just another day at the rice house.

Our party went great. It was actually super fun, so better than great. Almost all of our favorite people came out and everyone acted like mature adults... well almost everyone. But overall a very good and drama-free party!

This is what Fletch did during the party. I guess he was either tired or overwhelmed because he usually loves new people.

His foot has healed quite nicely, in fact, we went to the dog park today for the first time since it all happened and he had a great time! You could tell he hadn't been in awhile because it took him a little bit to warm back up to all the dogs.

Hopefully, if the rain stays away, we will be back on our everyday schedule. I gotta say he is so much more cuddly when he has been at the dog park all evening... I guess because it wears out all that puppy energy!

Saturday, my grandparents from Maryland, my cousin Elizzabeth, my sister and her Boston clan, my parents and of course, Rick and I went to the annual Central Virginia LSU Alumni Crawfish Boil. It was out in Southside on the River. It was such a great day to be outside and to be pickin' some authentic Louisianner Crawdads!

View of the River

Rick pickin' away.

My empty tray and my grandparents working on theirs...

Delaney in awe of the balloons.

One just wasn't enough!

Bored with the balloons now onto mardi gras beads. Take them off, put them on, take them off, put them on, take them off, get frustrated because they won't come off, auntie erin takes them off, put them back on. It was surprisingly entertaining for the both of us!

Isn't she just the cutest!!!

On a different note...

At school, we are preparing for our annual charity event, the Spring Fling. The only part that I have really had to accomplish is helping my kids prepare a painting for our silent auction, which raises money for Safe Kids.

Each classroom was assigned a painting of a famous artist, for us: Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh. Our job was not to replicate the painting but borrow the style to make our own painting. The basic concept was to use quick and easy brushstrokes like van Gogh uses. We also used some of our newer concepts of artistic expression and added in our new knowledge of secondary colors.

Vincent van Gogh's Starry Night

Instead of using the entire painting for inspiration, we limited it to this one corner and focused on shapes and motion instead of landscape.

Our inspiration providing corner...

Preschool 2's masterpiece!

Obviously, there is no justice with a picture but it is pretty amazing. They really did a great job of not only following directions but making the artwork their own. They have come so far in 9 short months!

Pretty advanced for 3/4 years olds, eh?

Hope this finds everyone enjoying the last few weeks of Spring as Summer is just around the corner!!

Love,
your artistically-inspired richmond rices.