Sketches

I have decided that I'm going to start sharing some of my sketches. I have been thinking a lot lately about how I wish I would have pursued art education as my major instead of elementary education. I believe it is more in line with what I really wanted to do with my degree. I often wonder if maybe I had gone this route, maybe I may have actually completed my degree. But, I have to throw out that thought from my mind because I know God allows the things we do and achieve to happen for a reason. I know that Eric and I were led to serve in a children's home for three years. I know God has brought people into our lives along the way in different places and jobs that we have held. Nothing happens by mere chance or accident. We have two beautiful boys and a life time of amazing memories and experiences. I wouldn't change any of that. Well...maybe I would change some spending habits. Or at least. . . I'd like to think I'd change that, if I had it to do over. Who wouldn't? I try to tell myself to remember that God can use my faults and shortcomings to help me grow. Even though I make the same mistakes over and over sometimes. What I especially love out my marriage is that even in spite of stressful situations or obstacles that arise...Eric and I always find things to laugh about to lighten the situation. We never seem to really have bad days on the same day. That helps us be able to encourage one another. I am so thankful for that! Eric is such a blessing. Money cannot buy a happy marriage. So while we are not independently wealthy, and we try very hard to stay on a strict budget. We are still much better off than many people in the world. We have never had to go to bed hungry. We have always had clean water to drink, clothes on our backs, and a warm bed to sleep in. I know children that came into our care at Thornwell who did not have these simple luxuries. Can you imagine not having a home to live in? Worse yet, can you imagine living in a home where your parents left and you didn't have food or running water? This is what happens to some children in America. You would imagine this is what happens only in poverty stricken countries, but yet it happens here. These are the thoughts I think of and then feel guilty of complaints about wishing we had just a little more money. I have great wealth in comparison to others. I have much to be thankful for. So maybe I don't have my degree finished. . . maybe I do work at Walmart part-time and wish I didn't. But, I have a job, and it's a job that helps me meet my family's needs. This is a job that I'm sure many individuals would be thankful to have. So maybe, God willing, someday I will have an opportunity to finish my degree! But, for now, I will cherish being able to spend more time with my little ones. Watching them grow and treasure the memories that we are building. For now I will use my art work as a hobby and a past-time....and hopefully pass some tips on to the boys so hopefully they can learn to enjoy it as well. Wes already seems to have a love for drawing...and Austin well I can't remember when he didn't like to draw! For now I will share some of my art on this blog! Hope you enjoy it!

Check out my Slide Show!

Frogs and Monkeys for Valentine's Day

I have been really been slacking when it comes to updating the blog. We have been struggling with colds and the flu at our house for about the last three weeks. Finally, we all seem to be feeling better now. I had one of those colds that I just couldn't seem to kick out of my system. I ended up losing my voice for several days. It was very annoying. You don't realize how much you take your voice for granted until you lose it! Isn't that the way it is with a lot of things in life! We are back on the up and and up. I'm ready for the warm spring weather to stick around. I don't like when the temperatures change back and forth. It's when that happens that we seem to catch colds in the first place!

So, now oh to the pictures. Wesley got a singing frog prince. Austin got a dancing d.j. monkey. They both absolutely loved their toys! I snapped a couple of cute pictures of them. Wes insisted on having lunch with his frog! It was so cute to watch! :)

Ants and Roaches

We have had some interesting bug times lately. Mr. Austin finally got his ants in the mail that we ordered right after Christmas. They are for his ant farm that they got for Christmas. Well....boy was that an experience. They arrived on a very warm day. I did not realize that the mailman would just put them in our box. I figured he would bring them to our door. Well by the time I got the mail in the afternoon....if was pretty warm. Austin and I opened the envelope to find a a clear plastic tube with very busy fast crawling HUGE ants. These are some of the biggest ants I have ever seen. The are apparently called Harvester ants. The are maybe slightly smaller than bull ants! They are so big. In capital letters right on the tube is a label that reads WARNING ANTS CAN STING. I'm thinking great. The ants have been shipped and shook around. They sat in the mailbox and cooked in the sun. I'm sure the ants are good and angry! Now I have to figure out how to get them into the ant farm. The directions that came with the ants says to put them in the refrigerator for about fifteen minutes so they will get sleepy. Then you are supposed to be able to just gently shake the tube into the farm. Sounds easy enough. Not quite!! The minute I take the tube out of the fridge....they start waking up. I got maybe one or two in the farm. Some fell on the counter....some began crawling out. I'm starting to freak out...which results in Austin then freaking out. Wes....well he just thinks the ants are awesome. He's never been stung. He has no clue this could happen. So I grab the only thing on the counter, which happens to be a pizza cutter.....and I start using the side to gently, but quickly slide the ants into a plastic food storage container. Then I put the ants back in the fridge and decided they needed to chill a bit longer. This goes on for at least two more tries before I managed to get most of the ants into the farm. I ended up getting the clever idea of using a funnel to try and transfer the ants into the farm. I ended up having to sprinkle sugar on the ants to get them to slide through without them being able to crawl out. I still had to have Eric put like the last couple of ants in when he got home from work because I had reached my ant threshold. Of course when Eric does it, he makes it look so easy. I'd like to think that it was extra easy because the ants sat a bit longer in the fridge so they were good and sleepy when he moved them into the farm. So now Austin has his ant farm ready to go! Hopefully we have no escape artists....or who knows what I'll do!!

