Family days

I am feeling a ton better than yesterday. I think we all are. My voice still sounds super deep and raspy, but it could be that way for a couple of days. We just got back a few hours ago from our weekly run to Costco. These shopping trips always start out innocent enough. "We'll just get a few things!" is the most infamous quote. However this is almost impossible to do because almost everything comes in bulk. So even if you go in for one thing you walk out with two. This time we had coupons. With the coupons we saved $40. Which would have been awesome if we hadn't spent as much as we did. One culprit of the large purchase amount was a memory foam mattress cover. It was either that or a new mattress. We took the more affordable route this time. Dean and I are both hating our mattress. I think it is the main cause of all of our back pain, and neck pain, and headaches, and Deans arm constantly falling asleep, and my leg that sometimes falls off. Ha! got ya. Wanted to make sure you were paying attention. No, but for real we will be super excited to get a new bed one of these days. The good thing about this memory foam thing is even when we get rid of our retched mattress we can still use this on a new mattress.
Enough about beds. Sloan was finally able to use her Boarders gift certificate. Grandpa David and Roberta gave it to her for Christmas. She was able to buy the first Harry Potter book, the first Spiderwick Chronicle book, Utterly Me, By Clarice Bean (This is the artist and author of the Charlie and Lola cartoons on Disney Chanel), Dave Barry's Peter and the Starcatchers, and last but certainly not least The good Dog by Avi. Plus she finished off the card by purchasing a husky beany babies for herself and a kitten beanie babies for Zoe. Oh yea, she also bought a mini pack of highlighters to use for her art. She cleaned up with that gift certificate. Thanks so much David and Roberta.
We are now home, the girls are in bed and Dean is watching the X Games while I type. I am going to add a few layers of paint on my large canvas before I call it a day. Before I go I want to tall you about the latest link I added to my blog. It is The cart before the horse. They are a husband wife team of artists who make the most amazing art dolls. Their dolls are more like sculptures, so whimsical and creative. I am so inspired by these two talented artists. They sell their work on e-bay. I hope to own some of their art in the near future.
Look for some pictures tomorrow, my batteries were out of juice today.

Hello from the land of tissue!!

I figured I would take just a moment to say hello and write a few thoughts down before the day gets away from me. Dean was home from work again due to a sore throat. If you know Dean you know how hard it is for him to sit still even when he is sick. So he decided to clean out the garage. While doing this he made a layout of the kitchen with the cabinets we are going to use. I guess he is getting sick and tired of having all the kitchen cabs taking up all his space in the garage. Good thing because he is super motivated to get going on the kitchen. I have a huge smile on my face right now. Really huge. We will be doing the kitchen in sections but I'm good with that. Anything will look better than what we have.
I will be picking up Abby and Sloan from school soon and this is their fun day. Friday is the day we call "popcorn" day. We pop up popcorn and watch a movie and then the girls usually play barbies for a few hours. Most Friday's we invite some friends over to have popcorn with us, but because we have been sick so much the last few weeks have been just us. Hopefully next week we can get back on track.
I have had a chance to talk to a few old friends through e-mail lately. It is so nice when you can still talk to someone like you saw them yesterday, even though you might not have talked in a while. I am so very blessed because I have so many wonderful friends and family members.
I will try to write some more tonight and add some more photos. Time to go wash some dishes and fold some clothes.

Sick........again!

I feel like I have the flu. I will post more when I am not suffering from the chills and aches.

A few ideas for paintings

This is one of the possible ideas for the large canvas. I just have a few more reference photos to take for it. I have the reference for Aris. Now I just need to get more reference of Sloan and Zoe.

This is a sketch I would like to do a painting of. It's a sunflower couple and all their little sunflower children. I want to experiment with gold leafing on this one.

I have wanted to take this sketch and see it through to a painting for quite a while. I still haven't found the right frames. I am keeping my eyes open for antique, ornate picture frames the gaudier the better. The middle frame has a little girl opening a valentine. In the two frames on both sides of her, little boys are vying for her attention to take the valentines they are trying to give her.

Just an idea for a girl with fish swimming in her hair.

Another idea for my mother series. I have some sketches and now I just need to get painting.

A feeling of peace

The girls just goofing off.

I know that most people will look at this and think what a mess, but I feel I am doing pretty well at organizing considering I have fit toys for two girls in this small room.

Plus dresses for three girls.

The freshly cleaned room. These are most of the girls books.

The new kitchen. Isn't it so cute?

The beds were made and every toy box cleaned out. It took me just a few hours to get everything cleaned up. The room looks great.

Abby serving up the meal.

The girls playing in the "messy before cleaned" room.



I can't even express how good I feel at the moment. Not only was I able to get all the cleaning done, but I also read with my girls had dinner with my family,took a nap, and visited on the phone with my little sister Cristin. I should probably just call her my sister because shes 18, but It's a hard habit to break.Something really cool happened. Cordwood Cabin (one of the new links I added the other night) added a nice little paragraph about my blog today. It's a super motivator to keep working toward my goals and not give up.

I am sitting here listening to Ryan Adams radio on pandora.com. He's sort of a favorite of mine at the moment. Snow is falling. Everyone is asleep but me. I am going to sketch. I can't explain how peaceful it is right now in my home. I have had some ideas of sewing projects that I want to do eventually. I want to sketch them out before I forget, but I don't want to sew right now. I need to finish up the last eight hand print plaques for the JDRF. I also have that giant canvas sitting in the kitchen calling my name. Sewing is something I enjoy so much but right now I need to focus on my family and these other projects first.

The girls had so much fun playing with the kitchen today. As I promised I'm posting some pictures of the girls playing' plus some video of them dancing. You will have to forgive the jumpiness of the video, it's just my camera so the resolution stinks. Tomorrow I will post some art.