Pictures from Christmas

Ethans new train set. This gift was the best idea ever, he spends most of his time playing with it.

Grandma Anderson got him a keyboard, which he also loves to play with. I told him to smile and this is what I got.....:)

Ethans beautiful hair last night after his bath.

we were playing around with the camera and taking funny photos, but I really liked how this one turned out.

My favorite two songs (along with some paintings I like). Merry Christmas

artist: Walter Rane

artist: Carl Bloch

I recommend sitting and listening to both songs all of the way through. It's worth it.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=BkEeTJOY96g

www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGjMT9xlyMw

Three year olds are hard work. There are days when I think Ethan is driving me to the brink of insanity, but then he will do something sweet that will make me feel guilty for being annoyed. Like when he poops on the carpet, and I'm so frustrated and trying to scrub it out and he brings me a wad of toilet paper in his attempt at helping. Or when he wakes up at 5am, wide awake, turning on all the lights. He ended up in bed with us, and he wouldn't stop wiggling. And then out of no where, he leans over and wraps his arms around me and gives me a kiss on the cheek. It's a good thing he's cute.

I hate potty training. seriously. why can't they be like cats, you stick them in the litter box a couple times and they get the hang of it. I never had problems potty training a cat.

We are moved into our new apartment now, sorry no pictures yet. I've been busy cleaning, unpacking and organizing. Sadly, Ryan was told that they've changed their minds and have decided that they can't afford to hire him. He had been hired, originally, for a farm manager position, but they had him doing hard labor farm work, with the promise that they would put him in as a manager come December. So now we are back on the job hunt. It's very frustrating, and being on our own again makes it harder, but I don't regret moving out of the in-laws and into our own apartment. It will be hard, but we will be okay. It's nice to be our own little family again.

Ethan is doing really well with talking and is trying to learn to read also. He's started saying his own prayers, and its fun to hear what he wants to pray about. I've started potty training him and it is going relatively well. It's not fun, but it hasn't been too horrible this time around. I've tried to potty train him a couple times before and he just wasn't ready. This time he seems to be getting the hang of it and I think it won't take him terribly long either, but who knows.

I've got several clients lined up for my portraits, and so I'm excited that my art is starting to bring in some income, even if it's only a little at first.

Thats about all I have to blog about. We don't have internet at our apartment yet, inernet is really expensive out in Rupert, but it looks like it will be something we will just have to give in and pay and arm and a leg for, since we need it for job hunting.

Wanting Feedback.

There are two things I have almost always known about myself, and those are that I want to be a stay at home mother, and the second is that I want to create and sell art. I am wanting to make a home business out of my artwork, but I don't really know what kinds of artwork people would actually be likely to purchase for their homes. My sister Heather suggested that I take a survey to find out what people are interested in paying money for. I am aware that I will most likely not make a great amount of money doing artwork, but it is what I want to do and it's something I can do while staying home with my children.

What kind of artwork would you realistically buy for your home?
The following are ideas of artwork that I could make and sell: Landscape paintings; Portraits; Storybook Murals to hang in childrens rooms; drawings or paintings mounted on objects such as shelves or wooden blocks (coffee table kinds of things); handmade books.

If anyone has any other ideas or likes the ones I posted please respond to my post. Don't worry about having to commit to purchasing anything, I just want to know what you think.

New portrait finished

This is Tabitha, a co-workers daughter who was married in the Twin Falls ID LDS temple a couple of weeks ago. I need to find some quality fixative to spray on it so it won't smudge when they scan it to put on my CD (for my portfolio). Once I have a saved copy it will go to Vicky and she's very excited for it. After seeing the finished drawing she decided she wanted to pay me to do one of her other daughter also.

Portraits

If anyone is interested in paying for a PORTRAIT to be done of their CHILD OR WEDDING PHOTO, ETC. please let me know. I can do portraits in PENCIL, CHARCOAL, OR PASTELS. The price would be $20 for pencil, $30 for charcoal, and $40 for pastels. They are done on 25 3/4 in x 19 3/4 in Cansom paper, and are studio quality. When we get into our own apartment in the next several weeks I can attempt to do oils also. PLEASE LET ME KNOW if you are interested.

