MIA

Holy smokes it"s been awhile!   Summer is so fun but so so busy.  I think from now on I'm just going to sign off for the summer.  I'm not even sure where to start with this post, so here are just a few things so I can get this out of the way. 
My little munchkins (the reason why my summer was so busy) started school a few weeks ago,  Fischer, 3rd grade,

 and Amelia, kindergarten.   Wow!  Can it really be?  Where does the time go?  A blink of an eye and summer is over:(

Amelia goes to school 4 days a week, so I have 4 days ALL to myself.  I'm so excited to see what I can do with it. (like clean the attic and basement, oh yeah and make art!)

This past weekend I was in the Driftless Area Art Festival in Soldiers Grove WI.  Saturday was a perfect day, while Sunday started with rain and not a lot of sales but the music was wonderful and made the day magical in its own way.  Here are a few pictures of my booth.

Unfortunately I haven't picked up a pencil or paintbrush in almost a month.  It always seems there are so many other things to do, so yesterday afternoon I made myself sit down and draw and paint.  Whew, that felt good.  I'm so glad I did that.  Now that I have 4 days a week to myself I need to schedule in time just for this.  It's so easy to get lost in chores and errands.  

Now that I got this first post out of the way the rest will come easier, same goes with painting.  I'll be back soon, I promise.

Around here

Trying to get into the holiday spirit here.  We went and got our Christmas tree last weekend and it was 50 degrees!   

Fischer was in charge of cutting it down this year.

I did my first holiday faire last weekend.  I did okay.  It's a pretty small fair and they like to have mood lighting in the rooms which might not benefit my work very well.  I find I have much more fun at this fair when I'm with the kids and we can go do crafts, listen to music and wonder around and socialize.  But it's always good to get some exposure for my work.

"peace"

A busy little saw whet owl

Wow, this painting is REALLY busy!  I knew there was a lot going on, but once I got it up on the screen here, it looks even busier.  I really struggled with this little guy.  The painting was originally going to have a chipmunk with a whole bunch of acorns and then I saw a picture of a cute little saw whet owl and he seemed to go better with the background I had started.  I've stayed away from owls because they are so popular, but this little guy lured me in.  His little body was done with torn pieces of coffee filters and I think it turned out really well.  It's everything else in the painting that bothers me.  I kept adding things and colors to the background in hopes of making him standout more, but it doesn't seem like that worked at all.  I think I need to put him away for awhile, because as I'm typing this, I'm feeling the urge to cut him out of this painting and start over, or completely painting over the background, or adding polka dots to his fine feathers.

Here's a picture of a cute little saw whet owl, they're like the size of a robin.  Pretty darn cute aren't they?

While we are on the topic of owls, I thought I'd share a picture of Fischer's first ever hand carved stamp that he did last week.  I think he did an awesome job for a 7 year old!  He even put him on a little branch.  I'm very impressed.

A Big Snapper!

I just had to share this picture of Fischer and the snapping turtle.  Fischer was trying to stop him from going after his Papa!  Unfortunately I wasn't there when this happened, but I love the determined look on Fischer's face as he is struggling to hold on to the snapper.  I'm not sure he should have been pulling on the poor guys tail, but at least the tail won't fall off like a lizards! 

small things forgotten

Remembering the excitement of loosing your baby teeth and putting them under your pillow for the tooth fairy.

What month is it?

If someone told me today was really November 3rd, not May 3rd, I think I'd believe them.  The wind has a chill to it and in the morning we had off and on snow showers.  If I look around though, I can see signs that spring is trying to come.  My tulips are starting to open, the asparagus tops are peaking through, and the trees are desperately trying to open.  If we would have a few nice days in a row, I just know everything would burst wide open.  Our bird feeder is brimming with activity.  The pretty little house finch with its reddish head has been there and today we were visited by the bright yellow goldfinch and the rose-breasted grosbeak.  Between the birds and the squirrels, the seed has been disappearing fast.

