Christmas

For Christmas Eve, some of our friends invited us to go caroling and to dinner at their home. We were so excited! We walked to the homes of a few widows from church who were home for the holiday. I don't know that we sounded that great (at least I didn't!) but I think they were happy to have us visit.




Josh wasn't too sure about all this, but I think Elora had fun, even though it was freeeezing!




When we were ready for dinner, another family joined us, so there were six adults and eleven kids for the meal.




Even Jonah had a little friend! This chubby fellow is actually six days younger than Jonah. (So cute together. Man, Jonah really looks like me as a baby, the long skinny thing.)



After the dinner, the kids put on the nativity play. Our kids have never done this before, and weren't quite sure what was going on at first. They said Josh had agreed to be Joseph in the play, but I warned that he might not be so eager once he realized what he was supposed to do. Sure enough, when they tried to put a towel on his head, he cried and hid from everyone.

Later when he was getting grumpy about going home, someone asked Josh if he was on Santa's good list. In typical Joshua fashion he answered saucily, "NO I NOT! And I DON'T want any PRESENTS!" Yup, no psychological manipulation for my two-year-old.





Of course Jonah was jealous that he couldn't play Mary, or at least an angel. (And yes, he does have other outfits, but for some reason the last five days I took pictures of him he was wearing the same thing.)



When we got home, we were glad it wasn't too late to do our Christmas tradition. My mom made each of us married kids (so my sister and I) a copy of the book we always read in our family. It contains the traditional Luke 2 Christmas story, interspersed with Christmas songs. It is also supposed to have illustrations, but we haven't gone out and bought the set because it costs too much. And we keep forgetting.



And finally, it was Christmas morning! Everyone woke up after 8AM, for which I was very grateful! The kids got fancy church clothes (in the background) harmonicas and all kinds of fun stuff from Santa!



I was excited to open this special gift Joseph hung in the tree. I didn't care what it was, I just thought it very clever of him to make his own box and hang it in the tree like that. It turned out to be a nifty watch, and I also got a silver locket hidden in another ornament. Thanks Joseph!



I hope you had a merry Christmas too!

Big Events (Anniversary & Graduation)

Yes, there are a lot of things going on this December, in fact, two big events were just this last weekend! Sunday was our official 6th Wedding Anniversary, (though we celebrated the weekend before) and Saturday was Joseph's graduation!

For our anniversary date last week, the evening got off to a late start that night. Joseph was supposed to get off of work at 6:00 PM, but called me at 6:30 to say his replacement at the University library hadn't shown up! Finally around seven Joseph was able contact a supervisor and get permission to leave, but they had to close that whole section of the library for him to go, and the guy never came in! Later they learned he was at the University basketball game, and had forgotten all about his shift.

I felt bad for taking our kids to the babysitters so late, but they were kind about it and watched our grumpy kids anyway.

We decided to try out a local Indian restaurant, as we may eventually be moving somewhere where the most culturally diverse food available is Taco Bell.
When we lived in Seattle, eating at different ethnic restaurants was something we enjoyed doing often, but since having kids we haven't done it much at all- for lots of reasons, but the biggest being our kids probably wouldn't eat food like that!
We decided to splurge and started out with a plate of appetisers...a bunch of fried stuff for which I don't remember the proper names. We also got lassi, a yogurt based drink: mine was mango, Joseph's was strawberry. MMMMM!




Then came our main meal, two kinds of chicken curry complete with naan and rice. Joseph's curry was yummier than mine, his was a creamier coconut base while mine was a spicier version. However, he was kind enough to switch with me after our initial tastes. What a nice boy. The coconut kind tasted just like the kind Joseph used to make. Delicious. Now I'm hungry again.



Oh, did I mention we had a little visitor with us on our date? He was a very well-mannered guest, and we were happy to have him along.



Then this Saturday was the big graduation! My parents were awesome to drive all six hours after my mom got off work Friday to attend the ceremony Saturday- then they had to drive all the way home that afternoon!




