New Favorite

We're taking advantage of a lot of the fantastic things to do around KC. There are lots of great museums and galleries in the area (many of them free) and the biggest by far is the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. It's a huge museum with a great variety of galleries. Also, it's got a great big scupture park on the grounds...perfect for a picnic with the kiddos.

We had a great time eating our sandwiches and wandering through all the scuptures. Then the adventure started: "Mommy, I have to go potty!" It really is a big park, so it took us quite a while to make our way up to the museum then hoist the stroller over all the steps (I wish I'd taken a picture of the steps...so many, especially since Girly was in the stroller while I hoisted it!). But once we were inside, Boy-o wanted to stay and look at some of the things. We actually had a great time inside the museum too! It helps that it was midday in the middle of the week, so there weren't a lot of people to mind my little rowdies. Once Girly discovered the power of her voice in an echo-y gallery however, we had to make a quick getaway, but it was loads of fun while it lasted.

Grandparents, Artists, and a Happy Home

A few weeks ago we had a fun visit from Grandma and Grandpa. The kiddos were in heaven having their grandparents around always ready to read to them, build with blocks and lincoln logs and take them out for special trips. Grandma even introduced Happy to Angry Birds!

We've stayed really busy with lots of projects and plans. Curmudgeon participated in his first festival with other school orchestras in the district and was pleased with how his students performed. The 7th and 8th graders have been working on quartets for the past couple of months and tonight will perform their chamber music concert. I'm sure they'll do well, but Curmudgeon is excited to get back to a more regular schedule with technique and scales and ensemble numbers.
I've taken on a new project starting up the Kansas chapter of Artist, Interrupted. AI is a network for women artists who have put art on hold due to raising families, other careers etc. We had our first meeting last night which, in addition to being a wonderful experience, gave me some strong incentive to get my house cleaned and well on the way to being finished (if finished ever really happens).
I was pretty proud of the spread I made for the ladies last night: sushi and build-your-own fruit pizzas.

 We have been able to get further on our house projects as well...last weekend we finally got the upper dining room painted: 

dining room before

and now.

And as of last night, I feel like the living room is finally finished too. We finally got pictures into the frames and on the walls and the beautiful built-in shelves that my dad helped us build when we moved in are organized and filled. 

the living room while we were building shelves.

all finished!

We've also done a lot of work on the mudroom. When we moved in there was this tiny awkward space between the door outside and the door to the kitchen. They couldn't be opened at the same time and you had to squeeze around both doors to get into the house. While my parents were here they helped us to fix that by moving the kitchen door down to the opening of the basement. We also finished the floor and (though this picture doesn't show it well) we removed those ridiculously ugly shelves and installed shoe cabinets and a nice coat rack. Much improved!

before we bought it

and now.

Call for Ideas (and Opinions)

So the LDS International Art Competition has come around again. I've been wanting to submit something for the past several years and have just never gotten around to it. This is the year. I'm going to do it.
But I've had a hard time deciding for sure what media I want to focus on. So for those of you who have seen my linocuts, books, or sculptures (like lanterns) I'd like some opinions on what you think I should do. I've been thinking about creating maybe some kind of lantern tree using cutouts of linocuts for the lantern faces, or maybe a pop-up book. Whatever I do, I will definitely be incorporating prints, so keep that in mind as you chime in.
Also, the theme this year is "Make Known His Wonderful Works". And I want to know what "wonderful works" you'd like to have made known. I'll be depicting a bunch of different things and I want to know what works (or stories, things, places, people, events) mean the most to the people who mean the most to me.
Thanks in advance for your input. I'll keep you posted with pictures of how the project is going!