lauryns new painting

i just finished lauryns painting for her new room, and i'm crazy about it! it didn't photograph as well as i would've liked, so the colors aren't true, but regardless, the painting in person is exactly what i was wanting. raspberry, pumpkin, lime, turqoise, aqua, lemon, all muted. i just love the way it turned out. reminds me of a dream when your in between light and deep sleep, when nothing makes sense, yet it all makes sense. happy. comforting, colorful and mismatched. i love that she can pick out a part or section that is her favorite, where your eye natually draws to. around the sides are the lyrics to "somewhere over the rainbow". i just love it.

oh christmas tree...

as most of you know, we celebrated this christmas at the lake house. i'll admit i was pretty excited about this, even though i knew there would be no room for a tree...especially our tree which is ginormous in height and width...so i improvised and made my own "modern" version of a "christmas tree"...then i hunted around at various antique shops collecting "shiny brite" ornaments. i just love 'em, they have so much more character than new store bought ones, i think. anyway, our "tree" sat on our dining room table, and i'm hating the thought of taking it down. ( usually all things "christmas-sy" are OUT the day after christmas) but i just don't want to take this down. not yet. i had gotten the idea a few years ago from a picture i saw online, and knew one day i'd make one similar for myself. i took a silver water pitcher and spray painted it milky white ( j about died when he found out it was one of the silver pitchers, but i told him it was the one i hated) ;) and then i took polished rocks ( hobby lobby) and sprayed them silver, lastly, had the kids round up a bunch of fallen branches around the lake and sprayed them turqouis. tied white ribbon to each of the vintage ornaments and a bit of tulle here and there, and called it good. it's fun to think of the families that used these ornaments in past christmas's and know that somewhere, someone probably has really fond childhood memories of some of them. anyway, hope your christmas was shiny and bright!

my babies aren't babies anymore...

baloo~ i'm thinking reference to jungle book? who knows where he (london) comes up with stuff...

this is gracie. lauryn had a difficult time naming this one. she couldn't make up her mind.

i just love my kids stuffed animals. they are getting seriously close to the not wanting them in their rooms or on their beds, since they seem to think that they are older than they are, but i can't make myself put them away. i figured taking some pictures of them will help in remembering just how precious this time in my life is with my two little monkeys. it's amazing how badly you want to hang on to each year of your babies lives. how part of you is so ready for them to get older and more "responsible" and the other half fights allowing them to grow up. it's a constant struggle of emotions. as heartbreaking as it is, i wouldn't have it any other way.
this is george. as in "curious george"...;)

this is jane. i made this for lauryn several years ago, and she has been well loved ever since. she's starting to look a *bit* ragged, but lauryn won't let me do anything to her. she'd hate for me to say it, but lauryn rarely goes anywhere overnight without her.

this is slurp. the other side is sip. london is *king* of names. we once had a toad that lived in our flower beds, he'd come out at night, let us pet him and watch him up close, london named him warts. we had him about 3 years till he had an unfortunate accident with the front tire of j's truck...then we had wally ( also named by london) he was the groundhog that lived at the corner of our subdivision. london loves naming things. i love that kid.

lauryn named this one bellini. i have no idea why, but it's cute.

a saturday all to myself!

since living at the lake, i've had so much more time to indulge in some of my favorite hobbies...my drawing journal being one. rarely do i leave home without it, for i find myself finding inspiration for a painting, or some sort of craft while driving...whether it be something off a logo, or whatnot. anyway, these little pieces of "art" are so fun to look through and draw inspiration from. the milla jane stuff shown is for a project i'm working on. anyway, i had a saturday all to myself, with j at the property working on the shop, and the kids at grandma and papa's, i played with my camera, painted, drew, embroidered and watched some good ol' girly movies. what a great saturday.

hello winter!

here's some pics i took the other day of the kids. we were bored one day, and it was pretty, so i decided to go "explore" our new area...we found this adorable old general store, and the color was such a gorgeous green. these are probably some of my fav pics now. i'm only posting 6 because it takes too long to upload them now...thanks to us not having internet at the moment and having to go elsewhere to get online...it's getting a *bit* old...

anyway, we're doing well, getting semi-settled...as settled as you can get when you know your moving again in 3 months, and j and i are loving starting the process of building our home! the kids are doing well, they think we're on permanent vacation and wonder why we have to do school when were at the lakehouse?! ;) take care. i'll try to post more soon.

chad, alicia, and the lovely miss lilly!

i know it's been a long time coming on these, but with moving, losing power cords in the millions of boxes that we've aquired, and having to find crazy places ( like a little mom and pop motel parking lot in forsyth, which i'm parked in at the moment) to find wi-fi until we can get internet at the house, they are finally up! i have many more to edit, but here are some of my favs so far! i've come to the conclusion that you can't take a bad picture of miss lilly. she's just too cute, and quite the entertainer! i enjoyed every moment of it. :) hope you enjoy!

family pictures with deanna sammons!

okay, so it's that time of year again. i LOVE this time of year because...it's time for family pictures!!! j has hated hearing those words come out of my mouth every year for the last umpteenth years...but. this time was different...let me back up... so i found deanna sammons earlier this year, and fell in love with her work. i knew i wanted her to do our portraits this year, but with the house selling, and business booming, and us being crazy busy with life in general, i didn't know just how to approach j with it, and make it sound fun, relaxing and worthwhile. it took a *bit* of sweet talk, a WHOLE lotta begging, and a *dash* of guilt trip ( a girls gotta prove her point on the importance of family pictures, and how we will enjoy them years from now ), but he finally relented after he figured out that in the mess of all the chaos going on in our lives right now, i was NOT backing down on this. that whole "pick your battles" thing came into play. it was one i was determined to win, and he's one lucky fella that he realized it sooner rather than later. ;)

anyway, to j's surprise, we had a FABULOUS time! ( the kids and i always have fun with it, j tends to tense up...he's still after all these years of having a camera stuck in his face, not used to it ), but it WAS relaxed, fun, and EASY! we had lots of laughs, snuck in a few *kisses* and really enjoyed being out in a beautiful location, *together*. the kids warmed right up to deanna, who was GrEaT with them, and i ended up getting some of the most incredibly beautiful shots of our family. she was awesome, and i feel really captured who we are, and our family. these pictures i feel show the real us. how we live, and the closeness we share. she somehow has an insight into our family, and the pictures prove that. so, here are some of them...enjoy! i'll put more up later!