I was so taken with the gourd birdhouses that Courtney made for Christmas.  Then Barry reminded me that we had 2 gourds that had been drying in the garage for a long time.  My yoga teacher gave them to my kids  last growing season (in 2006).  Anyway, the kids painted them and now they’re ready to be lived in.

They were pretty easy to make.  Once they were painted and dry we just drew our 1 1/2 inch circles for the doors where we wanted them.  The we drilled 1/4 inch holes in the middle of the circles and used a little coping saw blade to cut the holes the right size. Hollowing them out was fun.  The stuff was all styrofoamy and the seeds are a crazy shape.  (We saved seeds for future gourd growing.)  I reached in with my fingers to loosen things up, but it mostly just shook out.  Then we found some good perching sticks, drilled holes just smaller than the diameter of the sticks and glued them in.  I’m sure it will be awhile before we have residents, but just the shape and color of these make me smile.

Before it gets too far past Christmas I need to post about some hand made gifts. These are the only thing I managed to get made this year. After seeing Amy’s Aunt Sarah Dolls I’ve had this idea in my head and finally got it out this year.

They are hilarious. I drew the bodies, then had the kids color their own. I just used our printer to copy them onto the injet iron on stuff I found at Hobby Lobby. Simple enough. It did take me quite awhile to get them done, though. I made 4 sets, so that was printing, ironing on, cutting, sewing, stuffing (my mom was visiting, so she actually did that part),and closing up– times 16. Anyway, I don’t think about things that way when I embark on a project, so things always take me longer than I think they will.

I kept a set. It is pretty funny to see Ian chewing on himself!

1. INK+WIT Letterpress Valentines, 2. Pose, 3. stones in my space, 4. flower,made of stone, 5. thin ice, 6. crabby is a state of mind, 7. hive, 8. fog, 9. still life, 10. spirals, 11. sand dollars, 12. urchin shells, 13. stone arches, 14. blue door, 15. ethereal, 16. bedside bird press

Having a new camera has made me quite a flickr addict. It seems that my favorites have doubled and tripled and quadrupled in no time. They look so pretty together I thought I’d post some of them here.

I just can’t get over the mini printing press in this one, and there are so many bird photos that make me wish that I had a lens with more zoom so that I could share my window visitors with you all because I love them so. That, and to have a record of them after we leave this house. Today I had a pair of house finches, a pair of red-breasted nuthatches, a pair of cardinals, and about 8 juncos in my little tree all at once! That was such a good start to the day. So, so good.

Here’s our friend Nutty the nuthatch. After some cropping this photo’s almost kind of good.

His wife is perched up on the fence. He’s very domineering and won’t let her eat at the same time. He won’t let anyone else eat with him, for that matter. Even the much bigger cardinals get out of the way of his pointy little beak. He’s mean, but we still love him.

On Mondays from 12:30 to 4:00 or so I have a babysitter to watch the kids so I can hide in my art room. Here’s what I did today:

I’ve filled up all the journals I didn’t sell last year (last year?! that long ago? yikes!), so I need a new one. I drew up a design on graph paper and used my little gocco printing press and stamp kit to print my big sheets of paper.

I’ve been thinking and thinking about how to get patterns to repeat right, how exactly I’d go about stamping designs without smearing ink, what kind of jig I’d need to get things lined up right for a long, long, time.  I have printed this paper a gazillion times in my head.  I used mat board strips with marks that had corresponding marks on my stamp screen, then held everything in place with pretty blue masking tape.  It worked like a charm!  I just barely mis-marked everything for the vertical repeats, but oh well.  It’ll all be totally perfect next time I try it.  And it looks hand made, right?  That’s my mantra.  Perfectionism is out the window.

Not bad for a days work! This certainly makes for a happy mama.

On a hike, finding treasures.

I love my life. There is so much beauty in the world, so many things to look closely and discover. I love being a mother and seeing things through new eyes– adding treasures to treasures. And I love having a partner that reminds me of the things I love to do and helps me overcome inertia when I feel stuck.

I love to just look.

This week I listened to Elder Ballard’s commencement address at BYU Hawaii about using new media to join the ongoing conversation about the Church. He encourages us to have blogs and use them to share our testimonies, answer questions, and work to dispell misconceptions about who Mormons are and what we believe.

