Here are a couple of low quality videos of the kids sledding today that I shot with our digital camera. The first one is of Maisie and the second one is of Dach. Apparently objects are closer than they appear when you are looking through the viewfinder. I kept almost getting knocked over by the kids.
Maisie sledding:
Dach sledding:
Hmn, it just occured to me that the time is now 9:18pm and my children have not put themselves to bed. Shall my parental duties never cease...?
Good grief - you'd think these people would get TIRED at some point!! Is it me or did we JUST come in after 3 hours out there?? (Apparently 90 minutes indoors on a snowy day is the legal limit...)
"Mom our friends are here and want to know if we want to go to the park to go sledding, can we?"
Friends? What friends? You don't have any friends. We just moved here like 5 minutes ago!
Ohhhhhhhhhh, it was our friends that live 5 houses down that we know from our old church. THOOOOOOOOOOOSE friends. [Pray for them - they have 4 kids: 8,6,5 and 14 months. Their youngest has a large cancerous tumor that they have been battling since Thanksgiving. It is shrinking - but they would love your prayers.]
We all suited back up and headed back out into the snow. They showed us the elementary school directly behind their house *didn't even know it was there* and on the other side of that - a great big snowy hill.
Maisie
Zane
Zane & Georgia
Even Eric got into it
Please remind me never to play football in the snow**
**Because standing upright in the snow is cold enough already.
And here are the rest...
A self-portrait
Georgia
Zane
Maisie
Dach
Maisie heading back up for another run (my favorite pic of the day)
Hee- hee!! Jen & I are having a race to see who can upload their snow pictures and post them first...
Come on Snapfish - do me right!!
It snowed in Seattle area yesterday and last night. It started here around 3pm. I am so evil that I was just going to close the blinds and put a movie in so the kids wouldn't notice the snow. - All to avoid wet laundry- It's sad that I'm so evil - be glad I'm not YOUR fun-spoiling mom. Georgia glanced out the window before I could get the blinds down:
"IT'S SNOWING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
Children running and screaming with glee. Minutes later I was outside with a shovel trying to build a retaining wall of snow at the end of the driveway so the kids wouldn't end up under a car on their sleds. 45 minutes *and 20,000 calories burned later*...they had their safety wall. *note to self - keep blinds permanently closed*
Eric couldn't make it into work today so we took a walk with the kids to Starbucks (about 3/4 mile away) and back. We found a great snowy hill on the way back and spent about 30+ minutes sledding down it.
Here are snow pics. There are quite a few - I may have to split these between 2 entries...
The boys
Georgia
Maisie
The gang trekking back up the hill
Zane aka: Captain Hazard
Dach
Ok, I've got 6 more pics left - let's start a new entry...
As of yesterday, my mantle was still sporting Christmas decor because I couldn't bear to have a giant empty wall staring at me. I haven't been able to find any artwork for above the mantle that I either liked or could afford. So...since a girl can't have stockings in her living room forever - I took matters into my own hands. "I'll just create my own artwork. How hard can it be? Some canvas, a little paint and decoupage..."
I had a 2-pack of 16x20 canvas sitting around because I had always "meant" to do something with it for the kids' old bedrooms. The problem was that I knew what I wanted - I just wasn't sure how to make it. I wanted a painting with some decoupaged patterned paper on it in chocolate brown and a soft muted aqua blue. The problem is that I started it at 11pm last night and had no paint in either of those colors. Do you know how hard it is to make chocolate brown paint from scratch?? I used about 9 bottles of various shades of red, yellow, green and blue and FINALLY got what I wanted. The blue was a little easier because I had a candle that I was trying to match it to, so I was able to keep mixing and comparing till I had it.
It took me till...? Hmn, what time does "Late night with Conan" end? Is it 1am or 1:30am?? *thinks* Must be 1:30am.
Ok, so are you ready to see my very first canvas painting?! *beams* I'm so excited - I was convinced I was going to mess it up. It is intimidating because it's not like a piece of paper where I can just toss it and start over. I had wanted to make it a "little" more exciting than it is - but I have "over-do-it-itis" so figured I'd better stop while I was ahead. I kind of wish I had done a couple of things a little differrent, but I can live with it. I do wish it were a little bigger. I think 20x30 canvases would be a better fit for the wall, but I'm just happy that I have something there that matches the colors of the room AND that is totally my style.
I'm trying to figure out if I'm brave enough to get a super-huge canvas like 3' x 5' to decorate and hang in our entryway. We'll see...
At any rate, here is what I created last night...
I wish I'd made the flower petals thicker and that I would not have split that middle flower precisely in half. I think it would look better if I'd done a 70/30 split instead.
And with that - I must go and crack the homeschooling whip...
Ok - the 2nd photo shoot went much better. I showed Zane a picture of him from Disneyland that I liked of him and said, "Practice this smile!"
And voila:
And thank you for all of your votes on Maisie's photos. I have decided to use photo #2. I was really torn but thought that one went best with the ones I took of the other kids. So here they all are:
I ordered each one in an 8x10 and I am mounting them in 11x14 black frames with white matting. *sigh of contentment* Hurry up Snapfish - I want them NOW!!
I also ordered this one in a 5x7 to be matted in a matching 8x10 frame with the same matting:
Here is Georgia's, I like how it turned out:
Zane's on the other hand *SIGH*. Here are the "best" of them *and I use that term loosely* :
Pa of the problem is that he needs a haircut AND I need more natural lighting because even in Seattle grey gloom broad daylight, my camera is having low-light focusing issues - thus a slight blurry problem.
Sigh, back to the drawing board - maybe tomorrow...
Ok, today I decided that I was going to do a photoshoot with each kid and blow up either an 8x10 or 11x14 portrait of each kid to hang in our hallway [WE HAVE A HALLWAY!!!]
I only got one possibilty out of Dach aka: "Colonel Spazmatic" can't seem to make a normal face when a camera is in sight. I got lots of crazed eye looking ones from him but only one actual non-fake / non-psychotic smile. Here it is:
But supermodel Maisie is a little harder to choose. The girl is so photogenic that she always seems to look great - not to mention she knows how to work the camera! You'd have thought Madonna's "Vogue" song were playing in the background while I photographed her! Anyway, I've narrowed it down to the following three. Please feel free to vote for which one you think would look best hanging on the wall. [If you are a professional photographer - your vote counts double!]
Door #1:
Door#2:
Door #3:
Now I have to go do Georgia and Zane's - both of whom are a whiz at the strained fake smile but not fantabulous at the "what I'd actually like hanging on the wall" smile. We shall see how this goes...
