Restaurant Logos

Lately Oliver's been noticing logos along the road, especially restaurants. I think some of these marketing companies should hire a three year old to tell them the truth.

"Why is that sign so sad?"

"That restaurant is called Applebee's, but they don't even have apples. That's weird"

"That one is called "Tomatobee's" but maybe they have tomatoes. I don't know."

The Boys

I've been making a point to take more pictures, so here is what my guys have been up to these days.

Here's Ian doing all of his favorite things at once...he put this together himself...climbing (yes he carried the bathroom stool up onto the trampoline), bouncing, naked time, and tongue sticking out. Such a cutie patootie if I say so myself

Tongue again

And they love cuddling together!

Ian has gotten nice and comfy here. I love how they're in the same pose

Lately these guys LOVE to read. We have read through all our books in the last few weeks and had to make a special run to Barne's and Noble for a new stash! This is our new favorite pass time.

Just cute.

Ian grabbed several pairs of socks and sat in my lap. Soon he was wearing EVERY single pair of socks he owns. He just kept grabbing more and sitting down saying "Da" with more and more excitement with each new layer.

I'm pretty sure it added an extra few inches of height to him, ha ha ha! 

And this was earlier today. Oliver playing with colored water using an eye dropper and medicine syringe. This lasted for about 30 minutes.

And then he requested different colors. Purple and orange this time and another 30 minutes.

Sometimes I forget the fun "everyday moments" and am so glad when I capture a few of them. Enjoy!

Landmarks

I am on FIRE updating Ye Olde Blogge. Yes, I'm quite sure they had blogs in the olden days.

On yet another artsy note (yes I've been feeling the need to create these days, and no, not another baby. yet)...One of my thoughts for the Backyard Boutique was to capture different points of interest in this little city and creating some sort of photography or painting artwork with them. This town was (and I think still is) mainly known as a train depot. Here are three pictures I took a couple months ago that I really like but haven't done anything with yet.

This is taken from a bridge which overlooks one of the busiest places on the industrial side of town. The other side of town is all rural, so it's really neat to have an area that is mainly crops and cattle, and then hear the screaming whistles and chug-a-chugging of these massive beasts. The sound from this bridge is almost deafening with all the huge engines and horns, then add the automobile traffic from the bridge I was standing on. Quite a beautiful sight! I hope to take Oliver up here when he's a little bigger and there's less traffic to contend with.

This is a little caboose that had been set aside off the main tracks probably a few weeks ago. It looks very well used and had a few plants trying to creep up it. A little red caboose - like something from my childhood storybooks! 

And this was just a COOL thing to see!! This is in the rougher side of town down a little alley way between some apartments and some shops. It looks like the electricity for the entire town runs through this alley! I'd probably not be a huge fan of these giant transformers (?) right outside my window and fire escape, but it does make for an interesting view nonetheless.

I may adventure out again sometime on the rural side of things, but probably not anytime soon. Although some of the crops are coming up and the perfect uniform rows look really neat, and the ones that have grown a good foot look so green and lush. It's a beautiful drive around here when the crops are really getting going...and the cows and calves are fat and happy! Oh, and the bluebonnets are beautiful this year! Definitely bluebonnet picture time!

Not sure why I chose frogs

I'm not really sure why, but lately I've been in a battle with myself - I bet you thought I was going to say "I've been feeling a little green." Frogs? Eh? Ha ha ha! Never mind.

Oliver is currently obsessed with the immune system and the battle between the "good guys,"aka white blood cells, helper T-cells and phagocytes, and the "bad guys," aka bacteria and viruses, and I keep seeing the video illustrating this in my head as I think about what I'm going to write.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrYlZJiuf18&feature=player_detailpage

Negative Frog

 I've been so SO irritatingly negative about everything. While that's not totally outside my character, ha ha, it seems to have intensified. And it seems to come in waves. Nich and I were talking about it last night, and the only conclusion I could come to is that I still haven't figured out my purpose. Maybe it's a midlife crisis at 33, that's kind of sad if I'm only expecting myself to live to 66...so we'll call it a third-life-crisis, but seriously there is something going on. I LOVE being a mother and it was a HUGE adjustment for me to make. I was an art teacher in my former life and I LOVED being a teacher - I miss it all the time - but since I (very thankfully and luckily) have the option, I'd rather be a stay at home mom. And why does "stay at home mom" have such a negative connotation? I feel like I sound either "snooty" or "too stupid to do anything else/one dimensional" when I describe myself that way.

One of the best fathers in the Animal Kingdom

With the huge joy I have in raising our children and being there for every single accomplishment and
failure they have, hearing every funny thing they say or seeing their joy with every new discovery, I also feel there is something lacking. I know very few women who feel this way, or who admit to feeling this way. Am I truly alone in this? While I define myself as "wife" and "mother," I still want "Adriane." As my sweet husband reminds me often, raising our children to be sweet, happy, silly, polite, smart, well-mannered, curious, driven, and loving adults is the most important, and toughest job in the world...and he always adds that it is more important than what he does every day (saving lives, yawn, ha ha ha!). And he is the best father, most tuned-in, goofy, fun, loving dad I could ever even imagine for our babies, and the most wonderful, charming, loving, respectful, supportive, thoughtful, and might I add good-looking, husband on the planet. If he reads this, I know the next time we talk he's going to check my forehead and ask what's wrong with me, ha ha!

