Proud Art Mama?

So Jenelle LOVES to color! That, eating, and doing puzzles pretty much fill about 90% of her day (amazingly enough, she has yet to get bored of the same puzzles day in and out). But back to the coloring – she’s getting good. She does these hilarious little smiley faces, which she’s incredibly proud of, writes letters (probably on accident) which make her crazy excited when she notices, and has even begun to color within the lines. To the right is a creepy monochromatic example:

Here’s where I go from being proud of her blossoming art skills to totally speechless. Yesterday while she was coloring with her markers I told her I was going to just run out and get the mail. In the time it took me to run across the street and back (literally 30 seconds), she colored every square inch of white on the high chair. With red marker. Not sure what she was thinking. Or how she did it that quickly. After cleaning it, I laid down on the couch and told her I really needed a 2 minute nap, and please, please, be quiet (has that ever worked for any of you??????) After turning on every musical toy within sight, she announced a desperate need to use the bathroom. Sitting up frustrated, I noticed everything else that she’d done while I crossed the street – mainly, the carpet and the wall. She’s totally never done anything like this before and I am so baffled. First – why did she do it? The other day when she did something she knew she shouldn’t have done, I asked her why she did it and she said, “because you left the room and you weren’t here.” Honestly she said that to me. So that probably sums that up. But as to how she went from peacefully coloring princess pupils to covering my house in red marker … I mean honestly, she must have gone very suddenly insane and colored everything in sight as frantically as possible. So my question for all you moms is, when I am more experienced at this mothering thing, will I understand what my kids are thinking? Or what makes them tick? Or will I at least have any idea what to say when they’re crazy? Oh and I have learned that I am not made out of the same serious art material as my professor that told me he was so proud of his kids artistic expression when they first drew on the walls in his home that he took pictures and couldn’t punish them at all. I guess I’m just not that hard core.

Less Ice Cream, More Exercise

We have been crazy sick around here for the last two weeks – starting with me. I have sure learned that mom is NOT allowed to be sick! It really, really, really sucks. So we basically never left the house and I haven’t even been able to blog! Gotta say I missed it. But that’s okay, Jenelle’s always here for a good pick me-up. Yesterday while sitting on the toilet, she patted her chubby bare thighs, jiggled them around a bit, and declared with obvious pleasure:

“Hey Mama! My legs are BIG. Like yours!”

Things I've Learned from My Kids

Yesterday while I was trying to take a nap while listening to the girls take turns protesting their undesired nap sentence, I started to make a list of things in my head that could either drive me crazy or make me laugh and love them more. And believe me, they do both. So, eventually I gave up trying and wrote down my list. I decided to title it: Things I’ve learned from my kids.