Ryan got the job, and we are moving!!

This last week Ryan got a job for a huge farm. The job is supposed to be an assistant manager position, however they are so busy right now with harvesting that they do not have the time to train him, or really do anything with him, so they put him to driving tractor. However, he has spent all of his time in the shop fixing farm equipment. The job currently does not pay well at all, but we are hoping and praying that as soon as harvesting is complete they will be able to promote him to the assistant manager position. We are so ecstatic that he found a job, he has been looking since March. Right now the hours are incredibly long, and so he won't be seeing much of ethan these next few weeks as he leaves around 7 am and gets home around 11 to 12 at night. We thought that he would just commute for the first while until we knew for sure that the job was permanent, but we've changed our minds and decided to take the chance and move out there, so that Ryan won't have to get home so late. It will still be late hours, but not as late. We found an apartment, it's a duplex that his aunt owns. I am so excited to move. It has been over a year since we have had our own place, and I really miss being on our own. I will be cleaning and painting the place for the next couple weeks, after I get off work, and also I have to start looking for jobs in the area we will be living. I will post before and after pictures of the place we are moving into, because it is in desperate need of cleaning and paint (the last tenants were not very clean) and so we are expecting that the transformation will be pretty extreme. I am very hopefull and praying very hard that this job will work out.

Job hunt, little vampires, and a sick child.

I feel like blogging about something but I don't have anything too interesting to blog about. Ryan has had several interviews for jobs lately, so we are hoping and praying that he will get a job soon. My job is going well, I really like it. It can be a little crazy though, for example we think one of my little ones is teething becuase he bit 7 children today, and it wasn't out of anger he would just randomly tackle them or lean in towards them and sink his teeth in. I decided to nickname him my little vampire, and tried to keep him seperate from all of the other children. It was kind of comical in a way when we were outside and I'm running (on tv they would show it in slow motion....) in and out through the toys yelling "NO!!!!" trying to get to him in time to stop him from biting a little girl, and he stops and looks up at me so innocently with this look that said, "what?".
I got home from work to find Ethan sick. He's happy and playing but can't keep anything down. I really hope it doesn't last long, whatever he has, it's so not fun to be sick.

Today was a long crazy day at work. One of the children I normally have every day came down with Pink Eye yesterday, so today I had to start disinfecting toys. I say start because seriously there are so many toys that it's impossible to do it in one day. Luckily my room is sectioned off into three areas, so I can put the kids in different areas to keep them contained while I cleaned. It was still difficult to watch 5-8 (it fluctuated) 13 mon-1 yr olds and also clean toys. I finally got them down for naps and was cleaning the toys when one of the children in the neighboring class flooded the toilet that our two classrooms share. And of course the floor tilts down in my direction so instead of it flooding out into the other classroom it all came into mine. So it was a crazy day. I'm hoping I can get all the toys cleaned quick enough so the kids can start playing with them again. I wish they would let me clean them in the late afternoon when we combine classes and I no longer have any children, but they would rather send me home early.

Ethan has started his preschool group again, and he is very ready to learn. He loves school, and is responding so well. When he turns 3 in October he will go into the school district with their development program. He's started singing along with things on tv and attempts to do dances that he sees on tv. He loves the cartoons that have singing and dancing. He also has started trying to sing Old McDonald, he keeps repeating E I E I O, and I'm not sure where he picked up the song, but I think it's cute. He loves music and books, and just seems so eager to learn. He is working really hard at speaking, so it won't be long until it all comes together. He loves to count, so I am looking for books on counting, abc's, colors, shapes etc. to help him learn. I'm very proud of him.

So, this week Ethan got sick, and for about 3 or so days was pretty miserable. Since I work now, Ryan was home with him, and I appreciated that he was getting some cuddling time with Ethan, but I also missed being the one to give the love and cuddling when he was sick. This is the first time he has been sick since the seizures last year, so I was very worried the whole time this time around, but he made it through without having any seizures this time. I'm happy that Ethan slept all night last night, and woke up happy and feeling much better. He still doesn't have his appetite back, but I think by tomorrow hopefully he will be back to normal.