Yoga frog

So I've got it pretty good, really good. I know I am blessed, and I am very thankful. SERIOUSLY thankful. And I'm wondering why I feel like something is missing. I miss having a purpose for myself. And it's not like I haven't been trying to get out of the "one dimensionality" feeling. I've been leading Yoga and Pilates at church and have LOVED that. Truly enjoying the time to connect with my body, listen to calm music, and hang out with other women in the same stage of life. But that seems to be ending now with our awesome fitness guru leaving us and moving away. Yes, I am REALLY bummed she's leaving. I really really enjoyed getting back into painting while "cramming" for the Backyard Boutique (although I don't recommend staying up til 3 AM every night for a week when your children wake between 5:30-6, even when that's the only time to work), and I've enjoyed snapping photographs around town...although I found that is a little tougher with TWO little ones, oh nap schedules! And I've really enjoyed making fun activities for Oliver and Ian for church (I have yet to post the 3 of 10 I've completed so far, and starting the stencil in my entryway. Oh, and I haven't mentioned I reached my goal of getting down to 115 pounds. I'm halfway wondering if I'm experiencing "withdrawal" from my losing weight project.

"Ack!" frog

I've got all of these balls up in the air, and I really truly enjoy having a lot of things I'm involved in. I
feel like I've been immersing myself in a lot of different areas and am still coming up empty - it's like the one thing I HAVE found in my search is that I am still searching. Ack! I know I know, woe is me. But really, I'm wondering if maybe it's not someTHING I'm trying to connect with, but someONE. Well, I'll re-write that to be somePEOPLE. I've got gorgeous kids I love with more than my heart can hold, and the best friend I've ever had in my husband. But no close friends anymore. For years I've kept superficial relationships because we move so often. We move again in another year and I keep thinking, "why start trying now?" And really, why?

Zen frog

So I still can't put my finger on it. There's just an undercurrent that seems to be getting stronger and harder to quiet these days, and I feel like if I could just figure it out, all will be Zen again. Right? Wait, has it ever been "Zen?" I think that's totally a made up state of being - something to strive for even though it doesn't actually exists.

And it's funny, as I write this, Ian is smashing a fake vase against the tile and very happily and proudly bringing me the little pieces that fall off each time. I suppose I should get and put away the vase and distract him with a belly full of kisses :) Froggy kisses for my little prince. Too cheesey? Ok ok.

Day 7

For my 7th day, I decided the most beautiful things in this world is my family. Cheesey? Very. But that's ok! Here are my sweet boys cuddled up together to watch a cute little show before bed last night. Normally Nich or I or both of us are in the middle of them, but Nich wasn't home and I knew I needed to get a picture of this before Ian crawled down.

My sweet babies! Can I keep them like this, please?

Day 6

Lately I've been having a little bit of a love affair with gray and yellow, although it seems the "in" color combination right now is gray, yellow, white, or lavender, yellow, and white, so maybe I'm not very unique in that respect, but nonetheless, I have always liked that color combo. I recently planted a bunch of yellow flowers this year, only to realize that I had bought the same flowers last year and they are now coming back to life with the Spring! Now we have tons of these gorgeous yellow flower "bushes" in our front garden...which I love! We seem to have yellow, white and pink - very cheerful!

So, here I played around with an app that turns the whole picture black and white, then you can pick the areas you want to have its color back. So, here are two photographs where I only brought in the yellow portions of the picture. I'm not so great at this, but you get the idea. I'm not really one who likes to manipulate images too much - I prefer the original beauty of what I was looking at and not some perfected version of it.*

 

I really like these little flowers that come in such tiny, cute clusters! They remind me of Baby's Breath, just a whole lot prettier.

* Unless it makes it look really super cool

goofing around

Oliver and I having too much fun with the iPad camera...

We're both doing something weird with our mouths here, but I thought it odd that it's the same thing we're both doing...I think he has my mouth!

LOVE this boy!!

Backyard Boutique

I'd never heard of these before a few weeks ago, but apparently "Backyard Boutiques" are wildly popular in Arizona! A friend of mine just threw the first Backyard Boutique this little town has seen and it was a BLAST! A large group of us were organized to design and sell neat crafts, and there were all sorts of hand-sewn baby gear, potholders, binky-holders, headbands, hair clips, bows, scarves, jewelry, painted ceramics, shoes, geo-boards, baked goods, orders for hand-built furniture, and more. We had a good turn out and it was SO MUCH FUN to see the awesome talents these sweet ladies have!

After changing my mind 10,000 times, I decided to make paintings with inspirational quotes. Here are a few, and while I sold 3, I have several orders for custom artwork. I wasn't sure how they would do, and knew I wouldn't match many people's decor, but these worked well for samples and people could then give me their color schemes. I am really excited to start these custom paintings! It is wonderful to get back into painting, although very different than what I am used to doing.

Enough chatter, here are the paintings.


They started off simple...

As I got more comfortable with my trials and errors and got better with the process I made up, I got a little more daring...

And then decided to try my hand at an actual painting...haven't done this in years, and I don't think these pictures give it justice. I really like the way it turned out in real life

And all together it makes for a nice giant painting that several people are interested in and are getting back to me in a few days on whether they want it

This one is spoken for, just waiting to hear her color scheme to paint the words (P.S. I love you)

Here's my booth between the women selling bags by Thiry-one (I think that's the company's name, I can't remember) and the man selling custom furniture...of which he is pricing a piece of furniture we want but doesn't actually exists (he does beautiful work!)

I'm excited for when she hosts another one of these! And if anyone who stumbles across these are interested in a custom painting (these are 16"x20") leave me a comment and I'd be happy to work with you! The prices are these are about $30, and $35 for the more complicated ones. The giant one is $175.

I also designed some toddler church activities that the kids who have played with really like, so I will post about those later when I have more examples. All in all it's been a wonderful few weeks getting my creative juices flowing again!

Day 5

Here is day 5, another ugly weed that I think looks pretty neat up close. I still don't want them growing in my lawn though.