writing and drawing

Stella has been growing in leaps and bounds lately with her drawing. Over the past week or so she has also started writing lots of lines full of "letters", which are amazingly neat and straight, and many of them are actually letters too! She is demonstrating a lot of control, and best of all- she is doing it totally on her own. I have not tried to teach her to write, other than by her request. She likes to have one of us make her a dotted-line "S" so she can trace it, and there are several letters she is writing very well on her own. She has really been motivated by watching her sisters draw and write- which they do a lot of.



One of the major interests with the big girls for the past year or so has been comics. Both Daisy and Hazel love to read them, and Hazel especially has shown an interest in telling stories through her drawings. My sister gave her some special comic strip paper for her birthday this year and she has been trying it out a bit here and there. It is taking a little getting used to, as she is not accustomed to being confined by those blocks! She is happy to share the paper with Daisy, but insisted Stella draw on handwritten comic strip paper. Stella doesn't mind though- she just wants to draw comics like her big sisters.











And even though it is fun to compare to her work from 2 years ago...





...I am so glad she is interested in paper as a canvas for her artwork these days. The walls and window sills, while being very decorative, were a pain to scrub clean. (That's genuine Sharpie there, folks! Nice and permanent.) Which, by the way, is what I did this afternoon. I left a lot of this in place for almost 2 years- partly because I was worried she would do it again as soon as I removed it, but partly because it just seems to blend into the landscape after a while. It's all gone now though, thanks to the Mr. Clean Magic Eraser (Extra Power). I hate buying and using stuff like that, but every once in a while there is a real need for the power of chemicals. And moving out of military housing is definitely one of those times.

And on that note- a moving update: 5 weeks left! The yard sale went well- most of the smaller stuff went and I donated the rest to the thrift shop. A few large items remain which I have listed on the local For Sale board and will probably put on Freecycle if they don't sell. Now- on to the PACKING.