I had bought a music cd earlier in the week to try out at naptime so that Ryan would hopefully have an easier time getting Ethan down for naps, and I've fallen in love with this cd. Each night that Ethan has been sick I've put the cd on and it calmed him down enough that he was asleep within seconds. It is amazing the healing power of music, because laying next to him I could feel him relax with the music. So, I Highly recomend buying this cd. It's called Piano Portraits Lullaby featuring Jon Schmidt, Paul Cardall, David Tolk, and Michael R. Hicks.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NmOrQpV5PU This is a link to a promo for it, but it seriously doesn't do it justice. I recognized Jon Schmidt so that's why I picked it when I was looking through music at Walmart, but I was still surprised at how beautiful the arrangments are. I'm thinking I want one for work to play during naptime for my class, or just play as background music throughout the day, because it does have a very peacefull calming effect and it's so beautiful.

My Potted Sycamore Tree Needs A Home...

When the government designed my home town in Washington, which is below the Grand Coulee Dam, it chose a different tree to line each street. My street had Maples, with Chestnuts at one end, another had Walnut trees, and another had those trees with the long bean pods. Fall time was always very beautiful in my town, and there were mountains of leaves for us kids to wade through.

(this pic is of my sister stephanie and rachelle and a neighbors child playing in leaves in our yard)

The prettiest street was the one lined with huge beautiful Sycamores, which the city was always trying to cut down for one reason or another, and the "towns people" always fought. Last summer when I was home I collected some seeds from several different plants and trees that I love in the area, and took a seed pod from the sycamores on that street. I've never grown anything from seeds, other than vegetables, so I didn't really expect the sycamore to grow, but it did. I didn't realize how fast Sycamore trees grow, and I discovered tonight that it has outgrown its pot. The roots are trying to escape out the bottom. I don't have a yard yet to plant it in, so I considered re-potting it in a bigger pot, but that would be a pain to transport when we move. So if anyone wants a fast growing shade tree, which can grow to around 100 ft tall, let me know. The tree will drop a lot of leaves in fall time, so if you detest all forms of yard work than you probably wouldn't want it. The leaves are large, and it also drops seed balls. I've been told that you can mow it up without much problem though. Sycamores also have a mottled looking bark that makes them very beautiful.

(the above pictures of the trees are random ones I found on google).

I wanted to post about several things. First, we have been having really mild summer here in Idaho, It has only been uncomfortably hot for maybe a week total, and the rest of the time has been raining or on the cool side. Today it is actually cold outside, cold enough for a coat! I kind of like it though, not having miserably hot weather.

I really am enjoying my job as a pre school teacher. The hardest part of working is being away from Ethan. It's nice that Ryan is able to watch him, but he has yet to suceed at getting him to take a nap. Therefore Ethan is pretty exhausted by the time I get home from work. It's also hard to get everything else done around the house when I'm gone for a good part of the day. I will figure out how to organize my time better eventually.

I go to work at 12 in the afternoon and work until 6. I've been assigned to the oldest class, which consists mainly of 5-6 year olds. I didn't expect to have my own class so quickly, and it has been a little stressful learning how to deal with 18 or more children, learning their names and corresponding guardians, etc. I really like working there though, and now that I know what age group I will be with (for the most part, except when I'm needed elsewhere) I can start organizing lessons, games and activities for the children. I've found that I work best with the children when I don't have another teacher checking in every couple of seconds or co-teaching with me. I work best when I can discipline and decide activities all on my own, and the children listen to me more when It's just me. When another teacher comes in I find it hard to discipline because as soon as I say anything the other teachers (who feel I'm too quiet) will repeat(yell) whatever I say, and the children end up ignoring me all together and the other teacher ends up being who they listen to. I've decided that I hate yelling all day to get the kids attention, it causes more chaos, and my throat is sore by the end of the day. So, I think I'm going to use a whistle or something of that sort, which seems better than yelling all day at the kids. I wish the class sizes were a lot smaller, it's a lot easier to work with the children when there are only 12 or so of them. When the classes swell to 23 or more it can be quite difficult to keep the chaos down.

