good day...

The bad day yesterday kept getting worse (one thing was that I got a letter from the gallery saying that they are closing the end of December and everyone needs to come get their art by then) till about 10:30 when I finally had the projects where they needed to be for the rest of the week to get done, the house was clean, laundry done and folded, christmas letters ready to go (our printer working), Lily was bathed and asleep for the night (she took a three hour nap, I think that's why she was so clingy, I held her for half her nap though), shopping done, library stuff returned, Youssef was home from plasma, ect. ect. (He won 50 dollers in a drawing too!)

I still have a lot to do but I feel like it's doable. My hips and pelvis still feel like they are breaking or brused on and off from being pregnant, but it's not as bad today as some days. Lily was good most of the morning and I made some headway on projects. I'm glad I don't have to go anywhere today (though I have to go out tomorrow). The house isn't too trashed (just localized messes).

I'm feeling pretty optomistic... I just needed to do all that extra stuff last night to make today run smoothly. I tired myself out, but slept better because my dreams weren't stressed out ones.

After Lily falls asleep (I'm holding her now) I'm going to have a mocha and work on (hopfully, finish!) a project. :)

bad day...

Do you ever have one of those days were everything seems to go wrong... the house gets trashed more quickly... the projects you are trying to finish before christmas seem to grow, get more complicated, and start to feel imposible to complete... and your child who was a little angel yesterday is clingy and more needy than usual today...?
*sigh* I shouldn't complain I know, but I don't have anyone to talk to. Youssef works very long hours. He made a board game that he's been really excited about and keeps talking about. He's been wanting me to play it, and I'd like to, but it's starting to feel like just another thing I need to get done this week (and I of course don't want to feel that way about something that is so special to him). It's crunch time though, and the christmas gifts and projects that I've been making and woking on for the last few months are almost all done. They aren't many actually, just a few, but very time consuming and artistically challenging. I'm tired. I'm really glad that Renna isn't due right after christmas like Lily was. I feel like I'll be able to have time to get ready for her coming once christmas is over.
I'm really looking forward to christmas though! I'm probably going to have to stay up late to finsh some of this stuff so that I can enjoy these last few days till christmas. (And next week I can post a couple pictures of the gifts I made.) :)
I feel like I'm missing half my brain at the moment. I need to do a little shopping today and return stuff to the library and mail a letter and some other random things on my to-do list. I feel like I've got all the grocery type stuff we'll need then we run out of diapers... or the car needs more gas this months than I'd planned. I just feel like I'm lossing my brain most of the time.... at least today anyway.
I probably just need sleep.

The Iceman Cometh

One of the last things you expect to hear on a Saturday morning from your wife is "Wake up, it's a perfect snowman-making day."

I heard something similar this morning.

A snowman is made when -- and I didn't know this -- you first start to roll a small ball of snow. It's hard to imagine one of God's purest creatures coming from a collection of small specks of frozen water... but there you have it.

Lily and Lynné worked hard to get the base of the snowman big and steady, too. It wasn't long before their project began to suck up a large portion of the snow on our lawn.

At some point, little Lily's work became bigger than her own self. Lynné, too, pointed out that the effort blazed a trail borne of sweat and love.

How hard could it have been to make a snowman, but there you see it - more snow was going to be required if, and only if, this was to be a properly sized snowman.

You know, snowmen come in different shapes and sizes. To make a classic snowman, you need three big pieces of snow... we wanted to make ours round, and so it was that our Sleiman Snowman was made from our Sleiman snow. But the effort was becoming great. It was at this point that Daddy stopped taking pictures and began to help.

Here's where I modeled the rest of our endeavor.

In all honesty, I think it came out looking pretty much like me. (Yeah, Lynné says, but with more hair.)

So it was that Grassy the Snowman was born.

Unfortunately, due to his discomfort wearing so warm a scarf (isn't that weird that snowmen wear scarves to keep warm) we wound up taking it inside.

(Lynné speculates that it may be to hold their head on.)

In any case, I'm pretty sure he didn't like wearing it since it made him possibly a target of vandalism.

But he's big enough to take care of himself, I think.

