The Queen of Everything and a Demi-God in His Second Life

Every day just gets better. I keep finding that there just isn't enough time in the day to do everything we want. I had a long list of ideas for the day; we only did the first two things because we just had too much fun with them!

This is I Am An Artist week. This is a wonderful book that teaches us to find beauty all around us, to really see nature, and to stop and enjoy the world around us. 

Get it here!

To supplement this, we went on Land Art Nature Walk, where we looked for art all around us. We also collected some nature materials to make our own Land Art. It was a beautiful morning (one of the first in a few weeks!!), so we enjoyed a long walk, stopping all along the way to point out to each other the art we found, take pictures, and collect our favorite materials. We even found a Praying Mantis Ootheca (at least we think; it looks a lot like the one we ordered from Insect Lore!) that we have in a spare Insect Lore Pop-Up Port-a-Bug on the deck to watch over the summer to see if anything will hatch! 

These three trees almost made a "W"!

We found a couple of beautiful spiderwebs. They show up quite nicely against the bright green leaves everywhere.

Olaf found this cool tree growing out of the stump.
It reminded me of Isaiah 11:1: "There shall come forth a shoot from the
stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit."

One of my new favorite pictures of the three of us!

We found lots and lots of Dandelion wishes to blow! This one was
growing right in the middle of this circle.

Some see weeds, others see wishes....

We blew as many wishes as we could.

When we got back from our walk, we spread out all of our materials to make some Land Art. 

Olaf's face! (see the eyes, eyebrows, nose, mouth, and long tongue sticking out!)

Sunny's Fairy

We had so much fun making our own art that we decided we should go looking for more materials. Along the way, however, we found perfect climbing tree, which we just couldn't pass by. So, we stopped to climb it for a bit. About this time, Sunny announced that she was now the Queen of Everything and Olaf and I were her royal guards. At the same time, Olaf remembered our special notebooks that arrived yesterday... He ran a special mission to retrieve the notebooks and a box of markers so we could draw in/under the tree.

I have always wanted to make nature fairy crowns and the grass growing along the rocks was just perfect. So, I began braiding away while the Queen of Everything told her origin story. After her story, I was bidden to tell a story, so I requested some help: two names, a setting (or two), and any other special elements required. I was given the names Nester and Lillith, the settings of a Castle and Earborm, and the special elements of a Game of War to decide the fate of Earborm, giants, goblins, and ghosts.

After my story was told, it was Olaf's turn to tell a story. We soon learned that this is his second life and that he is part Egyptian God! (much credit for his story I think belongs to Rick Riordan and his Kane Chronicles ;) ) After our tales were told, their beautiful pictures were drawn, and the fairy crowns were made, it was time to go on an adventure. I was armed with a stick, the queen had her offering of meat for the lions we were after, and the Egyptian Demi-god had his many magical weapons (which we had to refuse for the sake of adventure!). Sadly, we realized part-way through our adventure that it was time for lunch and so we had to leave our crowns, scepters, and nature outside the door, waiting for more adventures.

The Queen of Everything and the Egyptian Demi-God