Parker's Art

Parker has been such a joy lately. He's really maturing to be the sweetest, kindest, most generous, loving, tender hearted, brilliant little boy. He's had a hard year at school dealing with mean kids, demanding teachers, and being away from home most of the day. But, things have really fallen into place and his confidence is growing. He makes me laugh every day and is the best little pal. 

Parker has recently been voicing his feelings through art. Most of the time he has happy pictures and almost always it's of the 3 of us holding hands in front of our house. There's always a rainbow or a sunny sky. But sometimes he draws Daddy outside of the house- because he's gone so much. (And we've tried to prepare him for the fact that Tanner will have to live away from us often next year) When he's sad he'll draw himself with a sad face and give it to me. Or if I'm losing my patience and being mean he'll draw a not so pleasant looking "Mommy". 

Recently, as he's drawn our family, he has included "baby sister" in there with pig tails holding his hand. It's the sweetest thing.

He also loves to draw pictures for people who are nice to him or who he loves. He's drawn many pictures for friends at school, the school nurse, his teacher, and even made a picture for our landlord on her birthday. He's the most thoughtful little boy and he melts my heart over and over again.

We've been spending more time outside lately with the sun staying out longer and the temperature rising. Here Parker is "luging" on the skateboard. We call him our little luger. ;-)

One rainy Saturday we made bath paint with body wash, corn starch  and food coloring. He had fun painting the bath- and himself. Easy clean up, too!

Parker got to pick something out of the treasure box at school for having such good behavior. He chose this orange guy and we pretended that he was camouflaged against the orange playground. "Where is he??"

We've started a chore chart with Parker to help him be a little more independent and do things without being told- like make his bed, brush his teeth, get dressed... He earns a nickle for every star he gets  and can earn up to about $3 a week. He was having a yard sale at school so he took $5 of his allowance to spend. I was brought to tears when he showed me what he bought. He purchased a wind chime with ALL $5 just for me! (And baby sister). Isn't he just the sweetest thing? Out of all the toys an goodies he spent every last penny on me. Here I am modeling the wind chime (and my little 16 weeks along bump- not really a bump)

At the end of the month Parker paid his tithing for the first time! What a good kid!

Another rainy day- hanging out with me in bed watching a movie, wearing his home made shirt. :-)

We went for a little walk to McDonalds to get a treat. We've been reading the Boxcar Children series so we stopped by the Coudersport boxcar and snapped a picture. :-)

And here's Parker, Pete, and Tanner playing Frisbee in the yard on a nice sunny day.

Parker had a great Earth Day program at school. He was the first presenter and did a fantastic job! "We celebrate Earth Day on April 22nd to remind us to take care of our Earth!:

Here is the shrine of Parker's art we have created in his room. All his art projects and thing he's done through out the year made it's way to this wall. We have to take it all down when we move so I tried to take pictures of my favorites.

I have no idea why these are uploading sideways but I can't get them straight! Ughh!

"Every Mother loves their child. " :-)

Pumpking patch season...

"My friend is Meredith."

More pumpkins...

Self portrait

I LOVE this one: "My favorite place is my Grandma's and Grandpa's".

There were a ton of drawings of us together holding hands. :-)

I also have quite a collection of notes and nice things next to my bed. Whenever he finds a flower or a pretty bead or anything like that at school he makes sure to put it on my night stand- along with all the nice notes.

Spooky house...

And here are a few friends from school- this is Izzy and Cece at lunch.

And this is sweet Meredith. Our new next door neighbor works with her mom at the flower shop and she was babysitting one day so we invited her over to play! Parker was thrilled!

As usual my favorite time of the day with Parker is at night when we can finally settle down together and read until he falls asleep right there cuddled next to me. It's the best.  His sweet little sleeping face is so precious.

And here's the latest: Us all together at home, Daddy outside cuz he's gone all the time. ha ha