This morning I dropped Fischer and Grandma off at the airport.  They are going to visit family in Bremerton, Washington.  My little guy will be gone for a whole week!  This is the longest he has been away from me.  I was missing him before he even left.  He's been away a few times for one or two nights.   It was hard holding back the tears, but I didn't want him to feel bad or start to second guess his decision.  Little Amelia didn't want her big brother to go either, and she didn't hide her tears.  They usually play pretty well together, so I know she's really going to miss him too. The week will go fast and he will have fun visiting the ocean, collecting shells and rocks, seeing all sorts of animal life along the ocean,  riding the ferry and airplanes,  and of course seeing his cousins.  He has done all this before, but he was between 2 and 3 years old, so he doesn't remember it.  I wish I could see the look on his face when he gets to experience all of this.  Instead he gets to spend some quality time with his grandma and this is something he will always remember.

Cheese and dragons

Woohooo!  They did it!  The Green Bay Packers won the Superbowl!  I can't believe  it, yeahhhh!  Lots of happy cheese heads here in Packer land!  It was a nail biter, but they hung on.

I've been without a computer for 2 weeks now!  When we have technical difficulties, a friend of ours takes our computer home and works on it in his spare time for a very cheap price, my husband and I have such limited computer skills.  Our PC was having problems and he's had it for a Verry long time, but that didn't bother us since I had my laptop and my husband had his, but then my laptop decided it wasn't going to cooperate any longer and needed some serious attention.  So what started as a few days without it has turned into weeks.  Luckily I don't need it really bad, but I am starting to question whether it might be worth it in the future to spend more to get quicker service.  Hmmm, we'll see.  I've been able to check emails,  but today I was finally able to use my husbands laptop for a longer period of time.  (I actually started this post yesterday and then all these terrible bright red words popped up on my husbands computer,  WARNING, threats detected! and things were flashing all over!  Oh man did I start to freak out.  It asked if I wanted to delete this file and I did and I quickly turned the computer off until my husband came home.  Boy was I a bundle of nerves, I was so worried about his work computer, yikes.  Fortunately, everything seems to be in fine working order!  So I'm going to finish this post up quickly and wait for my own computer which should be done today,  Yeah!)

Fischer and I had seen a nature program which had some sea dragons on it.  They were pretty awesome looking.  They are like sea horses but bigger, I guess they are about a foot long.  Fischer and I drew the weedy sea dragon.  I included his picture but cannot rotate the picture for the life of me and I can't get my pictures downloaded to flickr from my camera with this computer.  I think there is some sort of cosmic energy out there that just doesn't want me to be spending my time on computers right now!

party preparations

These past few days have been filled with preparations for Fischer's birthday party on Sunday.  In case you can't tell by the photos, the theme is dinosaurs!  I like to have little party favors for the kids to take home.  I love using things that I already have around the house.  I have some  leather that my dad gave to me probably 15 years ago from a deer that he got.  I've held onto it over the years knowing that someday I'd find a use for it and I finally did,   leather  pouches for everyone!    The leather pouches are to hold all the fossils that they'll find on their fossil hunt.   This morning was spent making coffee ground fossils.  All week I've been saving my husbands used coffee grounds for this.  I made some dinosaur teeth and footprint fossils that I then turned into necklaces.  The coffee ground dough has a nice  earthy color and texture to it.  Fischer made some awesome fossils by pushing images into the dough of crabs, shells, seahorses and whatever else he could find.  With the left over leather scraps I made some dinosaur bracelets.  I used my wood burner to burn the images onto the leather, I'm not sure how this will hold up in the long run, but for now they look great.  I'm also planning on having a "cave"  with cave drawings in it.  I'm going to set up a large cardboard box with a black light over head and the kids can draw with white chalk and crayons and hopefully they will glow.  With all this preparation, I decided to go the easy route and I ordered a birthday cake!

our birthday boy

fischer turned 6 today!  i can't believe it has already been  6 years since our sweet little boy  came into our lives and changed it forever.  today was fischer's day from the moment he woke up.    grandma took him out to lunch to the restaurant of his choice and to the book store.  for supper he wanted chicken and dumplings which is his absolute favorite.
i wanted to make cupcakes and put dinosaur sprinkles on them, but he wanted a cake with either a t-rex on it or a velicoraptor, i went with the t-rex.  it wasn't  the greatest looking t-rex, but fischer liked it, especially when he added some dinosaur sprinkles to it.  i think it's  kind of hard having a birthday so close to Christmas, but it didn't seem to bother him at all, especially knowing that in a few weeks we will be having his birthday party with his friends.  (he wants  a dinosaur party)
all day there was such sweetness and joy on his little face, along with a  sparkle in his eyes!  i have so much to be thankful for.