The Four of Us

At Magdalena's preschool Valentine's day party

I have been posting on this blog since before I became pregnant with Magdalena.  Life was so uncertain, but so simple.  I knew I wanted children, and at the time, we were spending a lot of time with other people who had wonderful children and really enjoyed raising their families.  I didn't know if I was ready, but I knew I wanted it. We had just gotten married, but were open to the idea of having a baby right away.

Fast forward about five years, and here we are.  Maggie is going to be five in August, and we just registered her for kindergarten at an awesome charter school.  Kindergarten!  She is so smart, and just so hilarious.  She is exactly the same person she was as a tiny baby, but there is just so much more. I fall in love with her more and more every day.  She is kind, funny, and so incredibly curious.

I am so excited for her to start kindergarten. I absolutely cannot wait to really begin her journey into reading.  Books have always been an intense passion of mine, and I hope she'll enjoy them, too.

Liam.  Oh, Liam.  He is talking up a storm and learn new words and phrases every day.  He asked me the other day, "Mommy, when is Daddy coming home?"  And my jaw just dropped.  He wants to do everything that Maggie does, and he is a great helper.  He gets into the refrigerator all the time, though, and last week I found him eating a piece of cake in his room that he quietly taken out by himself.  He still makes hilarious faces and loves to perform and dance.

Even though my life is busy with art and school, my family is obviously the biggest and most important part of my life.  Recently, I have weighing my options about school and just considering how I want to continue.  I only go to school two days a week, but there are times when it feels like I am always gone.  It is hard sometimes, especially when I realize that if I want to be a working artist, that means a lot of time in the studio. At least in the studio, the kids could be with me, especially as they get older.  As always, I am working to balance my ambitions and personal goals with my goals for my family.  

School is going so well.  I feel like a different student, like a different artist.  My teachers are so incredibly positive and enthusiastic about my work.  It has been amazing, but I also feel a sense of pressure to exceed expectations.  I can suddenly see all my hard work paying off.  It is rewarding in a whole new way.

I've been asked before if we are going to have more kids, and I have never really answered it.  

Here's my thoughts on another baby:

It certainly is not our plan to have another baby in the near future.  It is very likely that we are completely finished building our family.  My pregnancies were physically/ health wise very hard on me, and hard on  my family emotionally.  We are also committed to school for at least the next three years, and we are on a very tight budget.  Basically, we have agreed to re-evaluate things after graduation, after things have settled down and Mark has a job, and only if I lose a significant amount of weight (in hopes that the pregnancy would be easier physically).  And, even when things settle down, we might be happy with our family as it is. I am so thrilled with our family, and I couldn't imagine becoming pregnant right now.   But, who knows how I'll feel in three or four years.  So, definitely not in the near future, probably not in the distant future.

This week has been a week of highs and lows.

One of the lows?

Cancelling our trip to San Francisco this weekend.

Another low?

Being an emotional wreck, and feeling anxiety and depression starting to creep back in. I'm realizing, that I better deal with this now, and not let it fester into something much harder to heal from.

One of the highs?

Spending a night out on the town with both my sister and one of my closest friends.  Kind of made all the junk I mentioned seem so much smaller.

Another high?

I made this:

This is acrylic on a 12" x 12" canvas. I used a pouring medium on one layer of this, I also used salt at one point, and I wiped almost all of the paint off at the end to achieve this texture.  I then used a paint pen to create the sketch.

I like this one.  It feels like its a part of me, and I really like that.

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Here's a day in my life from this week.

1. Waking up at 7:30 to get myself ready for my twelve hour school day and the kids ready for Grandma's.

2. Spending a little bit of time with the kids in our very messy living room.  Mark cleaned it up, though!

3. All ready for the school day!

4. I spend all day in the building.  I was about to head into Figure Drawing.

5.  I take all three of my art classes in the same room, but I have three different teachers.  Getting ready for Painting.

6. Mark has a break from classes when I do, so he picked me up for lunch.  This tea was perfect for a rainy day.

7. Mark was definitely posing for this shot.

8. In the car, heading to Michel's to get some last minute supplies.

9. Michel's on a rainy day!

10. In my classroom again.

11. How I always spend my two hour break before Drawing class: drinking a blended mocha and doing my math work (I take an online class that keeps me really busy) or drawing.

12.  And I always listen to the Kesha channel on Pandora while I do it.  It keeps me energized.

13. Finally done my night class at 9:00, and back home.  I ate my leftovers for dinner!

14. Tired and working on a blog post.

15. The cookies the kids made for me at Grandma's house.  They were asleep when I got home.

16.  Finishing up inking a contour line drawing for my drawing class.  And I'm done.

Warm Winter Days

I bought this dress from Target this week, paired it with my brown boots from the same place, and also wore navy tights and a shoe necklace from Forever 21.

I freakin' love this dress.

I'm definitely wearing this outfit on our kid-free vacation to San Francisco in about 10 days.  I will have to add more layers, though!  It was such a nice day that I actually went around like this all day.

I think I'll try adding add a belt, too.  I think it will help define my fairly nonexistent waist..hopefully?