drawing

I felt like drawing today, so I looked up some pictures of a friend's boy that I had saved for doing drawings. In school I had learned a method of "mapping" out the body when you begin to do a drawing, where you break down the body into a series of boxes. I understood the concept, and it helped, however I always find it difficult to see the boxes in the body. Instead, I see circles. So I decided today to map out the circles instead, and I was pretty impressed with the finished result. Keep in mind that this is a 5 min drawing, it's completely unfinished and not completely accurate, it is mainly just a way to get an idea of where everything will go. The finished drawing/painting will have clothes on the boy, and he will be playing with a train. A lot of art teachers and artists will push their method of creating a painting/drawing on you as if that is the only way it should be done, however I feel that the best method is different for each person. (This is Brayden, Kimberly... or it will be when it's finished :) ).

Ethans new list

Ethan is doing so well!! He can now say Momma, Daddy, Grandpa, Grandma, wow, uh-oh, Ally (the dog), Lisa (speech therapist), Pizza, Soda, Puh (please), More, Up, Tractor, Bye Bye, banana, plus a lot of sound effects for animals and vehicles. He has been very eager to learn lately, even if he can't quite get the right sound out he still is trying and I'm very proud of him. He's also really gotten into singing and will attempt to sing along with songs on the tv or even the radio. He doesn't know the words so it ends up sounding like "duh.............duh........" and I think it is really cute. I often hear him singing twinkle twinkle little star which appears to be his favorite song right now, he will make noises to the tune of the song. He really likes to count things and will point to things and make sounds like he is trying to count. He will open his fingers one at a time on his own like he's counting them up to 5. He started counting his fingers all on his own out of nowhere, I just caught him doing it one day and was surprised. We've even been able to finally get him to put up two fingers to say he's two. Tonight he was watching Blues Clues, and they said "second clue" and the guy on the show held up two fingers and Ethan copied him- he's never done that before. He loves trains, and has discovered that I can look up pictures and videos of trains on the internet for him, and he thinks that's the coolest thing ever. I drove up into the driveway from work yesterday to find him on his tricycle and when I got out of the car I heard him clearly say "Momma". It made my day.

Going Back to Work

Today I found out that I got a job as a teacher at a pre-school/day care center. I had interviewed for the position last week, however they hadn't called me back when they said they would, so I assumed that they had found someone else, esp. since I have very few formal qualifications for the position. I am in shock now, and a little panicky. I start tomorrow with training, from noon until 6, and when I am done with the training it will be a 8-6pm full time job. I started thinking about it, and the last time I had a full time normal job was the year before high school.... I've had part time jobs since then, but nothing full time, and all those jobs were pansy jobs, so I'm excited and nervous for this "real" job. I will start out in a "floating" position, helping out in all the classes, wherever they need help, and eventually when they feel I'm ready I could have my own class. I feel this is a really good learning experience ahead of me, and I am proud and thankful that I was able to get a dignified job and not have to resort to some of my back-up plan jobs, because those wouldn't have been very enjoyable (ie conducting phone surveys like I did back in college). Ryan will be home to take care of Ethan, until Ryan finds a job, but we are going to go step by step and see how things go and not worrying about what happens when Ryan gets a job until he does get a job. I've always wanted to be a stay at home mom, so it will be hard to be away from home, however I know it won't be forever. It will help us out financially and eventually I will be able to go back to being a stay at home mom.

For All the Pregnant Ladies Out There

I just found out that the wife of a friend from college is starting her own maternity clothes business called Milan Maternity. I checked out her website and she has some pretty cute clothes. Here is the website for anyone interested in taking a peek: http://www.milanmaternity.com/

I know I'm forgeting something......

