Thompson Family-Life

brokenhearted

I had a post scheduled for today about collections, but after reading about the tragedy and suffering happening in Oklahoma, it feels enormously trivial to talk about material things, when all I can think about are those that are suffering. I'm heartbroken for these families and worried for new storms coming (with family and friends of our own in possible harm's way). When huge natural disasters happen like these, it really makes you feel small, and thankful that we're able to enjoy every day that we're given. Because we really are, very, very, small in this big, big world. Human life is so, so fragile. I know, like many of you, I'll be holding onto my children with more fierceness than I already do.

back

Wow, no blogging in two weeks. Yikes! All for good reason. We've been on vacation for seven days of those days. And before that I was a busy bee working on projects! Sorry for the lack of blog updates. I will be making up for it with a vengeance this week. I already have about 4 or 5 posts worth of photos to share and all the photos have been edited!

Anyhoo, if you follow me on Instagram you saw some peeks of what we've been up to. Other than Instagramming, I was very much unplugged those seven days and it was...

HEAVEN.

Have you guys with kiddos had your Spring Break yet? Ours came kind of late this year. But the weather in St. George was divine. Not hot at all. We didn't even break a sweat.

Ok, off to bed I go after a full day of driving home.

Hope you are all enjoying (hopefully) some Spring-like weather. We came home to that infamous sheet of yellow pollen we Atlantans are so fond of this time of year (not). The entire city has a yellow-nuclear-like-glow. Yikes.

*geotag symbol download from Kelly Purkey.

Deer Girl x3

Did'ya see that? My play on words? "Deer girl... Dear girl..." get it? 

Goodness, are you guys feeling the post-holiday exhaustion like me? It's pretty obvious with my sad attempt at humor there. We were so productive and busy leading up to the big day, that afterwards... we've done a whole lot of nothin'. And it's been awesome. I'm sure you are all doing a lot of the same, maybe?

The house is a mess and there are still opened presents lying around the house. Now I'm at Monkey Joes (indoor bouncy house place) letting the boys work off some energy because we've had so much RAIN here in Atlanta! No pretty snow like I know some of you are getting. 

The boys still have a week and a half off and Ethan's taking most of that off as well, so we are soaking it up. A lot of R&R going on around here. How about you?

I was able to stitch up two more of these cuties to give as gifts (you can make your own with this pattern!): one for my niece, Cecilia, and one for sweet little Lenore. Lenore's will probably be going on a shelf for a few years because everything's going in her mouth at this age, and I don't think a mouth full of fuzzy felt would taste too good. ;) That's Lenore's on the left.

Here's Cecilia opening hers. Her doll was the same as the first one I made, but with ginger hair instead. She opened it on Christmas Eve and everyone watched while she opened it. It was quite the event. ; ) She's much more stand-offish-than all of her rowdy big brothers and boy cousins (she's the only girl in the bunch!) so I think she was a little shy about being the center of attention (I can sympathize with that, I was that girl when I was little!)... but a bit later she agreed to let me take her picture with her doll...

She set her up like that on the chair. It was too cute! That's all the boys playing an indoor soccer game in the background (all this rain had these boys climbing the walls this holiday!). She was actually quite taken with the yellow yarn and big pompoms I made for the packages. She walked around with that yarn all night, and the pompoms were a hit on Christmas day (ha). The boys were even walking around with big yarn pompoms attached to their heads.

I got these pics before I wrapped her up...

I have to say, making these dolls over the holidays has been so good for my crafty soul! I'd missed making things with my hands. I think I'm done making Deer Girl for a while, but she is such an adorable pattern. I've actually been scheming up my own doll patterns in my head and sourcing cute materials to make them with. So, look for some doll patterns in January sometime! To say I'm excited is an understatement. (!!)

I hope you all had a lovely holiday and have a Happy New Year!!

getting away

We planned our little cabin getaway to Rutledge, Georgia (Hard Labor State Park) many months ago, but it couldn't have come at a better time. We left Friday not long after hearing about the horrific shootings that happened in Connecticut. We were able to read what happened, or what they knew at that time. I can admit with shame, that we were a little relieved that we wouldn't have access to TV or the internet while out there. The TV is easy to stay away from, the internet not so much, with smart phones, etc. But we mentally unplugged while we were gone. It was good for us, and relief for the soul not to be bombarded with the tragic images. I just didn't want to see the faces. I had already shed tears. I wasn't sure I was ready to fully commit to the grief.

