And We shall call you Bump Numero tres

{Or Tre for short~ Jones}

You are correct I am pregnant and expecting the third little blessing in my life. Baby number 3, or Alfred as I am calling it {no I do not know the Gender yet} is coming in May 2011 and we couldn't be more happy. I have only been having minor symptoms, a little queeziness, really tired, unbuttoning of the pants :) you know the norm.

love the ruffle dress

Remember this dress I made?
Check out this one from Anthropologie. love the plaid.

Sweet blessings.

From the moment I wake up Til I {kind of} go to bed at night, my day is completely packed. My schedule goes as follows: Watch the B kids til 1 ish then I come home pick up the house quickly and put the Tobster down for a nap and hit school, til the baby wakes up and its dinner and chaos til bed time. Most days I go to bed wishing I wasn't quite so tired so that I could clean more, or simply do more. Today I had more on my plate because I had a meeting at 2pm and a church activity at 6:30. It could have been an insane day but instead I found that hour by hour the day was stretched out in simple and wonderful moments. I felt like time didn't matter. I managed to spend time with my kids, I finished  twice as much school work as I had hoped and enjoyed a free meal, in the dark outside in the rain :) but it was fantastic. After singing my babies to sleep, I sat down on the couch and felt happy and very aware of all the many blessings in my life.

Couture Fashion

Sorry My last post was so random and half of a thought.

I just spent that last 2 hours on style.com researching last years and this years fall couture fashion shows. I had to right a full report on the styles, sillhuetes, colors, patterns and so on. It was extremely time consuming but very interesting.

My favorite designer of this years shows was Christian Dior. All of the other collections showed a lot boxy black and white buisnes suits and dresses. They seemed to really want to cater to the working woman which makes sense in our current economical climate. However Dior's collection could not have shouted anything more different.

His collection was a celebration of life that I could really appreciate.

Today was officially the last day of my first week of school. The way my classes work I have a certain amount of assignments due every week, and by midnight on monday they must be completed and turned in. I am happy to say I finished them all yesterday and was able to spend today exhausted. At about four o'clock I couldn't keep my eyes open so I layed down for an hour and a half while C came up and down the stairs to check on me every five minutes and Tober talked to herself loud enough that I could hear. Then I forced myself to get up because I was starving!!

My Baby and Her bottle

I am officially done nursing and I have to admit it is pretty nice. The first few days were tough, and I was surprised by how often I almost nursed her without even thinking about it, but now I just think she looks super cute with her bottle.

 Weekends are rough lately. I constantly feel torn between working or resting. On one hand there are so many things to get done before the week starts up again, and on the other, the week is about to start  back up again and all I want to do is lay on the couch and be entertained for a while.
I don't think there will be much of a struggle tonight my eyes are barely staying open. Too bad both my kids are freaking out. :(

Blind contour Drawings

The assignment that I am working on right now is called Blind Contour Drawing. It means you look at the model and only the model when you draw. You simply follow the lines of the body.

I was really excited to try this technique since in the past my sketching abilities have been nothing to look at.

So far I am really enjoying it, even if my pictures look goofy I already feel like I have learned something. Ofcourse I still have many many more to do. We'll see how it affects my sketching abilty!!

Sigh

School is awesome. School is work. School makes me tired. School makes me curious. School gives me back pain. School makes me smile. School helps me feel like an artist.

Portraits

On saturday I made this frame for my craft room/office. It was the first time I had really made something in multiple weeks. I felt so good afterwards that I realized {once again} how much I missed making art and that it is so much more than a hobby for me. Just like some people need to excersize, I need to create. So today I made some over due family portraiture for the space above the ironing board.

So I started by printing out a full size image of C and then traced the outside lines of the image with a sharpie marker.

The Sharpie will bleed through the paper leaving the backside looking like this.

Next I cut the image out and traced the shape onto a 12x12 canvas.

I simply cut out the outside layer, traced it, cut the next layer, traced it and so on and so forth.

Then I took the tiniest paint brush in the world and jet black paint and went over my pencil tracings.

For fun I gave it a messy yellow border!

Now I still have to do one of Jones and myself and I will be able to look at the whole family while I make other works of art! what!

Secrets of a Stylist

Last night after a long day of  cleaning, organizing, and creating, feet hurting, icecream in hand I turned on the Tube to watch Design Star winner Emily's new show Secrets of a Stylist on HGTV. I absolutely loved her design!!! Although I am probably a little bias since the style 100% reminds me of Jones.

She started with this.

And taking 3 different styles, FDR chic, 60's mod, and world traveler gave Ian this new and improved room.

from super boring Master Bedroom

To this.

Ugly spare room with built ins

To elegant guest bedroom.

What I loved about the show is you can tell she really paid attention to the style  of the house and then just took it up like 10 notches. Her style feels organic and realistic, like the owner can actually live there. Emily also did a great job showing her process and made me feel like I could do it too!

Overall two thumbs way way up for her new show, and I am so excited for all the inspiration she gave me for our master bedroom!!

For more of Emily click here

At last, a beautiful room

                                            It took Mama R coming over and taking charge...

    and now {Finally} my Craft room, that has been in various stages of functional, got a major face lift. It still needs curtains and a few other things but it is such an improvement from before! My fabric all has a place to go. I have a paper tray that can hold enough paper to last my entire school career, and a gorgeous ironing board {sorry pops :) and thanks}  I am really happy with the space, can't wait to put it to good use.

Sigh of relief. Ok now I have to rescue the rest of the house....

My First Day of School

Today I Officially started school at the Academy of Art University studying Fashion Design. I am only taking two courses this semester Fashion Illistration and Intro to Fashion Buisness. So far it is new, unfamiliar, frustrating, exciting, and fulfilling all at the same time!I have no idea what I am doing!! but I am confident that I will figure it out. I feel so blessed by all the support I have recieved from my friends and Family in response to me going to school. So thanks everyone.


C and Tober are both going through growing stages, learning new things experiencing things deeper. I feel like they constantly push me to a breaking point. I am learning so much in the process though and am so thankful for the experience of watching the B kids and dealing with so many personalities different ages and personalities. I know I am going to be a better mother for it.

{the B kids, I watch them in the mornings}

My days are filled with goofy faces with sticky fingers. Awesome kid quotes like "roll down the windows so the Hobos can dance" {listening to music in the car} A lot of time at the computer, filling out forms and forgetting passwords. I feel tired but good. I feel like Heavenly Father has blessed me with strength I didn't know I had.

I know I am not documenting things as well as I would like but there is only so much I can do right now. :)