Love is Not a Color

Love is not a color.....how very true. This is a great video and is apart of a family's fundraising to adopt from Ethiopia. How great love is!

Yellow- i heart faces

The i heart faces challenge this week is YELLOW!  I took this photo 2 summers ago of sweet Allyse.  And when I saw this challenge, I knew there was only one photo for me to enter!  Not only is she wearing yellow, she is surrounded by the yellow hue of the play car's top.  Love it!  Sunny, smiley, sweet...so yellow!

Click here to check out all the fantastic yellow entries

Drew- 7!

Our sweet boy, Drew, turned 7 on May 18th.  It never ceases to amaze me how quickly time goes.  Birthdays are always reminders of that for me.  Wasn't I just pregnant with you Drew?  Needless to say, he could hardly wait for his big day.  In fact, he was on a count down for the big day.  He had no idea he had this waiting for him!  

Drew- you are my sweet, magical boy.  I love how you light up a room with your smile, your eyes, your freckles (angel kisses).  You are fun, sillly and such a joy in my life.  I love watching you grow, I love walking and guiding you through your childhood.  I love being your Mom.  Welcome to your 7th year!

Taste of summer

Ah....a taste of the summer days ahead.  We love it!

Tessa's first swim....

At last outside, sunny days by the pool, playing with friends, and dilly bars poolside.

i heart faces challenge: faces & flowers

Faces & Flowers....2 of my favorite things in one photo challenge!  

This photo kept coming back to me as the one I wanted to share simply because I love it.  I love it because it was one of those sweet moments with Jack Jack that I did not stage, it just happened naturally.  It was of his own heart that Jack came at me with a bleeding heart flower in his hand, giving me the flower and his heart all in the same sweet gesture.  I couldn't ask for more.

How my day started!

This is how I started my day!   

Jack, Tessa and I ran an errand to Walgreen's.  Don't know why Jack did this, but.....as we were leaving and my back was turned, Jack completely dropped his drawers and flashed the lady at the check out counter! Stood there naked from the waist down and said "looook aaaattttt meeee!"  Of course, him saying that didn't get my attention, but hearing the check out counter lady say nicely, "You better put your pants on" did make me whip around!  He didn't have underwear on at the moment and just thought everyone around us should know the truth!  eek!  Ahh...the joys of a 3 year old. I may have a flasher on my hands.   Needless to say, you can imagine my first reaction was one of shock and disgust!  Which lead to me walking Jack over to apologize to the lady at the counter.... while I held back my laughter!  geezzzz.

I keep threatening to start a therapy fund for my kids...perhaps it is time. ;)  Or perhaps I just have a very spirited, comando-loving 3 year old on my hands!

I heart Faces: "Celebrating Mom" photo challenge

This week the i heart faces challenge is to "Celebrate Mom"! 

 I am rarely in a photo these days, but last week my husband caught some shots of bath time for Tessa and I.  I just love a bath with my baby... and I love this photo of us. The warmth of the photo, the contrasts of both of our skin and hair, the closeness of it, and the angle of how I am smiling at her while she looks up at Daddy.  Today I am celebrating my motherhood... this year I became a mother of 4 and am grateful for every loving, crazy, messy, laughter-filled minute of it.

Click here to see more fantastic entries!

4 Mother's Day

This Mother's Day was a simple and wonderful day with my little people.  This year I celebrated being a Mom to 4 loves of my life.  Of course, it was also a day of mommy-hood where I was up with Jack who had a raging fever at 3a.m., he finally when back to sleep at 5:00a.m.   Then I could hear Tessa's little sounds as she was up early at 5:15...may as well make a cup of coffee!  Juddy came down and was bummed because I wasn't in bed so he could bring me breakfast in bed.  Instead, he brought me Cheerios to the couch, with a hug and kiss.  Perfect.  We all had the best kind of morning...a lazy one.  That day we made a "lava" science experiment with baking soda an vinegar and went outside to play.  Later the 6 of us all went out to dinner and hit the DQ.  It was normal, relaxing, I was with my little people...perfect.

Last year at this time, I was thinking so much about our daughter and feeling an emptiness in my heart.  Was our daughter born?, was she o.k.?, what was her birth mother going through?, when would we have a referral and bring her home?  It was all still a mystery.  And this year in the early morning hours,  while the house was quite, I embraced Tessa in my arms, snuggled with her for a whole hour.  Felt my gratitude for her presence in our lives.  Felt the gratitude for the gift of motherhood in my life.  Felt the love and gratitude I have for her Ethiopian mother.  As I held Tessa in my arms I felt her little heart beating and breathe on my cheek and sent my love into the universe for Tessa's Ethiopian mother.  That somehow she may feel the love, the security that is surrounding Tessa today and always.