They also brought my brother Thain from Provo, who rearranged his whole work schedule so he could come. And as we all know, Elora and Josh LOVE Uncle Thain:



Originally, we thought about leaving Elora and Josh with my friend, Sarah, while we went to the program, but at the last minute we decided to bring them along and I was glad I did. There were tons of other people with kids, and with my parents and Thain there, it wasn't hard to keep them happy.



Mom held Jonah almost the whole time, while Thain corralled the other two. Josh went through a period where he wanted to go find daddy, but he got over it after about 20 minutes. He loved clapping and shouting for all the graduates. And kicking the chair of the little boy in front of us.



I was happy to have a better camera than I did for Joseph's community college graduation, because I was able to see him even though we were a distance away from him:


Yeah, it's a little blurry because of how far I had to zoom ....



No really! He's way over there:



We even captured the big moment!


The one dumb thing about the program was the last guy forgot to tell them to move their tassels to the other side. All he said was, "This graduation ceremony is now concluded," or something. So they didn't even cheer or throw their hats or anything. It was a little anti-climatic.

Josh and Elora were very proud of daddy, and he was happy to have us all there:



When we came out, it was really snowing like crazy!

I thought my parents might leave right then to beat the storm, but instead they took us all to lunch. Score!


In case you were wondering, yes, I was there too. And so was that lady behind me.


My family had to leave shortly thereafter, but the rest of us enjoyed Joseph's "special" cake that I made. It says "Good Job Joseph" if you can't see it.
(Oh, and my mom brought us those red balls for our Christmas tree because we were a little short on ornaments for our new tree. Nice, huh?)


Good Job Joseph!

Cartoon Portraits of 24 People!

(This post is long..if you just want to see finished pics, click here.)

Last month a neighbor approached me with plans for a Christmas project he was doing. He wanted to make a gift for his family of the game "Guess Who" but using their own faces as the characters in the game! He would put the game together, he just needed someone to do the cartoons of his family: 11 siblings, their spouses, and the parents.
I thought it sounded like a great idea, but I protested that cartoons of real people aren't really my specialty. He kept insisting though, and after much flattery I consented to do some sketches to see if it was what he'd like. Besides, I had some new expensive markers I bought last summer, and I hadn't done anything with them yet!
He gave me a family portrait of all the siblings for me to look at, and this was the example page I gave him after a few hours of sketching:


I had to wait a few days before he and I were able to get together to discuss it. When we finally spoke again, he said he loved them and thought they looked like his family, but he'd like to see a "more finished" version of the drawings before he decided.
I wasn't quite sure what he meant , except maybe to have a more definite square background, and less pen? I had made some observations about the real game piece proportions (of which he'd kindly given me a copy) and emailed a few times asking what he wanted me to do about shapes and sizes. He answered that he still needed to see a more finished piece before we could discuss specifics, because he wanted to be sure I could make what he wanted.

So these are the next few I finished. I especially liked the mom:When we were able to talk again, he said he liked them, and was ready to move forward. He gave me a list of three family members and the specifics they wanted for the drawings, including eye color, background colors, shirt colors, earings, lipstick, and even facial expressions!
I totally understood needing a limited choice of colors to make the game better, but I was having a hard time with the specific expressions thing- he wanted to reflect each person's personality, which was a great idea...unfortunately, some of them didn't have the desired facial expression in the photo reference, and I'd just be making it up out of my head. I was worried about getting too far away from how they really look.
My neighbor sent me a few more pictures of the three people so I had more references (always helpful!) and I was about to get started when I was told to hold off on the colors as he was going to poll them about their favorite colors!
It was great he was going to so much trouble to personalize his family's gift, I was just worried about the time factor-time for me to finish all of these drawings, and time for him to put 12 games together! Although they are small, I can usually only get two to three done in a day, around my other daily obligations. So I pressed forward with the info I had:



As you may have noticed, each of them has a faint square border around the person. This was a template I'd printed from the computer, just to help me make all of them approximately the same size. I figured when I did the larger background later the lines would be covered up by the colors.

Finally, I was given a chart with all the specifics for every person, as well as more current photos of everyone involved. I was glad for this, because several of the people had changed quite a bit since the original sibling portrait had been taken! I was also glad to see the chart wasn't as complicated as I feared- no facial expressions, and the backgrounds were now to be plain white. This is probably what we should have done from the beginning...but now I couldn't use the previous three sketches because of the squares on them.
Oh well, at least I got lots of practice before the real thing, right?

