52 Weeks of 2014 - Week 17

A day late, but we have a lot going on right now. Well, actually it's Lauren that has a lot going on right now, and we're just along for the ride. This weekend, she attended her friend's birthday party at Paint Monkey. Paint Monkey is an art studio where you and your friends can hang out and paint a real work of art. The photo above is just a small portion of the studio wall that's filled with name tags from past parties.



You can see the name tag wall in the background of this photo. The guests all paint the same subject, but get to have their own take on it. Lauren's friend chose an owl (A girl after my own heart!).



Lauren was so proud of her finished painting. The instructor said that she was a very serious as she worked and that she did a great job.

In other news, last Wednesday we went to a presentation for school band and orchestra. Lauren went into the presentation interested in playing either the flute or the trumpet, but left the presentation determined to play the trombone, despite that the trombone wasn't even demonstrated during the presentation and that she's never even touched a trombone. I had to beg her to at least put down a couple of other options to try out when the band teachers visited her school. When we asked her why she wanted to play trombone, she said that it was the only instrument she knew how to "play" and that she learned from watching this guy:



So today was the big day, and sure enough, she brought home an evaluation sheet with a big old check next to "Trombone." In fact, she did so well that they didn't even have her try any other instruments, and the instructor drew three smilies on her sheet. They are short on trombone players as it is, so they had to be thrilled to have a girl interested in playing.

As they say, "Know thyself!"

For 52 Weeks of 2014 - Week 16

Both due to the weather and it's placement in this year's calendar, Easter seemed to take for forever to get year, but then the week leading up to it just flew by. For the last several years, we've celebrated Easter as our day of relaxation. Since we have our family and friends over for dinner, egg hunting and egg dying on Saturday night, the days leading up are very busy with shopping, cooking and cleaning, so the three of us spend the actual holiday pretty quietly. This year, the Easter bunny had to give Lauren two baskets because everything wouldn't fit in her usual basket (In the Easter bunny's defense, Lauren's basket is pretty small!). The weather was gorgeous, almost like a summer day, and we were surprised to find that miniature golf was open at our local park.  As for the rest of the evening, I'm hoping I can kick Lauren off of the Wii long enough to watch The Ten Commandments, which I recorded last night.

I feel silly even mentioning my sketchbook journal. There's still hope for me to get caught up again.  I was just thinking that now that the weather is warming up, it would be nice to spend evenings sketching outside on the patio.

For 52 Weeks of 2014 - Week 15

Spent the weekend re-decorating my Lauren's room. This night stand is as old as I am - it was part of my nursery furniture. It's been painted yellow, ivory, pink and now this gorgeous blue. I think it's called Rushing Stream. Her room is not quite done yet, so this is just a sneak peek.

Still no sketchbook pages this week, but I am making progress. I'm working on two weeks at once, and those are almost finished. I'll keep going this week, and hopefully have some to share real soon.

For 52 Weeks of 2014: Week 14

Just a photo this week - no journal pages. I am now waaay behind. My creative slump finally ended this weekend, so I spent the majority of the time taking advantage of it. I did 10 different shoots this over the last two days which should tide me over for a little while. This week, I'm going to draw, draw, draw so I can really catch up on my journal - really!

Lauren made these. Years ago, I bought blank wooden figures with the same idea in mind, but I never executed it. I love how she drew me and her with only one eye! She and I both have side bangs, so our hair often in our left eyes.  Mark is wearing a Grumpy Cat shirt because we like to tease him about being grumpy.