irises in boulder

Hi, there!

Eric and I just got back from a lovely trip to Colorado.

There was so much good about it, and the timing was

just right as today marks the end of the school year.

Good to get a nice dose of chilly weather and rain just

as we head into the ninety degrees of summer!

Also, the trip was a nice blend of structured and unstructured

activities, time with friends and with just the two of us,

lots of walks down bricked pathways in downtown

Boulder and Denver, and GREAT FOOD. 

This patch of irises was growing outside the window at 

one of the coffee shops we discovered, and it may be

the first watercolor I've painted in over a year. It felt

good to pull the ol' paintbrush out again. I hope to do so 

more in the months to come! Light-colored watercolors

don't scan well, so I've attempted to color correct; however,

you may get a better feel for it by clicking on the image for a close-up.

the flower boat

 Last week we took the old sandbox boat (the "Sandboat")

that the kids have grown out of and turned it into a flower boat.

 We moved it into the new garden, filled it with soil, and planted 

a bunch of flowers in it. As well as some canteloupe that

Elliott really wanted to try out. Maybe one of these days I'll

go after the boat with a paintbrush to spruce it up a bit. 

Until then, we'll let the flowers do that work for us!

 The original cover was too opaque, so I took the netting that was

previously used to cover the sand, added strips of burlap around 

the edges, and created a new sunshade. The main purpose of this

is actually to keep the rhus lancea seeds from the overhanging tree

out. It's not the most sophisticated sewing job, but it does the trick!!

 Here are a couple of closeups of the flowers we planted in there.

stop sign

These are a couple of signs I finished recently to go 
in the kids' wing of our church building. We have a 

cool, free-standing metal sign frame from an

old department store to put these in, 

one on the front and one on the back.

I've been working on them for -- I'm not kidding --

eight months now. It was somehow intimidating to

collage layers together after shutting off that

part of my brain. Which seems to have happened

once I started digging in to sewing. Anyway, last week I 

printed the stencils and cut them out with a craft

knife, and today I got to the spray paint part.

It was quite fun -- I might try out more spray 

paint in future collage pieces. Also, I'm trying to get

back into painting on a regular basis. I'm looking

forward to lots of fun projects with the kids this summer!

garden lights

 For the hubby's birthday this year, we planted a little garden on 

the west side of our house. Much of it is container-based, and it

looks like it will flourish into a beautiful nook. 

At the moment, my favorite part is these frosted cafe lights we hung.

Yummy!

grief

 

Sean Bloom, a friend and dear member of our little church

community, passed away last Monday after an intense battle 

against intestinal cancer. He was only 39 years old. I have

been overcome by waves of sorrow re: losing him and over the 

loss his wife and four young children will bear. I also feel 

relief that he is free from the pain he endured and that his family 

can move out of the holding pattern they were in and 

back to some sort of life-giving rhythm. It's a strange ambivalence.

crocheted hearts

I've been crocheting hearts this week, 

following this pattern at Little Birdie Secrets. 

To be honest, my first attempt turned into a hat.

My second attempt was even less useful. 

More like an anatomically correct heart, perhaps?

I finally got the hang of it, though, and pumped these

little guys out at 6 minutes apiece. I used them to 

cover up a sewing repair on the back of one of

Ashton's brand new shirts which she had cut holes 

in (gasp) before even wearing it (sigh)! 

The shirt is cuter than ever, though, so we're good to go!

meet the muffins

cartoon class: donuts

Ashton and I took a parent-kid cartooning class

a few weeks ago during rodeo break. I've been 

either sick or busy or taking care of people who

are sick or busy since then, so this is the first I've

managed to post about it! Anyway, we worked on

complete cartoon strips and then moved on to just

making up little characters, which was by far the

more fun. Ashton has great ideas for characters

and is always designing them. This clip is pretty self-

explanatory. The tiny donut on top of the big donut

is, of course, the baby. There is always a baby 
(really -- there always is).

celebration

This is the only recent picture I could find of the hubs and I together --

usually one of us is holding the camera (this was auto-shoot in the wash
by our house)! Anyway, our 15th wedding anniversary was yesterday.
We had a great time reminiscing about the years we've spent together
and pondering what the next 15 might hold. Good times.

new chairs

I am feeling very blessed lately to have been able to order 18 
new chairs for our dining room. Living in a community house, 
we go through dining chairs like nobody's business. There's the 
wear and tear of nine people using them on a regular basis, 
plus all the friends we love to feed. But replacing chairs for 
a table that seats twelve at its smallest is pricey business, so 
we always get a bit nervous when this time approaches. So far, 
God has graciously provided a new set of chairs every time
we've gotten down to a metal folding chair or two in permanent
residence at the table. This round was no different. This time,
though, I was very excited to find affordable, wooden-seated
metal restaurant chairs which are comfy, pretty, and have a 
lifetime warranty! So maybe we'll be able to enjoy these even 
longer than the rest. Also, they shipped free (with a purchase of 
16 or more) and came so well protected that unwrapping them 
took longer than getting them assembled!