Painted Tornados

Monday, Day #2 of daddy being gone.

We went out earlier in the day, used coupons and bought 12 new canvases for the kids to paint.  I made sure to buy sizes that we didn't already have, we bought 7 12 x 12 and 5 16 x 20 canvases.  All of the kids love to paint, even if that means smearing it around on themselves, it's still creative and we encourage every ounce of it!  I set up the table so that after nap time everything was ready to go.  

Things didn't go quite as planned, Aveline woke up first, she painted, Nidas woke up, he painted and then Oliver woke up screaming and he painted .. even while he was in a bad mood, oh and Gypsy painted too.  :)

Gypsy painted first

she started licking the paint off of the plate. awesome.

Followed by Aveline

she loves to paint

she stuck her painted fingers in her mouth and it made the purple paint look like 

big lips on her mouth, it was adorable.  :)

*tasted it*

this is how she let's me know she is finished and/or wants a clean canvas

she puts her brushes on it the canvas, picks up the canvas and hands it to me.

and then it came time for Leonidas to paint

he had already painted one canvas by the time I started taking pictures

that's some serious painting face right there!

his masterpiece :)

last but certainly not least, Oliver's turn

and he really does get that messy, that fast

  

 

As if painting all afternoon wasn't enough excitement for our day...I put the kids to bed (7pm), it started to rain, it then started to storm and soon after that (8:30) I just happened to turn on the weather and the meteorologist was talking about a prospective tornado ... a tornado here in the most southern part of southern Texas .. a stinking tornado.  I let it pass through my mind, shrugged it off because, yeah right, there'd never be a tornado here.  

Well, 15 minutes later I sent a friend of mine who lives up the street a text to see if they were doing anything to prepare for the tornado and just as the message sent I heard the tornado sirens here on base start going off .. WHAT IN THE WORLD!  Jared's out of town so I called my dad, asked if it was necessary to take the kids to a safe place in the house, he said yes, I questioned him .. "are you sure???" and he sternly told me to get my babies downstairs.  I darted off the phone, first grabbed Nidas (the sleeping bear) from his bed, next was Oliver and Aveline in one swift trip .. holding two snoozing lumps while trying to step over a frantic dog and go down 17 stairs while wearing sweat pants that are far too long and far too wide at the bottoms .. not fun but we made it down stairs and found ourselves in our 1/2 bath .. when I say 1/2 bath I mean there's only room for a toilet and a sink .. that's it.  I grabbed a couch cushion and a chair cushion (for comfort), my camera (to capture memories), my phone (to call for help), some books (to entertain the kids) and some snacks (for hungry bellies).  

Here's what our adventure looked like.  

Keep in mind my kids had been asleep for the night for almost 2 hours at this point, so nobody was in a good mood..  

Nidas, grumpy because he's awake.

Oliver in a daze because he's awake and eating snacks.

Aveline .. just as happy as can be.

Nidas, still grumpy and confused.

Aveline .. she looks like a fraggle in these pictures

STILL grumpy about being awake

Nidas loves taking silly pictures so we took a few to cheer him up.

it worked.

Oliver having a blast eating chocolate animal crackers :)

All in all, it was a fun day filled with many memories that I hope to never forget.  :)

As for the tornado, it never touched down near us although we did hide out in our bathroom with the sirens going off for what seemed like 30-45 minutes.  

P.S. for those who are curious what we do with the kids' canvas paintings, we add them to this wall upstairs in our hallway, we're running out of room and nails.  :)

we have about 8 canvases that are painted and waiting for a place to hang in our house.