Jackson Pollock

It is has been a life's ambition to throw paint at a canvas and call it art. I have always had a natural attraction to the shapes which take place when gravity and paint combine. Then, I took 20th Century Art in college and learned about the abstract expressionists, beginning with Jackson Pollock. I love them. I love the ideas, I love the paintings, I love the simplicity and complexity. I even love the giant color circles named, "Red Dot." The bigger the better in my mind. If I had the means I would absolutely paint a giant blue square on a huge canvas just to see what it would look like. I love to see art on a large scale, and some of expressionism includes this idea. But what I really love is the love of art. Art for art's sake my friends.

There are others in my family, namely Brian, who do not have the same utter appreciation for the abstract expressionists, including Mr. Pollock. Never the less, I finally got my wish and went "pollock" on a big 3'x3' canvas.

It was harder than I thought. I had a really beautiful composition going and then I messed it up completely and decided to start over. After a few hours of careful dripping and tipping and splattering, I had my completed piece! And of course I hung it in my bedroom for Brian to appreciate. He says he likes it, but I'm pretty sure he is just humoring me.

I love it!!!!
I'll get off my high horse now, but I fully plan on making more!
And since I have an art degree- all you art nay-sayers- I get to call it art! ha!

Snow Day

Portland thought it would be a good idea to go play in the snow today. I have to admit it was a good idea, especially seeing how it does not snow very often.

Daddy thought it would be funny to pretend to drop a mini snowball on Bradley. As you can see, the snowball found its way to Brad's head despite the "pretending."

Daddy had to fix the situation as he was the cause of the problem. Good thing he is good at it- crisis averted.

New Hair

I have worn a ponytail nearly every day since Brad's birth. So I didn't see this coming. I didn't notice that my hair was changing in any way, so when I got it cut the other day I was slightly shocked the first time I dried it and could not straighten the top three inches of hair.

I now have wavy/ verging on curly hair. In related news, it is also darker. Weird.
I didn't know having a child would physically change my hair along with the rest of me. The hair I have grown since Bradley's birth is both darker and very wavy - see second pic.

I gladly embrace this change and am ready for something new. I have to use curly hair products to encourage the lower portion of my hair to curl. The upper portion has no trouble complying.

It is now short enough that Brad really has to try to hard to grab it. Mission accomplished. It is also easier to style now that all I have to do is partially dry it and put product in it. Maybe the next three months my hair will only be in a ponytail half the time.

I don't know about you, but I can clearly see a difference between the few new inches of hair and the old. It isn't shockingly curly in this pic, but it is darker.

Month 3

Heidi told me I needed to post more pics.
It isn't like I don't want to. It is that I find it hard to dedicate time to uploading, blogging and posting. But I'll try harder anyways. I know there are lots of family members out there who are eager for more frequent updates.

Well the third month has shown me that things do indeed get better. Not that they were bad before, but it amazes me how wonderful, how amazingly happy things are now. I love waking up to smiles, I love hour long naps, I love five hour stretches at night. I love wiggling, I love the kicking and the talking! Oh the talking!!!

Bradley will tell you a story almost as soon as he is awake. And then he tells me about how good his dreams were, and then he tells me about how good his breakfast/brunch/lunch/linner/dinner was, and then he will tell me how funny the monkeys are, and then he will tell me how cool the tv is, and then he will tell me that I'm not paying enough attention to him, and then he will tell me he is tired, and then he will tell me he is really really tired. And then he sleeps and we start over again. I can't believe that I could have so much fun doing this same thing over and over again, but I do.

We go to stores together, we go to Kyli's together, we go on walks and to church activities. He is so happy to go out and see new things. I love it. The biggest change for this month is his ability to be cool in all sorts of situations. Chillin in the carseat while I walk around the mall for a few hours, or chillin with me at the mother's group I go to sometimes. I can go to target nearly when ever I want. I don't really know what to do with all this new freedom!

I think Brian is enjoying this stage too. He can get Brad to smile and giggle just by looking at him. I'm sure it helps that Bradley knows a session of "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes" is in his future every time he sees Dad. Brian has a talent for making him giggle.

Little Talker

Clearly Bradley has a lot to say.
I love it.

Divine Timeline!