Is there a medical condition that causes poor memory? I'm not talking about alzheimers or dementia, and I'm not talking about silly memory lapses. You always hear people complain about being forgetful, calling them "senior moments" or attributing it to being an air head. I have trouble remembering things, everything from where I put my keys to appointments I have, and it happens so incredibly frequently that it honestly isn't very funny, it's embarassing. I've tried keeping lists and planners, but I always lose the lists or planners, or forget to write in them. In school I would forget about assignments or forget when they were due, or forget what the assignment was actually about. I'd forget what was said in class, I'd try to take notes, but i'm horrible at note taking- and i'm not just saying that to make excuses, I really am horrible at taking notes. I'd take notes on all the wrong things, or I could never keep up with the teacher and what he was saying. Now it's things like misplacing very important items on a daily basis, or even putting them somewhere safe where "i'll remember it" and yet still forgeting. I have a special place for certain items to make sure I won't lose them, but i still lose things so incredibly easily. Then there is the appointment thing. If I don't think about an appointment the night before or the morning of I will completely forget about it. And even then, I can think about it up until a couple of hours before and I will get distracted and still manage to forget about it. I'm very frustrated with myself, as you can see, it is very discouraging. I want people to be able to depend on me, but I don't know what to do when I can completely forget about something so easily.

Artist: Chris Turnham

I wanted to start highlighting some artists whom I am in complete awe over. I only know personally a couple of the artists on my artist list, but when I find an artist work that I love I add them to my list. Today I want to feature Chris Turnham. I accidentally happened upon his work one day when I was googling something or other. I love his interpretations of line, space, and color. I like looking at his sites and seeing how imaginative his concepts are. Imagination is something I really need to work on. Chris also worked on the artwork for the animated movie Coraline, a movie with amazingly beautiful and imaginative artwork (and also a movie that I would definately not recomend taking your children too....). I highly recomend that you take a look at one of his two sites that I have discovered. http://www.christurnham.com/ or http://www.christurnham.blogspot.com/

This week has been a very hard week for me, just several big things going on that have caused me discouragement and sadness. I hope next week is better.

Ethan Singing

Here are two audio only videos I took this evening of Ethan singing. I was putting him to bed, and I started to sing him a song like I do every night, but this time he started singing with me. It melted my heart, he was so sweet about it. He has attempted a couple of notes before but he has never tried to sing a whole song. I think music might be a good way of teaching him to talk, he loves music and playing on the piano, and I was so excited to hear his cute little voice as he tried to sing "you are my sunshine" and "twinkle twinkle little star". I didn't tape it, but we also sang "Jesus Wants Me For A Sunbeam" which he loved and kept wanting to sing again and again. I think he's so cute. :)

Today I went to a friends home and took a bunch of pictures of her cute children to use as reference pictures for future illustrations/artwork. She was so kind and patient to let me take the pictures, and I am really excited to see how the images turned out. I used my nice camera, which isn't digital, so I'm going to have Costco put them on a cd so that I can then go through them one at a time and determine which ones are keepers and worth printing for reference photos. I'm excited because I have some good ideas for some illustrations. As soon as I get done I will post pictures of the artwork.

This last month Ryan graduated with his MBA, and I'm so proud of him. He was able to do it online which was nice since he was working full time. I don't have any good pictures of the graduation to post, so this one will do.

fun weekend

This last weekend we went to a family reunion for Ryan's mother's side of the family. We accidentally left our camera at home, so I wasn't able to take any fun pictures of the weekend. I saw, though, that Jenni and Margie both posted pictures on their blogs, for anyone wanting to see some fun pics of the weekend. Friday and Saturday were spent re-shingling Ryan's Grandma Nelson's roof, and the workers really worked hard and did a great job. Sunday we went to church with all the family, and Monday was spent playing on the snake river at Ryan's uncle John's home. Ethan was excited when he saw the boat and the jet skiis, and immediately started signing boat and wanting to go play on them, although he didn't enjoy going on them once the motors turned on. Ryan did get him out on a jet ski once, and I got him out on the boat once, but he cried the whole time. Ethan still had a lot of fun running around and eating tons of chips, fruit and soda and playing with all the children. It was a lot of fun to see all the family and we had a ton of fun jet skiing on the river.

