Welcome to this earth little sweet Benny!

The world just became a better place to live in!  My sister Nina had her baby on friday Jan. 16!  Little Benny is what we call him.  I never imagined a baby could be soo adorable! I've always thought babies were kinda weird... they don't really do much, they wiggle, cry, feed poop...ya know?  But I spent hours just staring into Benny's little face and I couldn't have been happier! or more mesmerized by every little movement.  I'm going to be his favorite Aunt!

                                    My cute mommy holding my cute Nephew!

                       My cute sister all tuckered out from the operation!

                                                             What a dream boat!

                                                          Ahhh, sigh!  I'm in love!

                                                                         I'm so Happy!

Blood and Guts in the Classroom

I have many difficult kiddos, and they are usually my favorites.  One in particular is the classic troubled kid.  He draws nothing but cars tricked out with missiles, spiky wheels (usually with a stick figure being cruelly squished to death underneath them) and machine gun turrets.  And the blood... OH THE BLOOD!!  He will put as many mangled corpses into his drawing as possible.  Of course, I the adult, I am constantly having to remind him that is not appropriate at school.    

  Today, he comes up to me and announces..... that he is "Quitting art!"  "it's too hard" he says!  I kinda don't blame him, we are in the middle of ink painting from National Geographics. It is the hardest unit I do with these guys and it kicks their buns.  It is the only art piece they do at this grade that HAS to be representational. ( I want them to start learning how to seeing detail). I plop myself down beside him, too tired today to give him the pep talk.  "I can tell your tired"  says he.  "oh?  How can you tell?"  "Cuz you're about to get mad!"  He then starts drawing one of his cars... here we go again!   But I don't feel like playing my part, so instead of redirecting him, I snatch his paper out of his hand and draw a happy rainbow and puffy clouds and a cute, fuzzy, teddy bear driving his horrific car!  Of course he is outraged, takes back his paper and then draws my teddy bear on fire!  So of course I have to draw a pretty angel, with a hose, putting out the fire.  But it isn't long before the angel is riddled with bullet holes!   Oh but wait!  Now here comes sweet lucy with her healing potion to help the angel.  Lucy is quickly murdered.... and on and on it went.. all the way through clean up and even until the next class was coming in.  HA! and we laughed, and it was soo fun and this is why i teach!  He may not be the best at art, but he knows he is welcome!  For the record though, actually, i love his bloody drawings. I just don't admit it because I'd rather foster/encourage the more socially acceptable behaviors, you know... like ..... not murder!   

Viva Las Vegas!

I went to Las Vegas!  With my darling friend Kristen and her husband, and his brother over the Christmas break.  I almost didn't make it down there due to all the crazy weather we've been having over here.  I even had one of my flights cancelled due to the snow.   But once I was down there I was in awe and delighted by all the glitter and jazz!  I loved it!  One of the first things I saw as we came into town was this huge billboard you can see from the highway that simply says "GOD". Which at first, I loved because I thought it was so ironic, but by the end of the trip it seemed to be more truth than irony.  It wasn't hard to find lots of signs of God even in "Sin City".

The Great Chihuli! It was awesome. I also got to see a Georia O'keefe exhibit.  i love art!

 and the bodies exhibit, y'all know the one with the real live, dead bodies!  It was soo cool to see the inner working of our bodies!  We are miracles!

I got to eat dinner on top of the Stratosphere.  Spinning slowly, 107 levels above the strip.  It takes an hour and twenty minutes to see the entire city.  Very posh.

Above, Kristen and her hubby, Carlos.  I bet he's not happy about this picture.  sicker sicker!  
A most amazing view!  I think you can even see the curvature of the earth. 

Me, in my fancy pretty coat, acquired during my LasVegas shopping spree (cuz you have to go shopping in vegas right?) I got it at my favorite store, Zara, where I used to shop in Spain!  Brings back lots o' memories. 

The Bellagio fountains totally take the cake, they are sooo much bigger than they look in the Ocean's 11 movie.  The fountains are set to music and when I saw them the song happened to be Handle's Messiah.  It was was powerful and amazing. 

Went on an hike in Red Rock canyon.  Just an hour and a half and 2000 feet!  Sooo much fun!  you can see Vegas in the back ground.  Being surrounded by the magnificent scenery, I couldn't help but feel blessed.

Give this a go!

I actually made New Years resolutions this year! (Totally corny, I know!) Me and my roomie, Sarah made little pieces of art to go along with our resolutions... we're callin' it "resolution art". We put our art on the fridge and  hopefully now, we'll actually remember!  One of my resolutions was to keep in touch with the people I care about.  What better way than a bog right? So here I go!