the unlikely orange

now that school has begun, we are pretty much finished with our 2012 summer bucket list.  while we didn't accomplish every one (we saved some for next year!), we did just about everything in the bucket, and had a very full summer doing it!  sometimes, my nature is to want to sit on the couch and watch old steelers games for the 47th time while the children entertain themselves, but shannon does a good job of making sure we stay busy and connected and make some memories that will not only be a part of their lives for years to come, but will also be a significant part of the foundation of who they are and who they are becoming.  from goofy golf to camping to doing an abc scavenger hunt, we tried all sorts of things.  science experiments, lego challenges, nature hikes, spelunking, and more were the hallmarks of our summer.  and some of these things, like ice cream for dinner, have become family traditions which will likely be a part of their family memories fore...

  "redeemable" mixed media collage on wood door found papers, acrylic paint, found objects, glue august, 2012    in general, i have no problem getting rid of things.  i am prone to throwing things out in the name of neatness, because i don't like messes.  but when it comes to art and my creative sense, i am sometimes about a half a step away from being a hoarder.  i see potential and beauty and meaning in the most basic objects.  so what you see (or don't see at all!) as a discarded gum wrapper lying beside the road, waiting for some community servant to come poke with a stick, i see as a splash of pink that might help me say just what i want to say on a canvas.  or sometimes, as in the case of this new collage, it is the canvas itself that is a rescued object.  two years, only a couple of months after we had moved to central pennsylvania, we were driving one night when we passed a wooden door by the side of the road, in ...

here at the milinovich house, we read almost every night before bed, and are always looking for new and engaging stories to help us explore the world, learn new things, laugh, and feel deeply.  as a parent, i want to instill in my children a love of reading that will last for them into their adulthood, while at the same time helping with their development and modeling the importance of reading.  i tend to read dramatically, so they can hear the voices of the characters and really feel that they are meeting new people when they read.  plus, i love doing it, so it works out well.    recently we had borrowed a huge book (533 pages!) from the library, and thought we'd delve into it.  it is called "the invention of hugo cabret" by brian selznick, and is probably better known to many as "hugo" which was the name of the movie adaptation by spielberg and martin scorcese.  more on the movie in a moment.  first, the book.    we loved th...

we recently had the opportunity to spend an overnight in lancaster, pa, with our dear friends the Godshalks.  it was a quick trip, but we filled it with eating, a day at dutch wonderland, eating, swimming, eating, checking out an amish quilt shop, eating, and visiting kitchen kettle village, not to mention eating.  yes, there was plenty of good food involved, and we had a great time catching up and enjoying some time together.  here are just a few of the pics from the trip (somehow, i didn't get any pictures of us eating....will have to work on that next time). 

last week we did a family lego challenge.  we decided that our category would be "food" and then each member of the family (other than quin) had access to our full slate of legos to try and build something within that category.  let me say this: it is easy to think about different kinds of food; it's much harder to build them with rectangular squares!  i have all the respect in the world for those who make lifelike sculptures of people and other things out of legos....i can't imagine how they do it.    in any case, here are the results of our family challenge.    cade made a piece of watermelon:   i made a taco: shannon made a piece of pumpkin pie: and jackson made a wedding cake: he was determined that we should bring this cake to the family wedding we have this fall, but i finally convinced him that instead of bringing it, we could put it on facebook for nick and meg.  so i will do just that.  in the meant...

it's saturday song time again.  it's been awhile.  today i have no rhyme or reason, other than that i love this music.  it's by steel train, and the whole album is sort of a mix of really pop-powered indie-flavored rock and roll that is easy to sing along to and gets stuck in your cranium.  don't really know much about them, but i know i like their music, which is enough.  have a great saturday!