He cracks me up.

Just Thoughts

Just a couple of thoughts that do not have any connection, they're rather random actually.

I'm not ready for full on potty training with Ethan. I decided to give it a try, and I've decided I just can't handle it yet. I'll continue to put him on the potty when I change his diaper, just to get him introduced to the idea, but the full on potty training can wait.

I love photoshop and I've been playing around with it, touching up some of my photo's as practice. I've decided, though, that although I love photography, it's best to just take the picture correctly the first time, and basically leave it as it is. Touching up can help, but it's always better when the photo is good from the start. Also, I've decided that I definately like illustration/painting better than photography because I can control everything down to the the tiniest hair. I like having that control and being able to choose where to place things and what colors to use and where each color and value will go.

Ethan's speech therapist mentioned that she thinks Ethan skipped the babbling phase when he was younger, and that he is now going through that phase. He is constantly making noise lately, carrying on these cute conversations of syllables that do not make any sense to anyone but himself, and it is really cute to listen to. He is getting better at mimiking the beginning syllables of words, if you can get him to look at your mouth when you say them. He has difficulty with a lot of syllables, like the long e sound in please, but I'm happy that he is trying.

hold it, hold it!

so, here's my funny story of the day, well other than finding out that ethan had poured his milk into one of my flower pots this morning. Ryan has been home lately, and so I've been able to take advantage of his being home because he gets up early and can watch ethan in the mornings so I can sleep in a little bit. Last night Ethan woke up some time during the night and I couldn't get him to go back to sleep. Finally I asked Ryan to try to get him to sleep and he ended up just sleeping in his room with him. This morning I let Ethan run around in his pj's until finally I decided around 11:00 that he really should get dressed for the day. I normally get him dressed when he wakes up, but I didn't think it would hurt any to let him run around in his pj's this morning. I came into the front room with his clothes and he was standing in the hallway with this funny look on his face. I could tell he was going the bathroom, so I un-zipped his pj's to find that he didn't have a diaper on. I had just assumed that Ryan had changed Ethans diaper this morning when he got up with him, but Ryan informed me that he hadn't changed Ethan's diaper, so that meant that the poor kid had gone all night and up until 11 this morning holding it in until he just couldn't anymore, which probably explains why he was having such a hard time going back to sleep last night. I really thought I had put a diaper on him when I got him out of the tub last night and into his pj's. He has never held it in for so long on purpose, so it is possible that maybe he is getting ready to be potty trained. I had planned to wait until he was around 3, because I had heard it is easier to potty train boys when they are older. I'm not excited to start potty training, so we will just see how things go.

New Website

I've finally gotten my new website up and running, so please check it out. http://dragonflywood-andreamichelle.blogspot.com/ Some day I hope that I can custom design the site more, but for now this will work. I am a beginner at this sort of thing, so it will take time for me to figure out everything.

2nd post: Paintings

I know that I already posted a post today, so I really should wait if I want people to see both, but I wanted to get all my paintings uploaded. So just so you know, I posted twice today. Here are the all of my recent paintings I've done. I know there are flaws in them, but I have spent enough time on them and need to move on, and I'm happy with where they are at. I don't mean to sound negative, I really do like how they ended up, but I do have friends who are artists and I know that it's hard not to give a critique, and I just wanted to say that I'm aware of the flaws. I'm excited to be done and I'm ready to move on, I just need to come up with some new ideas for illustrations. I haven't settled on a style yet, so my paintings tend to be random, but eventually I hope to have settled on a style. They are watercolors, since I don't have the proper amount of ventilation to do oils right now.

Car paintings and other random pictures.

Okay, first here are three of the paintings I did recently. Joan gave me money for my birthday to frame them so that some day when we have an office in our house, or Ryan has an office at his work they can go there. I will get the other paintings up soon.