1. “F is for Goldfish.” “P is for Tato.”
2. Reasoning with a 2 year-old is a good idea. It goes like this: “Close, but F is for f-f-f-fish.” “Actually, (pointing at the picture) “it’s a goldfish.” “Yes I see, but remember the f (pointing at the letter above the picture)? F is for f-f-f-Fish” “Actually Mama, it’s a goldfish.”
3. “Now lie down and don’t get out of bed again,” really is an invitation to begin rearranging everything in the room the moment I shut the door. Or even better, today it meant, “Please find an obscure water bottle that you stashed under your bed who knows when, take the lid off, and dump the water all over your bed. Oh yeah, and don’t forget to cry about it because I should never have got the idea in your sleepless head in the first place.”
4. “Come here Meri, let’s change your bum,” means “Turn and run for the hills! Run Meri Run!
5. “Look where you’re going” is usually followed by a loud thump. And tears.
6. “Shhh! Quiet!” means you should yell, “WHAT??” And along with that, when I say “Time to go home” at the park, I really mean that I’m eager to test out my parenting skills and since nobody is looking yet, please throw a relentless and very loud tantrum.
7. The lyrics to “Joy to the World” are really “…The Earth receive her keys! Let every hearty-heart, prepare wif him a roomy room…”
8. “Weeding” means different things to different folks. To Jenelle it means shoveling endless amounts of dirt into Mama’s weed bucket. To Meri it means picking up handfuls of dirt, seeing how it tastes, and throwing it in disgust at the nearest passer-by. Honestly, what did you expect it to taste different than the last time?
9. Worms are “sooooooo toot (cute)!” unless they get close.
10. There is an invisible giant haunting our hallway. Oh, and an occasional zoo. “Jenelle, can you go get such and such from your room?” Pitter patter, pitter patter – “Ahhh! An elephant!” “Jenelle, there’s no elephant.” “A hippo?” “No, the hippo’s at the zoo too. “Ahh! A monkey!” “Oh boy.”
11. Spaghetti should always be eaten shirtless.
12. Giving food to Meri on a plate is not the civilized thing to do. Quite the opposite in fact. She finds it quite rude, and therefore, immediately picks it up and dumps the contents off every time.
13. Kids have a special radar. If mom and dad begin to snuggle, off goes the alarm, and everybody wakes up and cries regardless of the time of day or night.
14. Wearing curlers makes me “so, so cute … like a cow.” And in case I was confused, she followed this statement by mooing at me.
15. Crackers go well with any meal (although, I have to admit, I already knew this – and they really hit the spot after chocolate ice cream).
16. Somehow my words change in midair before they enter my kids’ heads. For example: “K’I have some juice?” “Yes you can. I will get you some as soon as I finish changing Meri’s bum.” “K’I have some juice?” “Yes, just a second.” “Can I have some juice??” “Jenelle, please wait.” “K’I have some juice???” “Jenelle! What did I just say?” “Yes, I can have some juice.” “That is not what I said. What did I say?” Short pause. “Can I have some juice now?”
17. What Mama is eating, even if it’s the same thing, always looks SO much better.
18. “Please put that down,” or “don’t play with that,” translates to “Hurry! Play with it as quickly as you can before mom takes it away!!!”
19. An ankle is really called your “gunk.”
20. Figuring things out with kid #1, does not at all help for kid #2, which is one of life’s real cruelties – it just doesn’t seem fair.
21. Don’t ever disrupt the nap schedule – it always backfires. I just wish they wouldn’t disrupt mine.

To be continued later because the kids have noticed me on the computer, and the noise of the keyboard is a temptation not to be overcome - #22.

New Paintings!

Alisha's been working really hard, and we wanted to give you all an update on her progress. So here are the paintings she's turned out in preparation for the show. So here you go! (I'll get them on the web site soon.)

All Tied Up

You know how sometimes you just want to tie your kids up? Just kidding, what a horrible thing to say - who would ever want to do a thing like that? And what's more, who would actually do it?



And this is her, "I'm a scary monster" face with monster hands included, in case it wasn't immediately obvious:













On second thought, it might not have been the smartest idea to teach her how to tie me up. That's one of those things that could come back to bite me, or an unfortunate babysitter, sometime in the not-so-distant future. But she did have fun taking the picture by herself (with me trying to keep myself in the picture as she moved it all around).










Don't even ask what the stuffed animals did to deserve this kind of treatment. Especially the poor hanging monkey.












Then when that fun had run its course, we moved on to create these breathtaking masterpieces:


So there you go daddy. This is what we do all day while you're at work (or at least it's what we do while Meri is taking an awesomely long nap and I'm avoiding any and all housework with amazing skill)!

Meri's First Birthday Pics

In case you weren't convinced that we have the prettiest girls in the world:

https://www.smilesbywire.com/home.asp?AC=LTPP0102107510JCP

Click on the link, and enter "Alisha Whitman" in the customer name field. Jenelle wasn't supposed to have any pictures, but she jumped in front of the camera and started hamming it up. Life is good.

Best Weekend Ever

Talk about blogging delinquents! I suppose that's what happens when Alisha paints as much as she does--I would expect this to continue for some time. Another side-effect is that you get me blogging instead of her, which isn't good for anybody. Regardless, here we go.

