A nice family day yesterday, we went out for lunch, came home & relaxed a while, then all three of the kids worked on puzzles! 🙂

Yesterday was awesome. Beautiful weather, the party was wonderful, the food was great – everything was perfect!!

I hope you are all doing well and having a great weekend. Sorry I’ve not gotten in to reply to all of you, please know that Mark and I appreciate all of you that are here sharing his mini-vacation with us. Huge hugs and kisses all around!

Here are the pics of the day! (That last one is precious, Jay has been saying for weeks that she wanted to share her cake with daddy, and she fed it to him! Sweet!)

Today is PARTY DAY!!! Fun Fun! Jay’s 3rd b-day combined with a little surprise guest welcome home party for Mark. I have yet to get a great pic of Daddy with Caitybug, will work on that today. Enjoy!

Just a quick stop in to say “HI!!!!” and I AM SO GLAD HE’S HOME!!! Wow it has been wonderful so far!!! Très romantique!

Heya! Sorry I had to take the cam down without warning this afternoon. I am determined to finish her face tonight, and you are welcome to watch!!!

Sooo, go on and click on that cam link right over there ————>
and don’t forget to zoom it to 200% to see the whole capture area! 😉

I have a beautiful photo that I took this morning that I will share when I finish up and post her progress pic tonight. Make sure if/when you come back, you scroll down right in this entry to see the images, I’ll add ’em right down here. 😀

ONE WEEK TO GO TIL MARK COMES HOME! Whoooooooowie! We are so excited to get to spend two whole weeks with him, I can’t even describe it! I’ve arranged the first night already, kinda honeymoon-ish. 😉 Jay and Caitlin are both thrilled of course, Jay keeps talking about sharing her birthday cake with Daddy and making him wear a hat and hold balloons. hehe! (Ready for that, hon?)

I’ll be back in a bit!
xoxoxo

And one more for my bestest bud who isn’t obsessive compulsive AT ALL. I swear.

She just loves my purdyful flowers. 🙂

Holy cannoli, what a day! I don’t think I’ve done that much math in my head since high school. LOL

I unloaded the garage and loaded up two trucks with stuff to add to the sale for tomorrow, WISH ME LUCK! And lots and lots of sized 14-22 women who love clothes. And expecting moms, and moms with infants. 😀 That will take care of everything and I won’t have to bring anything home! YAHOO!

I tell you what though, not painting today, I am getting the jitters. Even just thinking about not painting tomorrow is making me a little nauseous! I am so in love with my oils, and so excited to really excel and expand my compositions and gallery!!! I have so many ideas!

You know that painting from Vermeer has already taught me so much, looking at his palette, using only the colors he used (ok 2 extras ’cause I couldn’t figure out which was which on his palette description!). I was really intimidated by working this piece. I had it ready to start for a few days, and I was headed home one day and honestly started painting it in my head! I knew I was ready for it, now to finish it and to have a painting that is truly a tribute to Vermeer – I will be SOOO EXCITED!

Aaah. Ok folks sorry to ramble, just had to get that off my chest! Now please accept my apologies for my lack of cam painting today and tomorrow, I PROMISE I will paint Sunday, and I will finish this piece by Tuesday or Wednesday of next week! (Ok, Thursday or Friday. LOL)

I still have some eye candy for you! See how mean I am, make you read all that when all you really wanted was something easy on the eyes. Ok here you go! This is a flower in my in-law’s garden. Anyone know what it is? An African Daisy perhaps? The light was hitting it just right and it just caught my eye from the driveway. Aaah. Sniff. Enjoy. It’s my favorite color!

Caitlin wanted to paint today, and I got her working in soft pastels. She worked a lot on this portrait of Daddy, and I helped her refine some areas and showed her how to blend. Not bad for an 8 year old, eh?

I gave Chloe a bath today too. She smells so purdyful! 🙂

I have prepped my next painting, and might maybe possibly paint on webcam tomorrow! I will be painting a tribute to Vermeer, his masterpiece “Girl With A Pearl Earring”. I had sketched a version of it (from the book cover) on a flight down to Louisiana, some of you may remember this sketch.

That’s about it for today, I am off to raid the freezer for chocolates (daggone it!) and watch some really educational and informative public broadcasting. heh. :P~

Hey! Long time no see!

Well I had a nice couple of days “off”, ha! I’ll try to catch you up on everything.

1. I’ve discovered that there is no handbook on “how to do everything perfectly when your husband is off at war”. I searched everywhere! Bummer. I’m still wingin’ it.

2. Jayden had TONS of fun at school, she really likes it! See?

3. I’m trying to plan a new more sophisticated and browser friendly layout for my galleries. So far I came up with this, and you would click on the teenie tiny image and the large one would come up in that big blank space there. The menu on the left includes everything this time, it’s all broken down. You like?

4. I got a package in the mail yesterday from Artbyus, which included a few of the postcards that are being sent out to thousands of folks around the world! See anything familiar?

5. I have a lump on my foot, it’s a ganglion cyst, and I’ve lost about 90% of the feeling in my toes because it’s pressing down on my nerves and may have caused permanent damage. 🙁 Part of Lala land was a trip to see a very sweet podiatrist who has me scheduled for surgery on October 15th.

6. I have a couple of other lumps (hehe!) that are also going to be removed. I’m just going to leave it at that. :X
;P~

7. Jayden’s 3rd Birthday is September 21st. Guess what her birthday present is? C’mon…guess….

nope. that’s not it.

MARK GETS 2 WEEKS LEAVE AND WILL BE HOME AROUND THE 23rd!!!

now guess who is going on vacation again very soon? heheheeeee…..

Of course if you’re in the area you are all invited to stop over and have a piece of cake, some ice cream, and hear war stories for the day! (We’ll have chips and beverages and stuff too, of course!)

I think that’s everything, yea? Dang I hope so. That’s enough for 2 days worth of vacationing isn’t it? Good golly!

The convention last night was PROFOUND wasn’t it?! I was bawling. But if you watched it toward the end there when GW was all teary eyed, you should have seen me. God Bless the creators of extra soft Kleenex with Aloe.

Have a great one, my prayers are with everyone in the path of Frances!!
xoxoxoxo

It’s rainy today, so here’s a lil sunshine for you! We stopped by Grampa’s house a couple of weeks ago to drop off some of my excess Irises, and I saw this beauty & had to get a pic of it! You can click the flower to see a closeup of it. It looks like a pretty sunset, doesn’t it?

I will post again later, a progress shot of the pup I’m painting. 🙂

P.S. The MCFA letters were just sent out yesterday! So…today or tomorrow I should find out if I’ve been juried in!