How to Miss a Childhood. Go read it, right now. Then turn off your phone/computer and go play outside with your kids, get messy and make crafts, read together. I don't care what. Just do it, before you miss another minute.

I know everyone is posting about Where the Wild Things Are today, but I want to send some love Pierre's way. For all the days you feel like saying "I don't care."

Angela and Peter. ♥

Today we walked past the Rialto downtown, and on the marquee, it said "Lost Beatles Concert 5/22". The kids and I started eagerly speculating what that could be about, and Angela decided she would come watch it with me (my teeny Beatle Buddy!) at the movie theater. A Beatles concert! With my kids! On screen! Yeah!

But when I got home and looked it up, I found that it's a documentary about the first time the Beatles came to America and the start of Beatlemania. Now.... while I dearly want to see the concert, it's probably only about 15 minutes of the film, and the rest of it is rock stars waxing lyrical about the Beatles. Oh yes, and a fan who cut a chunk of Ringo's hair. (Seriously? Who does that?)

I have a feeling I'll skip the movie and watch A Hard Day's Night with the kids instead. Has anyone else seen the movie, and is it worth it?

When the Model Magic comes out at our house, the kids are not the only ones who get their hands on it. (Of course not!) I took the opportunity a few weeks ago to make a teeny but "more aggressive" Purple Tentacle for my brother. I took a few photos, but his gets the larger-than-life bit nicely. This is one of the beauties of having siblings. I can be nerdily creative, and have someone I know will absolutely appreciate my efforts. Next I'm going to make Green Tentacle cringing in the background....

(For those not familiar with this guy, why he's going to take on the world, or if you just wanted to see it again, enjoy!)

This week (April 30 - May 6) marks Screen-Free Week, which used to be called TV-Free Week until recently. It's a good change. Angela brought home a paper the other day where she had to list ten things she would do instead of watching television this week. She quickly reeled off a list and ended it proudly with, "I don't watch TV."

And it's true, she doesn't. But she does watch the few shows that Daddy records and cuts all the commercials out of, on weekend evenings. We are quick to whip out the iPad and check Facebook, or to visit some of our favorite sites (CuteOverload, YouTube for Japanese cooking shows and old cartoons, and sometimes music videos). Or to grab the iPod for a video game before bed, or my son's new obsession, Minecraft. So while we don't really watch television, we are surrounded by screens, and honestly, I think we're a little too dependent on them. Paul and I are just as guilty. So we're all making a conscious effort this week to unplug.

Obviously, we have to work, and we have to use computers for that. I will check the weather for the kids when they're picking out clothes for tomorrow. I'll use the iPad for my archived guitar music. But I won't be surfing, or browsing, and Pinterest will not see hide nor hair of me until next week.

Thank goodness Screen-Free week coincided with the annual library book sale this past weekend. True to form, we got about 120 books for next to nothing, and we left them all displayed on the dining room floor for as long as we could. Because in this house, we love us some books! It's hard to see from Paul's picture above (and again: Blogger, you keep resizing my pictures, and for that I will curse you with the fires of a thousand dragons) but there's a hearty dose of beach reads, Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Mrs. PiggleWiggle, Beverly Cleary, and the find that made me squeal: my own copies of E. F. Benson's Mapp and Lucia series. If you've never read them, they are a HOOT. (Plus, some are in the public domain and free for Kindle! What are you waiting for?)

Usually around this time of the year, I try to promote Every Day In May, a concept I thought of a long time ago where I encourage everyone to make a commitment to be creative for 31 straight days. I will be the first to say that May is actually a very stressful time for me. I picked May originally when I had no kids and I believe our recitals were at the end of May and possibly in June. To anyone I blithely said, "If I can do it, you can do it!" and you wanted to hit me, I hereby give you permission to do it virtually. (Ow.)

So this year, I'm using May as an impetus for blogging every day again. It may be art. It may be words. It may be a song, or a long rant, or photo. I'm missing having a place to stop and say, Hey, I am a creative human being, and I need to do this to live. I miss having comments/back and forth with other like-minded creatives of all sorts. I miss blogging, in general; the interaction, and the way things used to work in Blogger, and the way they do now (how DARE you resize my images for me!) You may come here one day to see the whole place looking different just because I decided to play.

The fact of the matter is that creativity is everywhere. I see it in clothes, hairstyles, cooking and baking, party-planning, typography, you name it. And instead of beating myself up for not having a new watercolor painting up here every single day this month, I'm going to try to document the creativity I find and celebrate it.

So you all know I have painted with some non-conventional media in the past. Wine? Check. Coffee? Check. Tea? Check. Pomegranate juice? Check. But never have I painted with Coke! (Probably because I don't drink it, so we hardly ever have any in the house.) But should you ever get the urge.... here's a tutorial that explains how to do it!

(And here's the link for when FB strips it out of the reader: http://youtu.be/oJvGwF5LDRQ)

19th Annual Mom's Retreat. It was just as awesome as you think it was.

