*sigh*

Having two little arms thrown about your neck is the best felling in the world!

Sarah Beth Practices Piano

The Olympics at Our House

Pairs Figure Skating....


Luke and Sarah Open Their Program with a Dramatic Pose

Fill it with LOTS of Spins

Fancy Lifts

Artistic Flare

and Acrobatic Stuff



In the Kiss and Cry with Their Coaches

They Wait Anxiously for Their Scores

Celebration!

Medal Ceremony

Playing the National Anthem

Gold Medal Champions!

Recipe for creating a fairytale

You will need:

Children
A few old costumes

Safety Pins (lots of them)
Construction paper
Scissors
Glue or Staples???
Any props that might fit the era (e.g. Swords, crowns)
Camera
Computer with Photoshop program
Full length feature film of timeless children's story

The children will most likely come to you and request your assistance in fitting/creating costumes. After you search through costume bins take chosen pieces and begin pining wherever you can to fit adult size clothing to little bodies. This can be rather difficult but not impossible. Assign a child to make paper body armor (they will probably need some help). After costumes are complete begin photo shoot IMMEDIATELY! Costumes will begin to fall apart and it takes twice as long to fix a costume as it does to create it. Make sure you have fun at all times! Pick fun poses for pictures, it works best if you play the parts and use your imagination! Download pictures into computer and begin editing with Photoshop. You will most likely have no idea what you are doing and will need to call your older sister or mine (ask for Stephanie) and ask for her expertise. Knowledgeable/creative older sisters are invaluable! Again at this point using your imagination is imperative and have fun with your results!

King Peter the Magnificent

Queen Lucy the Valiant


At Cair Paravel

Lucy and Aslan!

Kalahari Vacation

Taking a little break from the cold to have some family fun at an indoor water park!

Joe learns to body board with some help from the instructor.

Sarah Beth and Rebecca pose for a buddy picture

Sarah Beth gets comfy in a hollowed-out tree

Rebecca and Joe (you can't tell it but they're fighting over the chocolate)

Sarah Beth wears a t-shirt over her swimsuit/life jacket looking a bit like Quasimodo

Grandpa and Joe are twins



SB and I smile for the camera

Twins....

....with braids

Sarah B. and Luke: Adventures in Painting

Hello Everybody! This is Sarah Beth, I am writing this blog post with Susie (and yes Sarah even wrote the title :) )

Sometimes Susie helps Lukie and me to paint pictures. Last time we had so much fun discovering paint and mixing colors.



This time we each worked really hard to make a painting.

We got to create whatever we wanted.



Lukie wanted to paint a picture of a farm and a horse in the field.

He worked very hard on every little part.

I think his favorite part was using the special fan shaped brush to do the sky.





I wanted to make a picture of a cardinal and a blue jay eating together.

Susie says I do very nice brush strokes!

My favorite part was painting the cardinal and my not favorite part was doing the blue jay.

My favorite color is RED!

We learned a lot and it was SO MUCH FUN!

How to Operate Kitchen Aids with SB

First you help Mommy get the ingredients (Make sure to do this is in your cutest apron!)

Watch VERY carefully as Mommy turns on the Kitchen Aid (This must be done by an adult, little girls should NEVER touch!!!)

Continue to watch the machine stir your ingredients ( this is done best if everyone puts their heads really close together)

The very best food is made with LOTS of loving care and attention!

How to Climb onto a Tall Stool with SB

As Requested by My Mom....

My latest piece of artwork.

Click to enlarge picture.


The medium is pen and ink with watercolor.

I took this photograph of the original and the colors aren't exactly right. If it had been professionally photographed or even scanned the colors would have been truer, if not exactly the same.....

The only way I can think to explain it to you is that the original's tone is much warmer and not quite so pale... I may try scanning it at a later date and if there's a big enough difference I may post it again.

I haven't named it yet, so, if any of you have any ideas feel free to share them!

A big THANK YOU to Alice for helping me figure out how to add a watermark to photos! Up until now I haven't really posted much of my artwork because I didn't have the ablity to add watermarks and protect my work before putting it on the web. Now hopfully I can share more of it with you guys and you can give me feed back :)

AND now I also have Adobe Photoshop on this laptop and that I think will be very helpful and fun!

Thanks again Alice!

Visiting the Zoo Part 1

A couple of weeks ago I did something that I haven’t done in a long time. It was both nostalgic and exciting. Mom, Luke, Sarah Beth and I visited the Henry Vilas Zoo in Madison. It was the “perfect fall day” and we enjoyed every bit of it! After eating a small picnic in the warm sunshine and beautiful colors we walked through the zoo’s front gate. I’d been to this zoo before some years back and I quickly began to get my bearings. To our left were the concession stands and the gift shop where Katie and I bought cute socks, hers with giraffes and mine with elephants. Dad had always bought us a couple of miniature toy animals every time we visited a zoo. We’d built up quite a menagerie of our own; visiting the zoo was a favorite family activity. Every year Mom & Dad would use money from our Grandparents to buy our family season passes to one of the zoos or museums. This day we passed by the commercialized plastic and stuffed products heading straight for the real animals.

The first creature we saw was a large orangutan. He lazily half sat, half hung from the fence of his habituate, we rushed up and leant on our own fence. We all stared at each other: he with a bored expression, absently eating grass in a round cow – like chew; we fascinated and curious. The stare war continued. We found him every so amusing and he, well I couldn’t say what he thought, but taking a clue from his deadpan expression we were nothing new or exciting to this impassive ape. Sarah Beth broke the silence exasperated and confused she demanded “Why don’t He SAY something???”

Having just watch The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe on DVD and then coming face to face with an animal displaying such strong expressions and looking at us so candidly, it seemed only right that he should open his mouth and speak! Poor Sarah Beth! One thing became very clear: it had been much too long since we’ve visited the zoo.

She's at it again!

Hello Everyone!

It's Me!
Sarah Beth!
I've hijacked Susie's blog again! Mauhahahaha!
She just NOT posting enough!

Today Lukie and I convinced Susie to let us use some of her art supplies....

The results were colossal!!!


All it took was some paper, brushes and a few vibrant colors....

...And inspiration struck!

Future Artists :D