Artist at work

Little Ruby has been our little artist ever since she could hold a crayon.  More hours of her day are spent 

doing art than anything else (okay, sleeping excepted.)  For Christmas, Santa brought her a tub full of art supplies (glitter glue, acrylic paints and a palette, foam stickers, felt sheets, glue, pipe cleaners, feathers, jewels, pom-poms...) and let's just say that present has been thoroughly enjoyed!  For the first couple weeks after Christmas, that was ALL she did!  The last couple of days though, she has reverted back to crayons/markers/colored pencils, and I've LOVED seeing her drawings!  I thought you might like to see them too!

Snowmen with LOTS of buttons

Flowers

A rainbow and "Hello Kitty with pinchers... like a crab..."

A sister with a monkey bars on her shirt, a coconut (the top circle-looking thing), a baby (to the right of the coconut), and Mama Mary (laying down.)  Notice the orange "frame" she colored around it - that's her latest thing - frames

Sunshine.  She drew this about 6 months ago and it's been hanging on my fridge ever since because I love it so much.  It just makes me smile every time I see it!

A girl with a bug on her shirt

We also got a beautiful surprise in the mail today from another artist dear to our hearts, Amber Pitts.  She was here this summer with the Love Good Music tour and painted this beautiful picture, upside down in three minutes during one of Jimmy's songs. It was incredible to behold!

When I got the mail, there was a package of greeting cards from Amber with beautiful watercolor depictions of Pope Francis and Mother Teresa.  I really want to put pictures of them on here, but I really don't want to spoil anything for her either, so unfortunately for now, you'll just have to imagine them.  The painting of Mother Teresa is titled "Peace Begins With a Smile" and Mother Teresa just exudes joy and love.  The painting of Pope Francis perfectly captures his humble, loving spirit.  Oh goodness they're wonderful.  If you're looking for beautiful cards to mail out for any reason, I would highly recommend getting in touch with Amber (comment here and I'll put you in touch with her.)  You would be supporting a beautiful young woman's gift!  We are so blessed to have this beautiful artist as a role-model for our beautiful little artist!

Here Fishy Fishy

Today we were FINALLY able to set our aquarium back up for the 2 goldfish we bought yesterday.  The kids had been asking every time we went to Wal-Mart this fall, but I tell you what, this homeschooling stuff keeps me BUSY.  So every time I had to say, "not right now."  Well, we're still on Christmas break so yesterday I finally got to say, "YES!"

Ruby's fish apparently has a bit of an identity crisis because he was originally a girl, with no name; then she was a boy, named George; then she was a girl named Goldilocks, and now, she's a girl named Marley.  We'll see how long that name sticks.  Ira has yet to name his.  That hasn't stopped him from trying to monetize it though... "Maybe if Ruby's fish is a girl and mine is a boy then they can have hundreds of babies and we can sell them!"  Entrepreneur that boy is!

Today was a nice day - aquarium, fish watching, coloring together with new colored pencils, and lots of imaginative play!  And a yummy dinner from a new recipe and scrubbing the floor Cinderella-style (seriously, although it's a pain, it is truly the best way to scrub a floor in my opinion) finished the evening out nicely.  Oh, and we hit 20 patrons for our Love Good Music campaign today (which was our goal)!!!  We are so excited to bring LGM back to our hometown for a concert this summer!!!!  Yes, yes, very good day indeed!!

Sick of Shopping?

We needed groceries today... in the worst way... the kind where you have no cheese and no bananas and no produce left.  Luckily, I was cognizant of that fact last night, so I made a meal plan and grocery list based off some awesome recipes I found on the Skinny Miss website.  My cousin had shared recipes from this website numerous times on Facebook, but I'd never really poked around on it much.  I am really excited to have found it because all the recipes I looked at were incredibly clean, healthy, well-balanced meals that also didn't cost an arm-and-a-leg to make.  I'll have to share what we think of the recipes.

So first thing this morning, we headed in to do our grocery shopping.  It was a relatively quick trip for us (only 4 stores, only gone from home for 4.5 hours.)  The kids were well behaved and helpful, and as usual, a riot.  (Ruby told the guy at the automotive desk that if the lift crashed down on them, they would get dead - which he found funny enough to go out and share with all the other techs working in the automotive bay.)  And then there's our buddy, Denise, at Aldi.  She always takes the time to talk to the kids.  And then she says to me, "You must drink a lot."  LOL.  I should laugh at that, right?

By the time we were almost home though, I was feeling worse than sick - like someone had stabbed me in the stomach.  Andy'd had the flu the Friday after Christmas, and I'm still not sure whether I have a light touch of that or whether I ate a bad banana (on the way home.)  The kids were dolls and took care of themselves when we got home.  Ira made he and Ruby scrambled eggs for lunch.  And he even came running with an emesis bag when he heard me get sick (we had some left from post-surgery in March that have come in handy...)  They would usually watch movies when I'm sick, but they lost that privilege the other day, so they read and played together quite peacefully until Andy got home.

Ira found a recipe in his Highlights Magazine (a Christmas gift from my parents) that he wanted to make for dinner, so he and Andy tackled it together.  It was delicious and very soothing to my unsettled stomach.  While Andy was finishing up dinner, I snuck out of our room to see what all the ruckus was.  Turns out boredom and a bunch of plastic shopping bags (why can I never remember my reusable ones at Walmart?) are highly entertaining.

Ira said to title this "Let it Snow!"

Then we got the treat of the year when Jimmy's new CD showed up in our email inbox to download as part of our Love Good Music patronage.  He is such a talented guy and a good friend!  We are so thrilled for him to be releasing this CD!  And... it's positively wonderful.  Pain, suffering, redemption, hope, joy... it's all in there, beautifully orchestrated.  For a very limited time, you can get $5 off of the $15 monthly patronage by signing up through our campaign here.  Obviously, I would highly recommend it!

Whew, two days in a row, surely I can't keep this up...