and their girls, Darcy and Holland, join us for Halloween. We had our annual jack-o-lantern pizza and Sarah brought the best pumpkin cookies.

Then went to our church festival. I didn't take a lot of pictures. They had tons of bounce houses, free candy, apple cider, kettle corn, and balloons. Inside they had activities and a kids show. The kids show was advertised as a "4D" experience. It really wasn't, unfortunately. But I think the kids enjoyed it anyway.

We found a group of princesses and had everyone's picture taken together.

Afterward we hit the neighborhood for trick or treating. 

One of the reasons our friends joined us for trick or treating this year was because their neighborhood wasn't so great. I assured them ours was fantastic. That's why I was a little confused when we went outside and almost every house had their lights out! Not sure what was up this year but I felt a little bad that our neighborhood probably wasn't any better than theirs. Oh well. The kids, as you can see in this video, had fun. (Although, after about the third house, Allyson pooped out. I carried her bucket and dad carried her.)

One of our neighbors always has fun Halloween decorations. (Although Holland was afraid to go up to the door because of a talking "head" they have on the side of the wall.)

Happy Halloween!

Pumpkin Patch Pain

The weather this year killed the corn crop at our favorite pumpkin patch. So, I bought a half-price deal to another one that was only open on the weekends. Last Friday night was the only time we could go as a family due to Britt's work schedule. Somehow I missed the memo that after dark everything goes from family-friendly to haunted and scary. Maze: haunted. Hayride: haunted. The girls found a swing set to play on. Yippee. (Could've gone to the park free for that.)

Oh, and the pumpkin "patch?" It was a tent with a bunch of ugly, overpriced pumpkins. The girls picked out two. Britt and I decided to skip buying our own this year. 

The Pumpkin "Patch"

But that wasn't the worst of it. The worst was the karaoke. It was obvious there would never be a way to explain how bad. So, thinking of you, my dear reader, I decided to record it for your, ahem, "enjoyment."(Don't thank me. Seriously.)

That was about the last straw for me. I nicely explained our situation to the lady at the snack bar counter. She was nice enough to leave me in charge of the snack bar while she went to see if there was anything she could do. Well, I think she meant for me to just watch the snack bar. But, there were customers in line so ... I started selling stuff. But, when someone ordered a hot cider I had no clue which pot it was in. So, I began opening the covers to look inside. That's about the time another employee came over and started the inquisition.... "Do you work here?!" Thankfully, snack bar lady came back at that time and was quite happy with the money I had made. Lol.

The pumpkin patch owner decided to give us a free bonfire. That seemed pretty nice. He even threw in the ingredients to make s'mores. So we warmed up by the fire and had some yummy dessert.

Allyson was a happy camper!

After warming up and filling our bellies with yummy s'mores we headed home, trying to get the horrendous karaoke "music" out of our heads.

Here's our sleepy Nicole as we pulled up to the house. How cute is that?