Artists in Residence

My little guys have been seriously into drawing lately. Their preferred medium would be markers, but I am mean and usually only allow them to use chalk and crayons. David John is still in the scribble phase, and what he is drawing changes by the second. He was drawing earlier today and he announced three different subjects for his picture. I can't remember what it started as, but it morphed into Clifford the dog and finally George the monkey.
On the other hand the twins, to my delight, are finally drawing pictures with distinct shapes. I can sometimes even guess what I am looking at. Elijah has finally realized that Mommy's advice on holding his crayons the right way and drawing several small shapes to make a bigger picture yields good results. His previous method of drawing was to loudly announce the intended subject of his art, "I am going to draw an elephant!" and then scribble furiously in hopes that an elephant would appear on the paper. When it didn't work, he would say in a frustrated tone, "Mom, I tried to draw an elephant but I just didn't!" Now, he is meticulous in his drawing and even colors inside the lines in his coloring book.
For your enjoyment, I thought I would post some recent samples of work from my two budding artists:

I was impressed when Gabe drew what I thought was this number 3. He quickly set me straight, "No Mom, that's the Mc-A-Donalds sign." Great. I admit we've been there twice recently for 50 cent ice cream cones (we can walk to one from our house) but I promise we are not that family that thinks McDonalds french fries count as a vegetable serving.
Simple drawings seem to be Gabe's style, but what he lacks in complexity he makes up for with backstory. He recently drew a single straight line on the driveway and proudly brought me over to see it. "Look, Mom! This is a branch and a storm came and knocked it off the tree and then a bird flew by and said, 'What a lovely stick!' and he picked it up and took it to his nest."

This is Elijah's drawing of Buzz Lightyear. To be specific, it is the Buzz Lightyear balloon from the Macy's parade.

Gabe claims this is a picture of me. I have eyebrows, cheeks and even toes with toenail polish. I seem to be lacking hair, however.

This is Elijah's version of me. I love the hair complete with my usual ponytail.

I love this little face that Gabe drew. After the fact, he said it was Daddy. Why does he get hair when I don't?
Finally, here is a series of four pictures by Elijah. He drew them on sheets of paper that were stapled together. When I asked him about the drawings he said, "Yes, that's my work." He's already got this art lingo down. From our conversation I gather the drawings have something to do with aliens and Earth. My first impression was that they looked like some sort of cell process diagram from biology class. Maybe someday they'll be worth a lot of money and Elijah will be famous. One thing is for sure- with all the art being produced at my house, I need a bigger fridge.

P.S. I realize that Gabe holding his frisbees has nothing to do with this post but I didn't have a picture of him with chalk and I knew that the next time he asked to see the blog he would be very upset if he wasn't included.