Christmas and Yule happened

Abi's original Santa-handprint when she was little. Abi's now, Claire's, Lucy's.

We baked cookies to share on Yule.

bedtime

look what Santa brought! a kitchen set for all the kids to play with

uncle built a faery house for Abi/our yard

Abi and Trixie - her skateboarding pup

Lucy dutifully caring for the new babies

lil artist

I love how dedicated Abi is to drawing. It seems that she adds a new technique to her pictures every week - and she;s figuring out these refinements by herself.  She came home the other day having had to draw shoulder-up self portraits.  Speaking with the teacher later, they were only advised to look at the level of eyes to ears to nose, etc. She came home and started practicing.  Before that she had started adding parts to a girl's hair and playing with dresses. She'd also started drawing people in motion.  Clearly she has more drawing talent than I do - given that she's 5 and draws almost as well as I do.  Her teacher reported that she will look for examples of animals in books to practice drawing them.
Here are some recent samples - including some practice pieces I found. She's quite critical of her own work and will redo anything she doesn't think is good enough.

stick people - but here she was focused on motion; the stick people are deliberate. She uses an Ed Emberley drawing book, which is all stick-style images.

parted hair and fancy dress

her halloween picture - she drew the witch bent over to stir and later put in the cauldron

people - all from the same week; different styles

practice

for or of Lucy?