But now we are home and I want to see all of those precious faces. I want to educate myself on ways our country can try harder to make these things not happen so easily. To make it a priority (not only with the obvious issues, but others). But I will admit that there are times I want to take Ethan's boss up on his standing offer for us to relocate to Vancouver, Canada. Just to be out of this country, at least for this reason, is a very attractive thing. But that would be irrational. Bad things can happen anywhere, but statistics show, these things obviously happen more here. 

All that aside, like everyone else around the world, my heart breaks for the families that have lost these precious children and adults. I know we will never really know the full extent of their horror and loss. I hope we never have to. 

It made me soak up all of the quality time I spent with my children, my family, that much more this weekend. To kiss my boys, smell their scent, thank God that they are here, and safe. As safe as we can make it for them, as parents, at least. 

On a more positive note, we hiked some beautiful trails, did some geocaching, Cooper and Ethan took an archery lesson offered by the Forest Ranger of the park (how COOL would it be for a kid to tell their friends "My Dad is a Forest Ranger!") and they are officially hooked, and I made good on that promise to myself to start making dolls.

We also made s'mores with the fireplace we had inside our cabin, watched the sky for any leftover shooting meteors (we SAW some!!!) and I got to play with my new lens (I highly recommend this lens if you're looking for a wide angle. It's not TOO wide, at 30mm, but it's incredibly sharp and the background bokeh is gorgeous - see photo above. And the lens is relatively affordable if you can't swing for one of those expensive L lenses like me.)

Geocache treasures... artwork by the geocache owner below : )

Set a boy free in the woods, and they have endless entertainment using the best thing ever: STICKS!

S'more makin' in the cabin...

We watched lots of Christmas movies (some favorites like White Christmas) and some new-to-me ones like A Muppets Christmas Carol (SO GOOD!).

Here are some in-progress photos of my doll I stitched! (using this awesome pattern!) I definitely had one of those "look what I made!" moments after I finished this doll. I feel so, SO excited about all of the doll-making possiblities in the future. She only took me two nights to make and I've already cut out the pattern pieces to make another. I have plans to make at least two more of these girls, and then I'm on to make some out of this Japanese book I found. My nephew is asking his Japanese teacher to do some translating for me (haha), but there are also visual illustrations that I've been able to decipher fairly well. To say I'm excited is an understatement. I haven't felt this passionate about a craft in a very long time.

I have more photos that I'll share shortly! I'm also super excited about the possibilities of creating my own doll patterns. I have all sorts of ideas swimming around in my head - girls from the 60's wearing little mod dresses, and let's not forget the boys! I have plans to make some dolls for my boys as well. They actually love dolls and still sleep with a stuffed doll when they go to bed. 

Are you deep in making handmade gifts for your loved ones? I'm thrilled to have some handmade gifts to gift to some friends and family this year. There's nothing better.

Family Art Gallery

It seems like I've mentioned this before, but as one of those crafty people, I can say for a fact that my craftyness has never easily translated into getting crafty with my kids. I think I'm a typically Type A person, and as we all know - crafting with kids is messy. AS IT SHOULD TO BE. And honestly, I don't think it's the messes that have ever bothered me (Ethan is much more bothered by messes than me, which is ironic because when we got married, messes were NEVER a concern to him. haha - I think we've switched brains in a lot of ways over the past 14 years.)

It's the stress of just dealing with kids' personalities while crafting. And not just any kids, my kids. I think every parent deals with this in some ways. Our kids generally behave much better for other adults - at least that is what I typically see. And when Mommy is involved (especially Mommy!), there's a certain needyness and whineyness that comes with it all. I also feel that my kids have been generally... no better way to put this.. more high-strung in the past. The least little thing would just set them off. If something didn't go perfectly when crafting or creating, if they made a "mistake" (and as we all know, there are no mistakes in art! mistakes make art) it was just... over. 

But with everyone, you just typically chill out as you get older, and even Campbell being five, he's chilled out in a lot of ways. And Cooper is super chill compared to the way he used to be (Lord thank-you.) 