This is the raspberry pie I made for my birthday last saturday. It was very good, but of course it will never taste as good as my mom's pies. I had a wonderful day, I spent the day outside doing yardwork, and it was actually very relaxing and fun.

One day ethan came into the office wearing my hat and Joans boots. He really wanted to go outside, and couldn't find his own hat and shoes, so he figured these would work.

Ethan thinks it's fun to prete d to sleep on the couch. He will see others lie down on the couch and pull the blanket over themselves, so he likes to mimic us. Sometimes he will come and get me and take me to the couch to try to get me to lay down, and then he will proceed to put the blanket over me.

Ethan likes to play on the couch with Grandpa when he is taking trying to take a nap. He would climb on top of him, pull the blanket off, and lay on the opposite end, giggling the whole time. Grandpa doesn't get much sleep...

Here is a fort that Ryan made for Ethan one day. And you can see the lovely mess from my paintings all over the pool table.... Luckily that stuff has been cleaned up and is not so messy anymore.

Ethan hasn't been doing well on taking naps lately, even though he is tired. One day he fell asleep in the car on the way home from twin and Ryan laid him on the couch and he never woke up (which is abnormal, since he wakes up at the slightest noise some times). I thought he was cute.

We came into our bedroom one night and found Asia had climbed under the covers and was sleeping in our bed. We thought it was pretty funny that she had gotten under the covers like that. We try to keep her outside most of the time, but she is sneaky and can dart in the house as soon as a door opens a crack. As of this moment she is going from door to door begging to be let inside, even though it's a gorgeous day outside today.

These are the beautiful roses that Ryan got me for Valentines day. I was able to dry them with the silica sand I have and they turned out great, so some time when I'm finished arranging them I'll put another pic up of them.

Ethan is starting, slowly, to finally talk and mimic noises consistently. He can say moooo for cow; aaaaah for sheep; ooof oof for dog (he can't seem to pronounce the w- it's really cute); he makes a whiny noise to mimic the sound one of Joans cats makes (it's a whiny cat) whenever he sees any cat; he has started saying uh uh oh all the time now, and will even say it when I drop something or he wrecks one of his toy cars; he says nanana for banana; and today he said ba ba ba several times for me when we were playing with his ball.

Finished

Today I finally handed over my recently completed watercolor paintings to Blip copy place, and seriously I gave a sigh of relief that they were out of my hands for the moment and someone elses problem...I've been really working hard on them for over a month now- so much for trying to keep them simple. Blip is going to be putting them on a CD for me so that I can put them on the internet. It's times like this that I wish I had a nice printer, a huge scanner, a nice computer, and the programs photoshop, in-design and illustrator so I could just do this part myself.....maybe someday.

This morning Ethan had pre-school, so when I went to put him in the car to go I noticed how gorgeous of a day it was. I decided to check to see if any of the tulips had started to poke out of the soil, and I'm excited to say they have. I'm very ready for spring. This afternoon we had a thunderstorm, so the sky clouded over, but it still has been a pretty day.

Funny Things

Here are some cute things Ethan has done lately:

When I go to lay him down in his bed for the night sometimes he will throw his arms around my neck to get me to stay with him.

Squint his eyes and wrinkle his nose and try to get some tears out.

Throw his hands over his eyes in a dramatic attempt to look like he's crying.

The other day Ethan found a can of pears in the pantry and brought it to Grandma. She told him just a minute, as she was ironing. A moment later he was back again, holding the can of pears and a can opener and handed them to her.

If he sees Grandpa sitting on the couch he will go grab his hand and make him go upstairs with him to get him ice cream.

Attempts to do the itsy bitsy spider hand gestures.

Can put his shoes and socks on, and even gets them on the right feet.

I put Ethan down for a nap the other day, and after leaving him in there for several hours came to get him up so I could go to Twin to run errands. I opened the door and discovered it was obvious he hadn't taken a nap. Instead he was laying in bed on his back, books covering the bed, along with some toys. He had one leg crossed over the other with a book resting on his leg and he was reading. He looked up at me and gave me this look that seemed to say, "did you want something?"

How can you go so wrong?