Last weekend, Shaun, Janelle and Preston (note the A in the name to avoid confusion in the rest of the post) came to visit us. Shaun and I go almost as far back as Alisha and I go, so that's saying something. They live in California, unfortunately, but I'm convinced that's not permanent. Regardless, we had a fantastic time with their visit. We had a blow-up bed in our living room, 3 little ones cruising around, played games, chatted well into the night--you know, the sorts of things that friends do. Jenelle finally returned Shaun's love (when we all lived in Utah she was scared to death of him), Preston loved us (he doesn't like strangers) and Meri, of course, loved the new faces. Here's a little taste of the fun that was had:


And here's a little something for Shaun, because he was giving me a hard time about not posting anything of their visit yet. Here's your boy, in all his pink sparkly glory for all of the world to see:

Let this stand as a warning to any of you with boys who want us to babysit. I only know girls.

Our lives passed away like as it were unto us a dream ...

Meredith turned 1! Honestly, it really can't be possible. For some reason I'm hanging on to her being a baby a lot more than I did with Jenelle. She's just my sweet little darling that loves to cuddle with mommy. Can that last please?? With all the trials and chaos of this last year, I feel like I missed out on so much because I was busy on just making it, and now I blinked and she's 1. It has been a crazy year - the hardest of our lives, but we feel like we have been blessed so tremendously and hopefully have learned all we needed to. Anyway, back to my adorable 1 year-old.

Let the fun begin! I don't really think wrapping paper was made for 1 year-olds. As the picture on the right shows, she got tired of me trying to make her part of it pretty quickly.










But we have a winner! I had picked out a baby doll with a binky and as soon as she saw it she just pointed like this, as if to say, "I'll take that one. Yes, could you please remove it from its bag please." And then she proceeded to carry it around the rest of the night and pat its back. Hopefully this will be the end to the contention in our home surrounding Jenelle's very similar looking baby with a binky!










And the cake! You can't really tell but we have here a desert island with gigantic fish swimming around with little gummy bears enjoying the sun and trying to escape on rafts or in life preservers. The kids didn't really think it was as funny as I'd hoped.









And despite her dainty, tiny little bites, she did end up with some cake on her face (she picked at it very slowly, licking her fingers as she went). She still has blue boogies. I'm just not sure where the kids that just plow into the cake come from. Jenelle wouldn't touch her first cake, even when we shoved it in her mouth, and Meri liked it but didn't get overly excited by any means. Oh well. Happy Birthday darling! Let's hope this next year goes a bit slower!

I got friends in small places ...

I'm really not sure what's so attractive about really small places that are going to be impossible to get out of, but I don't think my kids are the only ones that just can't resist the temptation! Cracks me up every time. I just think it's hilarious. Although, they tend to disagree. I wish I had more pictures because Meredith is constantly getting stuck in the weirdest places. The trunk of Jenelle's Elmo car (who knew there was a place so small that her behind couldn't fit), bath toys, etc. Jenelle once crawled under a chair with incredibly low rungs and hadn't yet discovered how to crawl backwards. Didn't know it was a separate skill. But here, Meri had the same problem (stuck underneath a small trampoline):










She can sometimes get out of this, but it usually involves a face plant and tears:












And when I grabbed the camera, Jenelle had to join in, but Meredith was very legitimately stuck. Oh, and I've found her in exactly the same position half a dozen times recently. Apparently that whole learning from our mistakes portion of her brain isn't fully developed. But then again, whose is?

New paintings, no sleep

So I promised I'd post pics of what I'd be painting. I haven't taken good pictures yet, so the colors are pretty washed out and not good quality, but you can get a general idea. This first three are thanks to Raina's recent Europe trip. This one I like:













This one I did three times and am still not super happy with:










This one I've since finished (during last night's Blazer game - which really didn't help stress levels any), but am not at all happy with:













This one comes from my mother-in-law's recent Europe trip. Hey, it's a great thing that people I know travel! Parts are okay, overall it just seems so-so to me, but on the plus side that means I don't hate it:













In this one, the background has more of a green color in real life. Sometimes I really like it, sometimes I don't. And most of the time, I just really love painting flowers, but am scared of ending up as "one of those female painters," who only paint flowers or flowery, feel-good subjects. I think it might just be a little bit of the arrogance the art department always shoved down our throats about Thomas Kinkade being the root of all evil in this world, and I'm not really planning on going down in history or anything, but at the same time ... I don't know. Anyway:













And this one has a lot more of a blue-purple background then you can see:












And if you're wondering, I only get to paint at night when the girls go to bed. So I don't sleep anymore. Hence I've been sick for eternity. And just maybe, this is how Cooper found us when he got home from work last night:










Yes, I was sleeping in Jenelle's bed. In my defense, everybody is clothed and pretty happy, nobody's crying, causing harm to body or house, and the rest of the house was at least picked up. Tee hee.

