Posts Tagged ‘family’

Calligraphy: DeAnda Family Name

May 22nd, 2012
5 Comments

Last night I lettered this little name plate. The client wanted something similar to what I did for the Hardisons last year.

Unfortunately for me, I was two strokes shy of completing the artwork when a brush of mine rolled over the artwork and left smudges in its wake. ARGGHHH!! So I had to start over.

The bright side of having to start over that late in the project, I tend to make improvements on the old layout and I tend to do it a lot quicker. Has that ever happened to you? When you had to start completely over on a project?

I’m really happy with how this turned out. And I keep meaning to make one for our little Esplin family, but I have yet to hang up any artwork in our place, let alone make artwork for it.

We’re working on buying a house, so we may be moving again. It’s so exciting, but it completely destroyed my motivation to make our house “cute”.

Calligraphy: The Strength of Mothers

May 1st, 2012
8 Comments

My friends’ mother/mother-in-law passed away just about two months ago, and though I didn’t know her, it really struck a chord with me. It was on that day that I met up with my sisters and my mom to go out to dinner. A rare treat, since my mom lives over 2,000 miles away.

During our visit, my mom asked us girls about her parenting; if she was good enough. Sure there were decisions she made that we didn’t understand. Sure we didn’t get along from time to time. She was there for us. For me. She’s always been a big supporter of my creative endeavors (my dad, too). And as I drove home, my friends’ loss hit me like a freight train.

I would be so lost without my mother. She is a prime example of a loving and industrious mother. Between chauffeuring me to ballet lessons, piano lessons, art lessons and school it was nothing short of astonishing how she completed her college education suma cum laude. She works so hard to support us.

There’s no doubt in my mind that my friend had an equally incredible mother.

This quote personifies the strength that my friend’s mother passed down to him, and it’s been a real honor to get a glimpse of the kind of legacy she left behind.

What quote or mantra would you say your mother lived by?

I’m Back!

July 14th, 2011
12 Comments

The kiddos & I are back from our week with the grandparents. I’m feeling refreshed, Penelope is feeling pooped and Felix is feeling rather accomplished.

My brother-in-law just got back from a two year stint in Honduras, so most of us Esplins were in Phoenix to celebrate his safe return home. Chris couldn’t get time off work, so he held down the fort & let me galavant off to Phoenix on my own. Chris’s sister, Shelley, flew with the kiddos & me out to Phoenix, which was HUGE. It was the first time I’ve flown with two kiddos & everything went surprisingly well. I didn’t have a companion on the flight home, but we fared remarkably well considering our flight came in at 11pm.

While we were in Phoenix, we went swimming, killed a scorpion, went shopping, watched movies, ate lunch with friends, watched bob’s burgers and helped organize my youngest sister-in-law’s bedroom. Felix spent most of his time in the arms of an aunt, uncle or grandparent and Penelope spent most of her time bossing around Molly the dog. It was perfect.

We got back to a clean house (which we have now destroyed, sorry Chris!) and my new camera! I’ve spent most of the morning playing around & reading the instruction manual. Seriously, I suggest EVERYONE should read their camera’s instruction manual. It doesn’t matter what kind of camera you have, just learn all of its ins & outs. You’ll take much better photos once you do. Promise. I’m about 90 pages into the manual & have about 210 to go, but I feel like I’ve improved immensely since I started reading. I’ll definitely be reading it through a few times.

With all of my enthusiasm, I took this opportunity to shoot some pictures of the nearly 5 month old Felix. He’s getting so big & animated now, I just love it. During our vacation, he discovered his hands & started rolling over! It’s so exciting! Now I need to teach him to hold up that behemoth head of his.

The Feli-Monster

June 22nd, 2011
31 Comments

Last Friday, Felix turned 4 months old & had a well-checkup. Oh. My. I’m raising a monster. He weighed in at 17lbs 5oz with a gigantic 17.5″ head. That’s off-the-charts huge for a four month old. The doc said, “I know a lot of 9 month olds that would love to weigh that much!”

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Look at those rolls!undefined

Since things are usually more than a little hectic around here, Felix doesn’t get very many photo ops. I thought I would take the time to have a little session with him while Penelope was napping. I was a little distracted because I was talking on the phone pretty much the whole time, though. Why do I always feel like I have to be multi-tasking? I’m crazy.undefined

This one might be my favorite. He ALWAYS smiles like this. What a sweet smile!

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No Man is an Island

May 30th, 2011
15 Comments

This weekend was awful & awesome all at the same time. Chris is in Canada hiking the Vancouver Island trail with his family (read: ZERO cell service for a week), the car won’t start, it’s raining cats & dogs & we ran out of formula on Sunday (the problem with buying bulk – I always think there’s one can left). To add to all that stress, I had volunteered to teach a Sunday school lesson to 30 elementary-aged kiddos at church.

On Saturday I was planning on taking Penelope & Felix out to the movies for a kid date when the car wouldn’t start. It’s been a little sluggish lately, but this time the engine wouldn’t even turn over. We sat in the car for probably 45 minutes, just praying that it would work & it was some silly thing that was keeping the car from starting. We gave up & went inside. Penelope was so upset that the car was broken. As was I. We ended up eating dinner while watching Pingu on Netflix; not the special night at the movies I had envisioned.

When I finally came to terms that I wouldn’t be driving anywhere soon, I decided that Felix’s car seat needed a little update. Of course, just after I took apart his old car seat cover I realized that he would need to use it to get to church. Crap. I stayed up until about 2am finishing the cover & prepping for church. Exhausting. I’m happy with the cover now – the orange biased tape & the herringbone plaid are much more my style than the previous cover. Why is there such a disconnect between car seat covers & cool designs? Now that the cover is done I really want to replace the webbing with either orange or brown & paint the plastic orange or brown. Do I dare? Probably not. I’ll still probably make an attachable fabric blanket cover thingy – you know the ones that attach to the handle. I think a bolder pattern is in order, though.

Sunday went really well. We got rides to & from church, the kids were awesome for my lesson, my sister brought me more formula and my brother-in-law helped me with the car. The car still wouldn’t start with a jump, so he connected it to a trickle charger & we’ll just have to wait & see if that fixes the problem. Crazy thing, we just took it in for the 80,000 mile check up & there was NO mention of any battery/starter problems.

Long story longer, I was looking forward to some serious alone time during Chris’s vacation. I was thinking that I’d be able to get so much done during nap time & bed time. While that’s still a possibility, I’ve realized that this week will be impossible without the support of friends & family. It’s been really hard not being able to talk to Chris, one thing I completely overlooked. Hello, Melissa! Hikes usually mean no cell service. I miss him terribly.

I can’t help but think of all the wives (or husbands) of those serving in the Military. My hat goes off to you.

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