I am the Personal Progress leader for our ward (if you have no idea what I'm talking about you can check out the LDS Personal Progress program Here). I thought I would share my most recent activity (plus my mom asked me to post some pics so she could see). I can't take full responsibility for the activity, I saw the idea to make timelines in a YW idea book, but I came up with the rest!! Instead of just normal timelines we made Divine Timelines!!
So yes, the value for this month was Divine Nature. I "divided" our divine natures into four categories: Life Experiences, Values, Aspirations, and Talents. We talked about each category and how it related to our Divine Nature and then each girl listed her own. I made sure we wrote down either the grade or age for each listing so it would be easy to put on the timeline.

For example. Life Experiences included anything that has happened birth till now that made an impact on your life. I asked everyone to include birth, baptism, and entering Young Women's. (I made special markers for each of these, see below.) But this category also included things like moving, new pets, births or deaths, making friends, etc.
Under Values we talked about the different ages we came to realize that we valued something. I gave the example that in the third grade I learned that I valued art. During this time I would collect my classmates art projects that they didn't want because I thought that all art was valuable and deserved to be viewed. Most of the girls wrote down the ages that they came to value music or the gospel or money. Which I thought was cool.
Under aspirations we wrote down what we wanted to be when we grew up at different ages. My favorite was Britt's, she wanted to be a bunny when she was 2 or 3.
Talents was probably the easiest category to determine an age for, but I worried that some of the girls would feel like they didn't have any talents. So I asked each girl to include "smiling" on their list. I explained that it was the first talent they learned, that we all learned. I have experience this with Bradley. He has a beautiful talent for smiling. All babies do. We still have that talent, we just choose not to share it as often as babies do.

After all the writing and talking came the creating!! We had lots of buttons and little bangles left over from Girl's Camp crafts, so we used those to embellish our timelines. This is what mine looked like. We used a different color of paper for each category and everyone got a "My Divine Timeline" headline for their page.

Each girl got a Smiling Baby bauble to symbolize their birth and first smile!

Each girl also got a CTR ring bauble to symbolize baptism.

They also got a YW's torch to mark when they entered YW's.

Just some of the fun stuff we used to decorate.

Value Examples: When I came to value good grades.

Bradley is currently sleeping. Which is why I was able to post!

Portland is currently pouting.

The baubles were easy to make, but probably not "archival." I just used a glue stick to glue on the print out (tacky glue made the image blur) onto a clear squished marble.

I loved seeing how all the girls made their timelines. None of them looked like mine at all. Some used a similar style, putting all their events on a line of some sort, and some took a totally different approach. I thought they were all really creative, even if not all the girls think they are creative.

Highlights of Month 2

My second month of motherhood was surprisingly harder but better than the first. The first month was hard but there were lots of people here for the majority of the month. The second month I had more one on one baby time.

The 5th and 6th week were more hard than fun, but then suddenly way more fun than hard during the 7th and 8th week. This may have been because I was in Oregon for the 7th week, and I had lots of help. But I attribute the awseomeness of week 7 to The Swing. The swing is now my best friend. Bradley willingly sleeps for a five to seven hour period during the night. And regularly takes hour naps at regular intervals during the day. My life became much more predictable when the swing entered. But I also think that Bradley seriously matured during that week. He suddenly would have long happy, giggly, awake stretches where he would amuse himself. I am amazed at how much difference a week can make.

It is odd how I am still living my life week by week. During pregnancy I would eagerly await the emails updating me on the development of the baby growing inside. Each week felt like a new victory as I grew larger and closer to my due date. Now, I still find my self celebrating each week accomplished but with even more enthusiasm than before. I survived another week! He survived another week! He learned to smile this week! I learned how to put him to sleep in under 5 minutes! My victories are small, but monumental when compared to the previous one.

The best development this month by far is his smiles. I love those gummy, giggly smiles.

Bradley's blessing outfit made my Grandma Daniels!

We were so blessed that we could do Bradley's baby blessing in Oregon with our family. And double blessed that Brian's family, who is not of our faith, was willing to support us and attend.

Daddy and Bradley chillin on the floor playing with new Christmas toys.

I try to take a few photos each week, this was my fave from week 6.

Oh my girl is so patient. I don't think she "loves" Brad yet, but she tolerates him and accepts him as a member of the pack. When he is upset at night she will run over to Brian and sit right by his head and stair at him as if saying "FIX IT!"

See more pics at : http://saponas.blogspot.com/2010/01/highlights-of-month-2.html