I think I've always held a bit of guilt that, yes, I'm that crafty gal... non-crafty people assume that we will be just as crafty with our kids.. and since I haven't been - I've felt pretty guilty about it. (What is it with parents? Always so guilt-ridden! ha)

All that said, this project went SUPER smoothly! I was thrilled! I was browsing around Atlanta's Art Supply Mecca, Binders, many weeks ago and it really inspired me to just jump in and try my hand at crafting with my boys again. We've had so many fails and meltdowns in the past, I had almost admitted defeat, but I was determined to try again.

And I'm so glad I did. I knew I wanted to do something that we could display in our home. Something they could look at every day and be proud of. I wanted them to know how proud of their work I was, too. They know if Mommy puts something on the wall, well then IT MUST BE PRETTY AWESOME.

I tried to have a plan beforehand so it wasn't a free-for-all, to eliminate any possible stressful situations for everyone. They were really excited about this big project Mommy had up her sleeve, and really, that's half the battle: getting them excited. They asked about it daily after I had bought the suppli1es "when are we going to do the project?" We finally did it one Saturday and dedicated a good part of the day to it because you have to let each layer dry in between.

Here are some things I kept in mind before we started, that worked out really well. I thought I'd list them here in case you've had the same problem as me in the past, just coming up with a doable project that everyone could enjoy, and also something that you could actually display in your home:

1. Limit Your Color Palette. I chose a handful of colors that would be used by everyone to create a cohesive look to all three canvases.

2. Make sure you let each layer dry! If you're like me (and my kids) you might be impatient. It's worth it to let each layer dry so that the colors don't mix together and become muddy. We had 3 layers.

3. Have repeating elements throughout all three canvases. We all used a limited color palette, but used all of the same colors in some way on each of our canvases. We also repeated the circular shaped elements as well on all 3.

4. Don't stress! And don't micro-manage. Part of me doing this with them was to teach them a little bit about creating art and knowing "when to stop" or when it needs "something a bit more". But do that in a way that is encouraging and not telling them exactly what to do (no matter how much you want to.) For example, Campbell didn't really want to stop adding more and more colors and "dots". I was worried they would all start to blend together in a big blob, but I was surprised that he did end up stopping after a while, and in all honesty - his painting is probably my favorite! Similarly, I was really impressed with Cooper's Minimalism! Usually kids want to add more, more, more, but he was very pleased with the "white space" and didn't want to bother with it too much - which was awesome!

5. Be sure to protect your surface and your kids' clothing. Those IKEA smocks have definitely come in handy that we bought many years ago and we put down kraft paper on our table.

6. Be strategic with the day you decide to take on a project. For us, a school night would've never worked. They are generally much more rested on weekends and you can devote a lot more time to it. All of this is common sense really, but good things to remember.

7. And this might be obvious, but use acrylic paint (or watercolors), not oil paint. Oil paint takes foreeeever to dry and is super smelly. It's also more expensive. I bought the generic brand of acrylics at Binders. They were perfect!

There was not one meltdown or stressful moment. Total victory (and relief!)

I bought lots of new supplies because we were in dire need of them. I'll say that we hardly used these Martha Stewart paints. They have that pearlescent look, which is pretty, but doesn't really stand out like I had hoped. Not really worth the purchase in my opinion.

I chose black for the line art drawing, because I knew it would stand out so well on top of these bright saturated colors. I knew I wanted to stick with just one color to keep it from getting busy, and I liked the graphic look of the black line art coupled with the larger abstract painted shapes.

You can always identify my sports-addict-son's work by the football and soccer imagery (below). ; ) And of course course weapons. I was thinking "awe, look how cute they are drawing and painting" and then they both started pointing out the weapons in their drawings and the "battles" that were taking place. Oy, what is it with boys and the weapons? It must be in their DNA?

I took inspiration for my painting loosely from a vintage fabric pattern I found online, that I can't seem to find now! I have to say it was the first time I'd created a piece of "art" in a really, really long time and I found myself all night doing that thing you do in art school.. where you hang it on the wall, stand back, critique it in your head, add more paint strokes and line drawings, a little here, and a little there, until it's just right. It took me back to college in a really great way. It was a great feeling. My piece might not be anything special, but the process of it was really fulfilling.

When you're done, you can finish off the edges if you'd like, or not. I added washi tape and other decorative tape and I love the finished look.

I love the way they compliment each other hanging in our playroom/living room. Seeing my boys create art reminded me of a fantastic quote by Picasso that I heard in college. It couldn't be a more true statement. Art by children isn't self-conscious in the way it becomes for adults - it's so expressive in the purest sense.