Wahoo! A video!

So I've been wanting to post a video for forever, but being a bit more complex than my normal posts, it hasn't happened till now. Thanks to Cooper being bored every night as I paint, here's a video!



I love the way Jenelle sings "joy" and her cute little coy, leave you wanting more kiss. Oh and the look on her face as she pretends to hug. Basically, that's why Coop can't wait to get home each night! And the second segment, the tackle was one of those wonderful accidents you get on tape, and the somersault is perhaps the most pathetic thing I've ever seen. She really is slightly more coordinated than that! And the final segment shows Meredith's unique little dance she always does now when she gets excited about some music. I love it! She just spins and spins until she falls over. Usually I can't get anything on tape - one of the really big tragedies of my existence. Anyway, hope you enjoy! Oh and by the way, does everybody else's kids think their family home videos are the funniest things in the world?

Alisha's Art (REALLY) on the Interwebs!

I'm pleased to announce (again) that Alisha's website is up and running (again). We kinda had to do it all over again (again), but live and learn, right? It should be a much better format now (again). There will still be changes for sure (again), as Alisha still hasn't seen or approved it. But I wanted to let everyone know that it's there (again), and shouldn't even cause your computer to crash or anything if you click on it. So that's nice.

www.alishabwhitman.com

Thanks for all of your support. It means a lot to us. Again.

Let's Build a Snowman!

Wahoo! It finally snowed! I've been wanting to go play with the girls in the snow (since we went and bought full snow gear from head to toe) and have been very disappointed each time the weathermen get my hopes up. So it's not like we got a big dump, but here in Oregon we make do with what we got. And Jenelle was quite insistent that we make "a big snowman!" So here we go, here is Meri's first snowman:









I love this, it looks like she's making a new friend, who by the way is not even as tall as her when she's sitting down:









And while this was her first snowman, her first snow was actually on Christmas day (although it sadly didn't stick), which I never got around to posting:








And of course, we had to play on the swing set. In the snow. "Undergoggy!"













And eventually we had had too much fun. "I so freezing!"













And yet, 20 minutes later, she wanted to go play in the snow again. We're sad daddy was at work, but hopefully these pictures will make his day.

Also, I wanted to thank all my fantastic friends for your supportive and encouraging comments about my artwork. I tend to get discouraged and stressed out about it as I paint because I really don't feel like I know what I'm doing or are prepared to put on a show but your comments help me feel a little bit more like I can do it. Thanks.

Alisha's Art on the Interwebs!

Well, it's something we've been working on for a while (my friend/computer guru Christer and I), and will continue to do so. But due to the great news Alisha shared with you last post and the countless requests to see her art, I've found I can't wait 'til it's done. So here it is: Alisha B Whitman (.com). (UPDATE: Read the post all the way through before clicking!)

Keep in mind, there are a heck of a lot of bugs, and more are sure to come as we try to fix the ones that are already there. That's how it works with these crazy internets. So don't worry about the fact that the home page doesn't really exist (and if anybody has an idea where it might be, please let me know 'cause I can't find it). You can still use the tabs at the top of the page to see Alisha's art. The slide shows aren't formatted the best but, again, they're functional enough to see the art. Enjoy! I do!

(UPDATE: Okay, so it's a lot more messed up than I thought. The home page exists even less now, so to see the art you have to go to the individual pages manually:
www.alishabwhitman.com/flowers;
www.alishabwhitman.com/cafes;
www.alishabwhitman.com/still-lifes;
www.alishabwhitman.com/water;
www.alishabwhitman.com/architecture.
Once you go to one, you can click on the tabs at the top just fine... just don't click on the "Home" tab! Then you're screwed.)

(And on more UPDATE: Because I'm still working on it a lot, it's possible that at the time that you choose to look at it that it doesn't work for you at all. Sorry. Just try again later.)

(Here's a taste:)

Some good news!