So, I’m going to post a talk I gave a little over a year ago. Elder Eyring came to our Stake Conference in November 2006 and I was asked to speak in the Saturday evening session. The topic I was assigned was “There is no Substitute for Personal Righteousness” and I had just finished reading and writing about and discussing Jane Eyre.

I love Jane. Small, quiet, plain, and all alone– she knew herself and what resonated with her soul as good and right. And when the promise of pleasure and even love seemed hers, it just didn’t sit right. Charlotte Bronte’s story illustrates the profound truth that there are universal principles that apply whether we acknowledge them or not– and when we live contrary to truth we can only be miserable. Joy comes in doing what we know is right no matter how hard it is.

If you want to read it, here’s my talk: Plant Your Feet

Happy Sabbath!

Because, well, for the most part it seems that my life revolves around them. Well, I guess sometimes those bodily fluids are somewhat solid. You know, slobber, blood, breast milk, pee, poop, puke, snot … These are the defining marks of my day. And this day is one that I just want to have two of me. Some help, some ideas, some energy. Nothing is particularly going wrong or bad. It’s nothing like Wednesday night while I was cleaning up from dinner and Brenna was watching Ian and somehow his onesie fell off (?), and then his diaper fell off (?) and he peed all over the new couch. No, I haven’t had any bodily fluid moments quite like that today. Just a baby to breastfeed, boys holding crotches and squirming to remind to go potty, trips to the bathroom because Logan yells, “Mommy, I’m done. Mommy, I’m duh-one. MOMMY I NEED WIPED!!”

But, it’s not the bodily fluids that have me needing help today.  Okay– I guess tears are a bodily fluid and those have been accompanied by way too much whining and screaming today.  So, there we have it.  Even something I thought didn’t have anything to do with bodily fluids does, in fact, include bodily fluids.  Three year olds in our family are hard.  They’re bossy. They scream.  And kick.  And yell.  And when there are older sibblings that want their way and not Logan’s way– yikes.  I wonder if I would cope better if I just wore ear plugs?

It’s just one of those days that I wonder if my kids will turn out okay despite my inadequacies and lack of patience.  Will they be emotionally scarred for life by being yelled at for leaving the door open because it is letting freezing cold air in 20 times in 2 hours?  Am I doing permanent damage by not sending Brenna to school and just letting her read all day long?  Is the permanent damage better permanent damage than the permanent damage of learning to play the game of school and social cliques?  Will my baby survive the obstacle course of choking hazards that is our family room?  Why is the dog following me around with her food dish?!  Will I ever be able to go somewhere with my kids and have shoes and coats on (and left on) in less than half and hour?  Why does it take almost an hour just to get out the door?  Will there be a day that I don’t step on legos?

In my head I have all these ideals– dreams of picturesque cuddling and reading.  Orderly shelves of educational materials that get used frequently– and then put back right where they belong.  Of clean bathrooms and clean laundry.  Of walls covered with beautiful artwork (which I own, but isn’t framed).  Of books written and illustrated, socks knitted, prints printed…

I’m not going to finish that list because I want to feel BETTER when I’m done writing this.  I hold these visions in my head.  They are like a map.  Instead of following a straight course, I guess I’m meandering– often ignoring the clean house trail, but more often than not arriving at the x that marks the treasure of my children and the miracle they are– of kissing squishy faces and saying, “I am so happy to be your mama.”  I need the ideals.  Somewhere to reach.

The reality is, though, that I’m not fully dressed until my shoulder is covered with boogers.

This past Saturday Logan and I spent the day at the Boonshoft museum while the big kids went skiing with Barry. Ian came too– but this was Logan’s day. He has said, “I just wanna play at the Boonshoft,” at least fifty times a day for the past week or so. I’m not exaggerating. Really.

Our favorite part of the museum is the learning room. It is a big room with a few cockroaches and snakes in cages, but the best part are the drawers lining every wall. Oh, and the skeleton displays. I love those. I would love to sit and examine and sketch them, but the kids will have none of that. They’re ready to move on to other things. Wouldn’t it be cool to have skeleton displays in a school room? In my art studio? Yes. One of these days.

More photos here.

in the back yard.

with a baby on my back.

more here