Family and then a Studio Day

Friday, our DS and his children visited for a little while. He only had them for about 4 hours, and they had things to do. Both of them are on the verge becoming teenagers. I took a good look at the older boy and saw my father in his build, and even to a very small extent in some of his mannerisms--although I don't think they never met. I mentioned this to my son and he said that he had often thought that he saw a resemblence to a male cousin, who has been said to resemble his grandfather ( my father). It made me think about family traits. My father was very close to six feet and lanky. I have a sister who is taller and resembles my father in her gait and posture. The cousin I mentioned is the child of my other sister, so the build etc has shown up in that generation, and now I'm seeing it in my son's son, and my daughter's oldest child is also tall and lean. ( She's only four, but the pediatrician is predicting that she will likely be close to six feet, although both her parents are quite short.)

Later in the day, we ended up watching the two youngest grandchildren for awhile. I was playing dominoes in the kitchen with the older girl when my DH softly called me into the livingroom to look at the 13 month old girl. With her older sister out of the way, the little one had taken the opportunity to play with her sister's baby doll. She was cuddling it, rocking it, trying to feed it, and even trying to wrap it in a doll blanket. I never expected to see that type of play in a child so young. It was almost beautiful to watch. This carried on for between 10-15 minutes. Meanwhile, the older girl is learning that games have rules--and she doesn't like it!!

At the end of the day, we realized that they were all coming for dinner on Jan 1st, including my DS's girlfriend, and my husband's sister. We have very little food in the house and absolutely nowhere for anyone to sit. Should be an interesting day.

Saturday I spent in a friend's studio playing with polymer clay. She had hurt a hip and was barely able to get around, so it was a good day to sit to work. She showed me some awesome ideas and techniques. She had ordered some tools over the Internet, and we played with those. This is an amazing woman who is very skilled in fibre arts, but has recently become involved with a sculpture medium called Paverpol. She is producing and selling small sculptures, but is also combining her fibre work with the Paverpol and the polymer clay, with some very interesting results. She showed me a work in progress using all three of the techniques.

Today is our wedding anniversary--43 years. We plan to attend an Open House at my DH's sister's and then head out for supper.