So some of you may know that about a year ago I was accepted into a really good art gallery in Oregon, called the Lawrence Gallery. Since then I've had paintings in their Salishan and Sheridan galleries, and I've actually even sold some, which was pretty exciting. I hadn't really planned on starting down this road quite yet, since I don't really have a ton of extra time on my hands these days to paint. No clue why. But I submitted a portfolio through a connection with my in-laws so that I could get some advice on what I needed to do in the meantime. And to my surprise, they accepted me. Anyway, that's old news. Here's the new news: This week they called me and asked me to be part of a two-man show that they'll have at their Salishan gallery in June! It's kind of a big deal, and really exciting! I have a crazy amount of work to do between now and then and no clue how I'll get it all done, but thanks to my incredibly supportive husband, if I don't it'll be just because of my own laziness. So I'll have to start posting my stuff as I get pieces done so I can have your opinions on how I'm doing. I'm so overwhelmed but my head is just full of ideas and plans. Hopefully I won't neglect my family too much these next few months!

Does it really show that much??

So yesterday was a Monday. Man, we miss daddy on Mondays! But all things considered, I thought I was doing alright. I mean-no shower, no makeup, but we'd swept (Jell is so helpful when I do that - she likes to push the pile into the dustpan, scatter half the contents across the floor, and miraculously miss the garbage can, dumping the rest in front of it on the floor. Don't worry, she doesn't get too choked up about it. She always says, "Oops! I made a big mess. Dat's otay, we'll clean it later.") and vacuumed, plus everybody was fed and dressed. Before 10:30 even! We were having fun. Then I went to help Jenelle in the bathroom. She looks up at me and says, "Mom, you look old." There's no way she said that. So I said, "What? What did you say?" And nonchalantly, she looked at me again and said, "You look old." "I look old?" "Yes." Okay, my question is ... who taught her that??

So I give up. It's happened. But even if I have to get old this early, it's worth it if at least I get to have this much fun, with these adorable faces that I just can't get enough of. Even when they call me old.






























And by the way, if I do look old, perhaps it is treatment like this that has done me in!

Sometimes we all need a little help!

Before I begin this post, I must warn that it is at least a PG rating, due to partial toddler nudity.

Anyway, Jenelle has lately started going to the bathroom all by herself, which is wonderful. This may have started with us leaving the potty chair in her room overnight so that she'd stop coming out of her room every five minutes claiming to need to go poopies. How do they learn how to stall so early? Anyway, we had to start locking her in and would put the potty chair in with her, just in case (The first night she used it, in the morning there was a potty chair full of poopies. Ew). Anyway, she does have a little trouble pulling her panties and pants back up though. As you can see here, from the front, it all looks good (although she was a little sad):












But the back appears to be just a bit breezy:












In all fairness, the girl has rather large cheeks. And with such short little arms, it's just tough to pull 'em up. Oh man, is she gonna kill me when she's older.

Here's a cute picture just for fun:

Obligatory Blazers Post

C'mon, you had to know it was coming. You had to know, that is, if you know me and follow sports at all. My beloved Portland Trailblazers are perhaps the best story in all of professional sports right now. The youngest team in the NBA and third-youngest team in NBA history(!!!) is playing the best basketball in franchise history. After starting the season 5-12, appearing to fulfill all of the "experts'" pre-season predictions, they are now 22-13--good enough for first place in their division and 3 games out of first place in the entire Western Conference. Even if you don't care about sports, you've got to appreciate a bunch of kiddies (with good attitudes, mind you) winning 17 of 18 games.

However, I do understand the makeup of the readership of this blog. So I will refrain from going into detail about the franchise turnaround of recent years. But seeing as we've been delinquent bloggers as of late (Alisha so rarely gets to use the internet, but when she does she'll blog like crazy--she's got lots of good stuff to share), thought I'd take this opportunity to let everyone know how happy I am about my team.

Plus, everyone should know that for my birthday, Alisha got me what is turning out to be one of my best birthday presents ever: cable. I can now watch every single Blazer game. We'll probably stop the cable once the season (and playoffs!!!) is over, but until then I'm in heaven. And the fact that this turnaround happened to begin right around the time I started being able to watch every game--coincidence? I think not!