I made the theme poster as usual. I was feeling pretty colorful that day! If anyone wants me to post a tutorial, just let me know and I'll post it.

I know I need to scan some paint! But meanwhile, here's a snapshot of Angela's lunch: a caterpillar made from Brussels sprouts with peas for eyes and carrots for antennae. He's about to jump into a bed of spinach leaves. Also tucked in there but kind of hard to see are cucumber slices, carrot sticks, and sugar snap peas (tucked in the side to help keep things from sliding around). I am SO glad that 1) my kids get creative with lunch and let me help and 2) they love vegetables. (Not pictured: Sophie's apple rabbits.)

Work in progress, plus my messy palette. Mess is good.

Bonus Valentine's pic: Sophie's braids yesterday. I can't take credit for the idea though: that's why God made Pinterest! (I am always pinning stuff, btw.)

You didn't think we'd let a Valentine's Day go by without the yearly adorable kids-on-the-couch picture, did you? Have some cuteness!


(2012)

And now let's have a trip in the wayback machine!


(2011)


(2010)


(2009)


(2008)


(2007)


(2006)


(2005)

....where all the Valentines are homemade. WHY? Because over the years, my kids have absorbed my mantra about using your talents, showing love by time and effort and creativity and so on... But OH how I wish sometimes we could just go the get-a-big-pack-from-Target-and-be-done-with-it route. At least they all said they had fun making them, and they were rather proud of their efforts. As they should be!

Below: Sophie's colorful owls, which later had small holes punched at the bottom so they were each holding a lollipop. Angela and Peter made spritz cookies (with minimal help from me, I did the actual pressing to save time but they've done it before) which then got wrapped and are now resting safely in the freezer 'till tomorrow.

What did one octopus say to the other on Valentine's Day?





(An early Valentine basket for Paul, made by weaving Danish hearts and going a little nuts with the embellishments. Hangable by the top two intertwined tentacles.)

I got an iPad for Christmas! That, along with some new (free) sketching software and a soft-tipped stylus, will hopefully help me blog/sketch more in 2012. I'm trying to do this entire post - sketch, blog, and posting, without leaving the iPad. Should be interesting...

This is my first attempt with MagicSketch - she's got a neck like a giraffe but the shading's not bad. It even lets you create your own brushes, and for a free program, I'm not complaining. Any suggestions out there for the best drawing app?

Life has been good - my lack of posting is from being crazy busy, but GOOD busy. Here's to 2012 and more creativity!

Extreme closeup of an upcoming project that had 17 million vector points to edit that made my fingers itch like crazy for my paintbrushes.

Have some Halloween costumes! Note to self for next year: Just make the darn costumes and then present them to the kids and tell them this is it. WAAAAAY too much input/looking over my shoulder/art-directing on these, not that they're even very complicated! It was the back and forth and painful attention to detail that did me in. When I complained, someone said, "That's what you get for raising creative, independent thinkers!" I'm thinking the independent thinkers might want to make their own darn costumes next year.

Twilight Sparkle, studying as usual (this time, a book about dragons).

Pinkie Pie, doing the "WATCH OUT" pose from the end of her "Evil Enchantress" number. (Though we like this version better!) This was taken the day before Halloween, but for school and trick-or-treating we spray painted her hair pink.

Vector from Despicable Me with his shrink ray (yes, we made that all from recycled materials and a ton of spray paint! (Left over from last year's robots.... )

CURSE YOU, TINY TOILET!

Hilarious Reference video:

... though we think making them ourselves is 20% cooler, in 10 seconds flat.

For a bit of reference - this is the video that got us hooked.

Sorry, September, I seem to have completely missed you on here!

I mentioned in passing a while back that I had a milestone birthday this August. But instead of throwing a big party, I decided that I wanted to learn something new. And that's where the guitar comes in.

I have always - always - loved the guitar. For me, it carries some great memories: being in the folk group at church in high school, madrigal group in college, and oh yeah, there are these guys who have been known to inspire me.

Luckily for me, we had an extra guitar at my house, along with loads of music books, not to mention someone who already teaches music living here. He got me all set up with brand new strings, tuned everything up, made me a copy of a chord chart, and let me have at it. It took a long time to start building up calluses, and there was a time where I thought I would never be able to hold down a B minor chord.

I've been practicing every day for 15 to 30 minutes, sometimes with the kids, sometimes longer if I can do it after they go to bed. It's become a real family thing - the kids sing with me sometimes, and about once a week I go to Paul and demand to know something in particular. Last week I made him write down strumming patterns for me, and taught them to the kids so that they could chant them to me while I played. He gave me an "A" for my progress and I got a sticker for my hard work. ;)

I would apologize for the lack of artwork lately on the site, except that I have been coming to the dawning realization that art is art. When I transpose a song into a key that's in my range/abilities, I'm being creative. When I sit down at the piano to work out an alternate arrangement, that's art too. And when I figure out chords by ear and I have no idea what they're really called in real life but they sound right, that's creativity.