Thursday, January 19, 2017

Dec 17 - Dec 20

December 17 - I took the girls to see the Nutcracker.  Tamsyn's friend Savannah's ballet company was putting it on.  She had a couple different little parts in it.  It was fun to see her dance and be there to support her.


The girls game was cancelled that night, so we went to watch the boys play Hockinson. The refs kept asking Thurston to hold the game ball during time outs.


Dec 18 - Dantley was sick so I stayed home from church with him.  That evening Tamsyn stayed with him, while the rest of us went to my friend Kristin Pratt's house for dessert.  Her dad Tom Wilson and mom were there visiting.  Mr. Wilson was my 7th grade basketball coach, as well as middle school shop teacher and our ski club advisor.  It was fun to sit and visit with them.   I forgot to get a picture.

I finished the nesting doll nativities that I have been working on.  One is for Meagan's mom and the other one is for Debbie Devine.


Dec 19 - Today was supposed to be Tamsyn's birthday party.  But we woke up to a bunch of snow and several calls and texts asking if her party was still happening.  We decided to reschedule it for the following day, and spent the morning building a snow fort.



Katie came over to sled with Tasha and they built a snowman.   I couldn't make it up the hill in the van after the kids had been sledding on it, so Katie's dad gave Natasha and I a ride to basketball practice.








Dec 20 - Tamsyn's birthday party was at the Mountain View Ice Arena in Vancouver.  For the first 30 minutes they closed off the end of the rink for a lesson.



The instructor was great.  He was really patient with the varying levels of skill and super complimentary of the kids.

Natasha invited Mia to come along so she'd have someone to skate with.


Towards the end of the kid's lesson a mans fell hard near the cones.  I guess the sound was pretty horrible.  The instructor went straight to him and put his coat on him.  He told me later that as soon as he heard the sound he knew that he had broken his leg.  It was a pretty bad fracture.  I was worried the kids were going to be upset by it, but they didn't see it close enough to realize what was going on and didn't know until later that the man's leg was broken.  Paramedics finally came and put him on a stretcher to get him off the ice.




This was Dantley's first time ice skating and he was pretty fearless.  He just went for it.  He'd fall down sometimes, but it didn't keep him from getting back up and going again.


At the end of the party we had the party room and had cupcakes and goodie bags, while Tamsyn opened presents.

From left to right - Thurston, Nathan Scrivens, Savannah Mendenhall, Hailey Powers, Olivia, Alanna Scrivens, Kyle Dunn.  Front - Dantley, Tamsyn and Hazel Allen.


Hailey got Tamsyn this cute garden gnome.  I guess they have an inside joke about gnomes.  Tamsyn laughed and laughed when she opened it.  Her friends know her well.  Olivia got her a gift card for Target, Kyle got her a gift card to Joanne's, Savannah a book about northwest plants and a booklet her brother made about medicinal plants of the northwest, Hazel gave her a sewing kit and coloring book and the Scriven's gave her some cool colored pencils that looked like wooden sticks and a coloring book.





Working on Illustrations

For years I have had it on my list of things to do -- to illustrate a book of the silly songs my mom sang with us growing up as a gift for her.  This year I decided it was time to buckle down and do it.  I asked Teri if she'd illustrates some songs too, and Ashlee who just started teaching this year didn't have time, but her kids did one song for the book as well.  Tamsyn also did 2 songs and Natasha helped me with one.  During the whole process, I couldn't post any pictures, but I was having a daily drawing contest with Jackson Allen.  We both had to draw 5 sketches a week and have one of them be something that was more finished.  It was good motivation for me to keep drawing everyday and thanks to that little competition, I not only finished the book, I also finished several nesting dolls as well.  Here are some of the sketches and illustrations in progress. I thought it would be fun to illustrate every song in a slightly different style. So there are collages in paper and fabric, pen drawings, marker, colored pencil and paintings as well as mixed media.


















































Click on this link to see a PDF of the book