To add to this trying day...we decided to try out a Chinese buffet restaurant that I heard good things about at work. Well....unfortunately, Google maps had the directions completely wrong. Yes, Google maps does give out bad directions sometimes! So by the time we realized that we would have had to drive another twenty minutes to get to the place. So....we decided to try another place we found while we were searching for the other place. I had a bad vibe about the place from the get go. I even made Eric go look first to see if he thought it looked good and/or clean. He said he didn't have any idea. So we decided what the heck. We'll give it a go. There were a few people in there. Well they had one side room in the restaurant that was a bit dark...and they had a tv on....and of course it has cartoons on....and so of course Austin immediately asks if we can sit in that area. So we figured it would be okay. We all sat down and got through one plate of buffet food. Which wasn't horrible. It wasn't the best, but it was okay. Definitely I have had worse at other places. Well Wes decided to crawl under the table...because well that is Wes and that's what he does....he's got to be in constant motion....be it climbing, jumping, crawling, squealing. He's got to stay busy. Well......he must of scared a roach that was hiding under our table because it came crawling up the wall right next to where I was sitting. Well that was it for me. Eric and I took one look at each other and we both said ....okay.....I'm done. Once you see a roach while you're trying to eat....that pretty much taints the desire to get any more food from the buffet! Kind of ironic on the very day I had to deal with the ants...then I have to face a roach at dinner. Eric and I were still hungry.....so of course we made a stop at Taco Bell for a taco and a burrito to finish off our dinner and a kids meal for Austin and Wes. I think it was a sign from God that we were not supposed to eat out that night. We were supposed to behave and stay home and cook food like responsible parents! Oh well. At least it made for a good blog topic! Here is what I did learn: If the restaurant is dark.....run.....leave......don't eat there!! Who knows what kind of critters the restaurant may have lurking about! :P

Bike Riding

Wes loves to ride his bike. We are so surprised at how quickly he has learned to ride. Now if only the roads were a bit more on the flat side....he would completely have it made. He has a hard time on the drive way because if he's not strong enough to keep from going backwards when he hits the sloped part. He is proud of his accomplishments. It's fun actually having conversations with him now. He is just crossing so many milestones all at once. It's hard to believe how fast he is growing up! I remember what seemed just like yesterday him being this tiny newborn.

The Perfect Birthday Present

This is an older topic that I have been meaning to get up here on the blog from back when We had our snow day. It's important because I think it is a good reminder for me or us. (For anyone who regularly reads this blog) It's kind of a part two to the snow pictures.

This was the perfect birthday present for Austin. He had been praying for snow! Isn't it so amazing to see God answer the prayers of little ones! He was so thankful and he said when he was going to bed last night (for the second time after getting out of bed the first time to go play in the snow) that he was going to pray and tell God thank you for the snow! It was a reminder to myself to have that kind of childlike thankfulness to God whenever a prayer is answered! How often do we just forget??!! I'm going to try and be more mindful, like Austin! Sometimes you can learn a lot from children! :) They just keep it simple and real. We lose sight sometimes of the important things when we grow up. Sometimes it's nice to just sit back and look at things from a child's perspective!!

You Know You're a Redneck If.....

Wow, I feel like I'm living in one of Larry The Cable Guy's comedy shows. I had these customers the other day. They were purchasing one of (or so they informed me) the last Daryll Earnhardt's steering wheel covers that Walmart had. I scanned the item in and then was informed that the price was wrong. I went all through the trouble of getting the price corrected....and then when Jim Bob's (yes I can't make these names or stories up) mom says, "Gimme the money, Jim Bob." He didn't want to give her the money. Apparently he thought his momma was going to buy it for him. We stood there for five full minutes while Jim Bob's mom repeatedly asked him for the money to pay for his share of the bill. "Come on Jim Bob, gimme da muuhneeee." Well finally she asks me to take the thing off the bill. After I do that, then Jim Bob decides he wants to buy it. But then, his mother said, "No! You aren't gonna by dat now". She tells me not to sell it to him. The way they looked, dressed, and talked, I had to pinch myself. I couldn't believe it was real. The redneck jokes are so funny because there really are people out there who live like this. I get to see it on a regular basis!! It was like, "Here's Your Sign!"