As We Prepare to Paint Our House...

Most of our house is painted the same color. Why? The same reason we haven't bothered to get new couches even though ours are looking pretty "tired". In another few years when the kids are a little older, we will think about new couches and maybe even a new color of paint. Right now, it's antique white. Antique white is one of the basic colors you can just go to Home Depot and ask for by name. "I need a gallon of antique white please." "We'll have that for you in five minutes."

As we were getting ready for the annual shoulder height to floor paint job, I took a few photos. You're probably saying to yourself, "I don't know why she lets her kids write on the walls..." and you are certainly entitled to your opinion. Your walls probably look nice. Well, I don't really "let" my kids write on the walls, but a year ago, Maya wasn't even really drawing much, let alone showing any interest in making letters. In the summer, she started drawing a lot more than she ever had, mostly water animals like fish, whales and octopuses. After her first few weeks in kindergarten she was starting to make the letters of her name, and soon, writing it on her own and then making all sorts of letters. Sometimes she would draw and write on paper and sometimes she would draw and write on the walls. She seemed to be celebrating each new letter she learned by making a string of them on the wall or on a door, both upper and lower case. We were so happy that she was learning to write so many letters that we encouraged her to write on paper, but did not get upset at the writing on the wall.

After awhile, we taped a big sheet of paper to the wall that she liked to write on, then we slowly got her to mainly draw on paper and since October or so she has stuck to paper. You would think we would have gotten around to painting sooner, but we haven't. All the walls don't look like this, just a few different places and these are the ones that wouldn't come off well with magic erasers. As we get ready to touch up the paint job, here are some "before" shots:

Here she was writing "Shayne"

At first she made her Es and Fs with way too many little arms. It was really cute. She makes them with the right number now.

She is starting to write words and ideas down with her drawings for the past month or so, which I am really excited about. I will post some of that soon too. Just have to get the ol' scanner going...