PS:

Lily wanted to go on a walk because we used the stroller to hold the camera up for that last picture - and she couldn't let the stroller come out of its closet without using it for old time's sake. How rewarding it is after a birth to sip on a chocolate chai from the local café.

"Yeah, I know it was like, totally awesome. We like totally went out together and like did the best to like have a snazzy Christmas. I like, really liked it, but you know - it was cold and stuff. Yeah, totally. I know! I wish that this was a real phone instead of a mouse, too, but it's cool."

Latest addition to the picture market

Ready your ooohs and ahhhhs.

This one is called "Hovering."

Note the muted colors. Only in a few places are there colors of vibrant quality - quite a step different than the typical fare of Lynné's.

I believe it's muted in color to accommodate more common household colors. It's the kind of coloring that would match some homes with rich velvety furniture and cushy cushions.

Okay, wipe your eyes and get ready for the next one... it's a beauty.

Yeah, that's right it's the prettiest one yet. (Youssef's opinion) Heaven's pearly gates seem slightly tarnished compared to this array of color and light.

And, it's still all paper - no real flowers were injured in the production of this image.

Look closely at the center purple lily... very closely... you may see the digitized rendering of 3D-edness.

To represent the pollen things, Lynné made the paper reach out of the flat picture. Again, another departure from normal, but it fits so well with the depth. Because this one was one of her best of the most recent, it went to our Aunt Gen - she deserves some of the fruit of some of our work.

Of course, we sent it after we scanned it several times (and I pieced it together in Ms Word with my digital publishing abilities) so that we can use the image for further prints. (Those aren't yet on sale since, well, we printed them rather large and we don't yet have a board and plastic to present it yet. It is a nice picture, though.)

It's begining to look a lot like Christmas!

The picture below of Lily with her mouth open was her first reaction when I turned the lights on on the tree. We'd put the tree up and put the lights on it the night before and this is the morning that we were going to decorate the tree (the Saturday after Thanksgiving). Unfortunately her 2 year molars started coming in and were really bothering her so we took turns holding her while the other person put ornaments on the tree. I wish she had of been feeling better and had wanted to help. Her teeth are still hurting her, but she's having an easier time now than she did that first week end.

The snowflakes I thought would be fun to put on here incase someone wanted a neat project to do. They are made with sparkly hot glue! You just make whatever shape (a snowflake in this case) with the hot glue on some wax paper or plastic that is bendable so that you can peal it off when it cools. It's pretty fun and I think they look neat. :)

We all have eclectic taste in our household. Here Lily is wearing her new princess nighty with her Lightning McQueen car slippers and watching "Wizard of Oz" (that she calls "Boz") While playing with her baby doll. I was impressed with this picture because I actually caught her smiling. Usually, she moves too fast and our camera is too slow to catch a good smile.

The first of the fondue for December. We've decided that once a year just isn't enough, so we thought we'd better have fondue every weekend in December! It's fun and festive. :)

Random picture of Lily reading all by herself the other day before bed. It was a little sad that she didn't want me to read to her at first, but also kind of nice that she was being so independent. And later she wanted me to read to her and kept trying to stall because she didn't want to go to sleep till Daddy got home.

This ornament (the strawberry) Lily picked out for her ornament for the year! I don't know why she was so into this one... maybe because we went strawberry picking in July and she only wanted to eat strawberries for a week? Or perhaps just because she thought it was pretty. She wanted this one above all others. Actually, she would have liked 20 of them, but besides that she couldn't hold that many, I couldn't let her have more as just the one was $4.99.

The teddy ornament I got for Renna just for fun... even though she's not born yet. :)

Youssef's and my ornament for the year I decided to make with the paper folding idea since one of the big things of the year was that I got my pictures in a gallery and sold another. The other thing was that we learned how to make sushi and had sushi a LOT this year (Youssef said it was his comfort food). Lily likes to point at it hanging on the tree and say "sue-see".

Ahh... The tree, but they never look as pretty in a picture do they?

This is Lily's first time (really) in the snow. She wasn't quite sure what to do, but she liked to walk in it (rather than the path I shovelled).

The snow is all gone now... right when it was ready to make into snowmen! Well... we'll have to do that later. :)