sending love & support

Julie, a friend from my East Valley Hip Mamas Meetup Group, invited us over to her home for a wonderful event. She belongs to a Navy Moms online support group and found out about this website where you can "adopt" a serviceman / woman. There are many men and women who are deployed overseas and are living without many things that we take for granted. Last Friday, we put together care packages to send overseas.

Julie had group members drop things off at her home before the date and the 6 of us that got together to put the packages together all brought donations. We packaged up 12 boxes with food, tea, hot chocolate, condiments, toiletries, magazines, blank greeting cards, books, DVD's and beanie babies (soldiers carry these to give to children they meet while deployed). It was awesome. I am so happy to have helped. Thanks to Julie for getting this together and for all those in the EVHM group who donated time, items & money for postage!

obama mama

our anniversary

Yesterday, was our 7 year wedding anniversary. We spent the day as we do most days, working at home together. Our kids were with Nannie who agreed to keep the kids for dinner so, Bert & I could go out. That is a huge treat these days. We tried to go to an indian restaurant but found they were closed on m,ondays so, we instead went to an irish pub in downtown tempe called Rula Bula. We had been there a few times before years ago. The weather was nice so we sat outside in the courtyard and enjoyed each others company and some fabulous homemade fish & chips and for dessert, irish bread ice cream which was heavenly. Bert & I realized yesterday that we in fact spend on average 23 hours together every day! How sweet it is to be loved by you :)

homemade jam

Here's my second batch of jam. 2 weeks ago I made blueberry & today I made strawberry. I don't know how the strawberry tastes yet but, the blueberry was fabulous! I think it could use a little less sugar so I'm going to try the sugar free pectin next time and see if that helps tone it down just a bit. I used the freezer jam method and love it. It was super easy and because you don't cook the fruit it retains its natural vitamins. It feels great to have homemade jam made with fresh fruit and no added junk in it plus, it was fraction of the cost of gourmet jams. My kids inspired me to try making jam due to the sheer amount of pb&j's they eat!

sketching: road trip 2

It's amazing that I still have more sketches to post from Alpine. Getting away from the everyday and enjoying cooler weather really inspired me. Above is the wonderful wood burning stove from our cabin that Bert lit a few times a day.


I traced the outline of one of the mountains we saw while driving. I wanted to play with negative space.


This view while driving was just so pretty. I think i was too much in awe to really get a good sketch out of this scene.


I did this one looking out the cabin window. The pine trees weren't exactly standing in such a nice row but to me that is how I felt they were at the moment so that is how I sketched them. I really like this sketch and hope to paint it on a larger scale one day.


This is the only sketch that i started in alpine and then finished on the drive home. It started out as the outline of a delicate flower but, after i looked back at it the petals took on the resemblance of ladybugs wings. How fun!