Once I got started with all the final details in hand, this project was much more enjoyable! I just wish I'd known all the specifics from the beginning.

So, for cartoons, you should exaggerate features and add less detail than a realistic portrait. I sometimes struggled with these two things and had to remind myself constantly to make eyes bigger and stop drawing so many detailed lines in the hair,etc. I also somehow drew them larger on each page, but I'm hoping it won't be a problem since they'll be shrinking them anyway.

Some of these turned out very close to the real thing, while others were not so great. So these are the (almost) final 24 drawings:


This is the mom again; I felt the earlier drawing looked more like her but I'm not good at duplicating the same thing over again, so oh well.




I hate how that line to the side of her mouth got smudged...this looks a lot like her, so I don't want to do it over again!

This guy was Hispanic, but I didn't want to use a different skin color because it would make the game too easy. I decided to just outline his features in a darker color.




The color was weird on this scan, but he's really the same as the rest. Also, I had finished the drawing when I received a recent photo that showed him with a goatee (he just had a mustache before). Luckily, it wasn't hard to add.



There were several women in the family with this same haircut and color, which is great for the game but I was worried they'd all look exactly the same as a drawing! I hope I made them different enough.





I love that there was more than one example of every style, from goatees to bald heads; their game should turn out great!



There were two that didn't look quite right to my neighbor, mostly because the photos I had of them were too small and I couldn't see the details well. He offered to pay for the new ones, but I redid those two at no charge:


Lessons learned from this art project:

• Pen and Marker are not nearly as forgiving as pencils; I didn't include the several portraits that were almost done then I got pen in the wrong place or smeared it.
  
• Be prepared for projects to take a LOT longer than you think they will.
  
• Make sure you have all the details before you start working on it!

I was also reminded why I haven't actually pursued illustration at this point- that field is all about pleasing someone else and following their directions, and repeatedly redrawing the same thing over and over till they're happy! I'd much rather have a general idea and then be handed the reigns. But this was a great learning experience for sure!

6th Wedding Anniversary!

Next weekend is our wedding anniversary! Because of Joseph's graduation next weekend, and stuff going on the weekend after, we are celebrating this weekend.
Its always good to remember how it all began.
Our wedding pics don't scan well so most of these are from other people's cameras ....


Getting married in the Seattle Temple (which is really in Bellvue...) Don't you love that Bouquet? Sister Boundy from Bainbridge made all the flower stuff as her wedding present to us. (Another lady from church made my dress too!)




awesome park in Seattle:



A windy, rainy Seattle December.


Ferry ride to Bainbridge:



Reception on Bainbridge at my aunt and uncle's home:



Before I threw the bouquet:



Honeymoon in Leavenworth, WA. This was the view from our balcony at the Bed and Breakfast! We even saw deer.


site seeing:

We went snowshoeing with free equipment from our B&B:


and I got food poisoning at Subway. But we won't talk about that.


Happy Anniversary, Joseph!

Oh My!

(note: I totally stole the snow effect from Katie. Thanks for telling me where to get it! :))

Its a fairly well-known fact (among my friends) that I don't have a scale in my bathroom; I find this keeps me from obsessing about my weight too much. However, whenever I do visit a home with a scale, I can't resist trying it out to see where I stand. I do the same when I take my kids to the doctor: before the nurse comes in I might quickly jump on the scale to check it out.

This Thanksgiving at my mom's house, I noted the scale in her bathroom and jumped on to see the results with curiosity. I was shocked! A few weeks earlier, at Elora's well-child check-up, I'd weighed myself and found I hadn't lost nearly as much baby weight as I'd like, but I wasn't too badly off. But mom's scale told a different story. According to hers, I had gained a full 15 pounds in the last few weeks!

I quickly found mom and asked if her scale was accurate (for surely it couldn't be). She assured me that it was, and I slowly went back into the bathroom to recheck, shocked at how badly our snacking on the drive had affected me.

But this time before I stepped on, I remembered to put the 15 pound baby down on some towels before I read the results.

And all was right with the world again.