What I love the most about Mother's Day are the wonderful hand-made presents from the kids.  Oh, how I love them!  I will keep each of them forever.  This year Judson gave me a drawing of me surrounded by flowers and had little descriptive terms (which seems appropriate since I recently went crazy planting flowers all around the house)!  He also made a wonderful little paper purse and when you open it you see his handprint with a heart and jewel in the middle representing "the kissing hand".  He also gave me a little painted pot with flowers.

Unbelievably, Drew's presents to me survived being pulled out of his backpack and ripped open by Bob the Bulldog!   Drew made me a clay hand, which now sits by my kitchen window sill and a plastic plate with a drawing of me with flowers and a bit "I Love You Mom".   I am so happy they survived!  I have to share the poem that came with Drew's clay hand...it fills my eyes with happy tears!

This is my gift for Mother's Day,

It is a part of me,

It is my hand filled with love,

For everyone to see.

This is also to remind you,

When I have grown so tall,

That once I was a Kindergartner,

And my hands were very small.

I thank you for your loving ways,

And for the special things you do,

You seem to know about everything,

I'm so very proud of you.

And as I grow up bigger,

I just wanted one more things to say,

You're the best mom ever,

And I love you more and more each day.

Jack was so proud that he too had a gift for me this year.  He made a handprint flower art piece and then a handprint painted flower pot filled with flowers.  He keeps pointing them out to me in the house and outside (where the flowers are).  It is adorable.

There really isn't anything better than the handmade gift.  They fill me up with gratitude and love.  I love being a Mom....and am so grateful to have had my mother who loved me unconditionally.  I have had so many amazing women in my life that have shown me the way...family, friends....you know who you are.  Happy Mother's Day!

my Mom

2 months home

We have been home for 2 months....goodness gracious, where did the time go.  It really have been a full 2 months for us.  I think it is fair to say that the first half was full of transitioning.  Getting into our "new normal".  And now I can honestly say, I feel like we have made it back to a "state of normalcy"...or whatever that is.  Right?  So, very subjective.  And I also realize it can change on a moments notice for any of us.  But the new normal is pretty darn great.

It has been 2 months of being a Mom of 4, even if there are time I feel completely overwhelmed and crazy.  But tell me who wouldn't!?  I do love it, love it, love it.  That is life here in all of its messiness.  From where I sit at this includes: baby toys on the floor, matchbox cars under foot,  Legos on the dining room table, little socks on the couch, goldfish crackers on the counter, blue toothpaste in the sink, handmade artwork on the wall, hugs and slobbery kisses, holding (sometimes sticky) little hands.  Its all good...we are blessed beyond words.

heart beating....Live Auction

So, tonight I went to the Monroe Art Center Spring Fundraiser...it is a great event and I just love that our small community also embraces the arts.  This is the same art center where I just had my "Message from Swaziland" series exhibit for the month of April, which was fantastic!

Anyway, tonight I officially broke up the series of paintings by donating "Hope" to benefit both the Monroe Arts Center and the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation.  The MAC agreed that 33% of the auction price would go to EGPAF, as that is the intention of the series to have 33%, the percentage of people infected with HIV in Swaziland, to go back to the cause.

As the live auction approached I could feel my anxiety level increases, my nerves, my heart beating so strong.  Why you ask?

I think for many artists their work is an extension of themselves...a very personal one.  And in this case it is certainly that and more.  I am so emotionally connected to these works that almost felt like it was my heart being put up for auction....a piece of me....a piece of my soul that someone is putting their own value on.  yikes....that is heavy.  So, you see and hear people going $250....$275....$525.
I do understand that the value that this piece received in the auction isn't necessarily a reflection of my value...I get that.  But is it there....and I am relieved that it went for more than the value I had intially placed on it.  Yes, in part for my own ego...my art was valued by another, and I am human and therefore being validated feels good.  But more importantly it means $$ for a cause I care deeply for: preventing mother to child transmission of HIV.

Tonight as an artist, a mother, a citizen of the world, I felt fullfilled that my art was able to give back.  The message of the Swazi people came through my soul in "Message from Swaziland" and tonight that message was heard!
yahoo!