This next outfit is kind of funny to me.  Most of my clothes are from Target, but my sweater was from Costco and the cap was thrifted.  And, and there's paint on my moccasin!

I use to wear newsboy caps all the time, but I kind of think that I look a little like...

And the next outfit turned out a little librarian-ish, and not in a good way.  And man, I need to stop taking pictures without makeup on.  Yeesh.

My dress is from Forever 21 Plus, sweater from Costco, tights and boots from Target.  

Might not wear this one again.

That's it for this week!

I spent all day taking pictures for a "day in the life of" post that I'm doing for later this week.  It was a little embarrassing sneaking pictures everywhere I went, but pretty fun, too.  I can't wait to share it with you guys!

I'm linking up with Rolled Up Pretty

Custom Trail Mix- One of My New Favorite Things

I have been trying to make sure that I don't get too hungry, because I tend to go way overboard with my portions when I don't eat for a long period of time.  One way I have helped this problem is to always have  an easy snack to grab if I get hungry and I feel too busy to eat.  I couldn't find any trail mixes that I really liked, so I made one that we love.

 I buy all the components in bulk and then mix it myself.  Our trail mix has cashew pieces (way cheaper than whole cashews), shelled pistachios, dried cranberries, extra dark chocolate chips and a few dried apricots.  I wouldn't exactly call it "diet food" but after eating a small handful, I feel pretty full and I satisfy any sweet or salty craving I have. The kids even love it. It is seriously delicious, and when we had a little cocktail party, it was a huge hit with all our friends. And it looks so pretty in a big glass jar on our counter, too!

Does your family eat trail mix?  Do you have a favorite combination?

Eyebrow Makeover

I have pretty large eyebrows that naturally have a nice curve, but they get bushy pretty easily.  I have been totally neglecting my eyebrows for the last few months, and I decided to give myself a little eyebrow makeover.

I was totally inspired by this post "Eyebrows! Get your Eyebrows here!" by Mandey at Mama and the Dudes. Mandey is totally real and personable, outrageously beautiful and posts about being a mom to her handsome, hilarious twin toddler boys.  Being a twin myself, I love reading blogs about raising twins.  I don't comment enough on her blog, but I love it and it is definitely one of my favorites these days! 

So, I took some of Mandey's tips and then gave myself a little brow makeover.  

Here's my before pictures (I wish it was a little clearer just to show how bushy these were!):

...the required sad-face before picture:

And here's a picture after I tweezed all of the hairs outside of my natural eyebrow line.  I also used an eyebrow brush to tame these beauties.  

My biggest tip (and one that Mandey reminded me of) is to use an eyebrow pencil to fill in the sparse places in your eyebrows.  Don't buy a pencil to match your eyebrow color or they will look really dark and pretty scary. Instead buy one a shade lighter.  Since my eyebrows are basically black, I bought one in dark brown and it was perfect.

I am glad I gave myself this little brow makeover.  I feel so much better and I love the way it looks.  And you all got a little peek at our bathroom, too.  I need to paint it, but I am totally in love with that shower.

Greeting Card and Note Card Giveaway-CLOSED

I made some cards for Valentine's Day that I love.  I love them so much that I would really like one of you to have them all!  They are made with acrylics on high quality paper, and I have torn the paper to make a collage that is applied to the cards.  There are 7 gold heart motif folded cards and 12 note cards (not folded) included in this giveaway, all handmade by me.  I know this giveaway is a bit late for Valentine's Day, but the cards are not overtly Valentine's in any way, and I think they could be used for a lot of occasions, such as a wedding or a thank you card.

Here's some pics of the cards!  And you get  a peek at my pretty messy unfinished house!

Not all the cards are pictured here, and I think a few were shown twice.  Only two of the folded cards have lettering on them, and all the note cards are totally blank.  I can assure you the ones not shown look very similar to the others and are the same colors and motif.

The giveaway will run from Friday, February 3 to Wednesday, February 8 at 11:59 PM PST.  I will send out the cards as soon as I get your information and hopefully they'll get to you before Valentine's Day!

How to Enter:

1. Leave a comment on this post for one entry

For additional entires:

1. Follow this blog on Google Friend Connect

2. Subscribe via RSS feed

3. Follow me on Twitter

4. Tweet about this giveaway, mentioning @thatkindofmom in the tweet

5. Like ThatKindofMom on Facebook

So, that's up to six entries per person.  Please leave a separate comment for each entry!  If you already follow me on GFC or Twitter, just let me know in a separate comment.

Oh, and I'll ship anywhere, I want to give my friends like Maggie a chance, too!

All 19 cards were hand made by myself and provided by thatkindofmom.com

Paper Love

I love Valentine's Day!  I made this little "Love" paper sculpture recently and today I set it up in the windowsill in our room.

Here's an unedited version, too.  I had thick, glossy paper and I cut out the letters.  Then I cut out a ton of tiny rectangles and hot glued them over the letters in an overlapping pattern.  I really like the way it turned out and the fact that I can move the letters around and change it.