Last night we decided to try another chinese food resturant from the area, a new one we hadn't yet tried. I LOVE chinese/oriental food, and I have good memories of the few oriental resturants I've been to in the Seattle area, they were SO good. How is it that people can go so wrong on oriental food? Seriously? Many people have never had any chinese food other than their local small town Idaho restuarant, and they think that is what chinese food is supposed to taste like. And therefore they decide that they do not like Oriental food. I have tried to make oriental food and it never turns out quite right, something always seems to be missing... and it makes quite a mess and takes a lot of time. I do think I am coming close to getting my orange chicken recipe tweaked to taste right, but it means the family ends up being my test subjects, and when it goes wrong oriental food REALLY goes wrong, at least in my opinion. If anyone has any good oriental food recipes, I would love to get some, or if anyone has an idea of why it is so seemingly hard to fix a good oriental dish I would like to know. Maybe I can convince Ryan to move us to Seattle (Ryan thinks it's hilarious that I still hold out hope of moving to Seattle, esp. in his opinion just so I can have a good chinese food resturant to eat at....:) )

play group

Ethans playgroup started again today, and he was so excited when we walked in the room. He immediately ran for the toys and started playing, and when I came back to get him he didn't want to leave. I'm so glad he has this to go to, so that he can be around other children and learn and grow. Plus I get an hour and a half to myself, which is also nice.

Today Ethan is sick, so I decided for lunch I would make him something light that would help with an upset stomach. I made him some chicken noodle soup, but he doesn't want to eat it. I know he's hungry because his stomach is making noises, but I don't know what to give him that would help with an upset stomach and still be something he will eat... I'll figure something out, I'm sure. I hate when he gets sick, it's so sad when your children don't feel well.

Christmas And Then Going Home to Washington

The following are pictures from Christmas, and then Ryan, Ethan, and my unexpected trip home to Washington this last weekend. Most of the scenery pictures are ones I plan on adding to my file of reference pictures for painting and drawing. We were surprised when we got to Coulee Dam and saw the ammount of snow they had. It was 18 inches at least, and after we left sunday they ended up getting more snow that evening. There was so much snow that is was very beautiful and made everything a winter wonderland. Our town is lucky because being that it is a government town (because of the dam), they have the equipment and people available to plow all the roads. I hope you enjoy all the pictures.

Here is Tonya and Joan decorating Don up as a christmas tree (?) for one of the family Christmas parties.

I don't know whether Asia buried herself in the blankets, or whether Ryan piled them on top of her...I'm going for the latter of the two.

Trip to Washington

This is the view from my parents front door. My Dad had to carve out a spot for us to park.

Ethan looks so excited, doesn't he?

Rachelle got a hold of my camera... she's an odd girl...:)

These were taken out by Steamboat Rock, near my hometown.

These deer looked like they were having some difficulty getting through the snow, esp. the one in behind the first deer. I think the second deer was a baby, since it was smaller, so it really was struggling to plow through it all.

Devils Punch Bowl. In the late winter sometimes this gets a solid mass of ice down it from the runoff that freezes, and you will get ice climbers out climbing it. As it was there was only a little ice to the right of the waterfall (in spring it's a waterfall at least). When we were out there driving around some guys were gearing up to climb the ice up there, but to me what was up there looked pretty wimpy for ice climbing.

This is part of the lake behind the dam.

Ethan was so tired saturday night that he fell asleep on Ryans lap with the tv going- which is quite amazing seeing as how loud the tv has to be for my Dad to hear it. He was so tired.

Rachelle you crack me up. Lesson learned: never leave a camera around where Rachelle can get to it....:)j/k

These pictures were taken when we were driving through the Bend/Le Grande area of Oregon. I love this area, it is so beautiful. My pictures do not come close to doing the area justice, esp. since they were taken through the windows of our blazer... I would love to go through that area when I actually am not in a hurry to get somewhere else, and just spend time taking pictures of the area, because it is so beautiful. I am envious of Josh and Kari that they get to live there, even if it does get a lot of snow.