A Stare Down Kiss

Last evening Isaak kissed me and just sat there not moving. His lips were against mine and he wasn't moving at all. He just stared into my eyes. It was odd, but I just thought he was having a stare contest.

He stood up and said, "Well Mom we're married now!"

I said, "No we're not."

He said, "But that's what people do to get married."

I said, "They do what?"

He said, "They kiss for a really long time."

Mica said, "No silly. You have to kiss for a really long time in a special place, not at home."

I said, "You mean a church?"

Mica said, "Ya that place."

I didn't even mention that there's outdoor weddings. That would have really thrown them off.

By the way I've told Isaak that we can not get married. He's my son, under age, it's illegal. Plus I'm married to his Father.  He thinks if he marries me he can live with me the rest of his life.

I Hung Artwork All Morning

At the school I work out we start out with hands on art. I think it's pretty important that they learn the rules of art, then learn when and how to break those rules. I teach Art Media Techniques and Color and Design Theory first semester.

Next semester the 1st year students get their computers, and learn the print programs. I teach Illustration and Design and Layout at this time.

When they are in second year they get into web, 3D models and a little bit of Flash for animation. Flash is pretty much passing away for web, but is still used for animation. It is then they get an associates degree. I skip teaching in 2nd year.

Then when the students are in third year they have a lot of classes they need to get a BFA. Classes sort of unrelated to design, but essential to get their degree. They also have my classes. I teach an advanced Design and Layout and Portfolio Development courses. In those classes we work on refining their portfolios and campaigns for companies and nonprofit organizations.

All morning I was working on hanging an exercise that first year worked on.
Each student got one rectangle, and a crazy technique out of a bag. Example: Create the image out of junk, paint on tissue paper, and so on. They have to use that technique, but add to it if they so desire. Meaning they can add paint, or anything else to the junk that they get. 

This is the image I took in Toadstool park with Mario Bros. added.

 

Here's how the students did:

A few close up:

Acrylic paint on Pumice and torn paper collage

Ink and the next one got found objects. They used kitty litter and painted on top of it.

This is the image I took in Crawford, Nebraska with Mario Bros. added.

Here's how the students did. I know Luigi's face doesn't line up. Oh and the girl in the pink car, ya that one didn't get a good grade.

A few close up.

Tissue paper, and collage with words

 

Watercolor in using dots, and colored pencil on a clear Gesso surface.

I happen to like the Toadstool Park one better. Every year I try something different. One year it was a Native American dancer and a Indian (from India) dancer, another year it was a sky diver and a parachute, another year it was a jelly fish and jelly on toast and so on. It's kind of neat to see what they come up with.

Tree of Knowledge

This weekend we went to Hummel Park. It was a beautiful day! Kind of cool in the morning, then got warmer as the day went on. The leaves are just starting to change colors here a some trees. There are certainly leaves on the ground to crunch beneath my feet.

I saw this tree and fell in love with it. It looks straight out of a Doctor Seuss' book. I think I took just as many pictures of this tree as I did everything. Else. Everything else will be my Wordless Wednesday this week.

If you happen to know what kind of tree this is let me know in the comments. I wouldn't want one in my front yard because it's so big, but my backyard is another story.

What kind of trees do you like?

This tree had a funky pod that hung all over it. It reminded me of ice cycles.

The photo below looked like 1/2 a heart.  

This is my favorite shot! The lighting was so pretty!

Doesn't it look like it belongs in a Doctor Seuss book?

Right below it was a butterfly just hanging out.

Sing, Sing a Song Saturday

I started doing what I call Sing, Sing a Song Saturday.  I'm going to post one song on Saturdays that the boys or I like. 

The song may be part of a movie, a kid's video or just a song we like. I'll try and include why we like it and/or the history of the song/singer.

 I fell in love with the band The Good Mad this week. They are a band out of L.A. They formed in 2011 that consists of Adam Brooks, Andy Fischer-Price and Allie Gonino.

Allie Gonino is an actress as well. She's on ABC's Lying Game. The band was featured on the show as well.

Source

Good Ol' Live

Falling Asleep 

Check out their website.
Follow them on Facebook.
Like them on Twitter.
Check out their YouTube Chanel.

Random Tid Bits

1. Midterms are over! YAY! 
2. Daddy had a talk about how Mica has to stop blaming others for not getting his way. Mica was mad that Daddy when he told him to brush his teeth. While he was in the bathroom, he missed the ending of Curious George. Mica got mad, and turned to Dad to say, "See you made me miss my show!" Daddy turned the TV off. Isaak was pretty annoyed, and gave Mica a look. After Mica cooled down, Daddy gave him a lecture. Later on when I was told this I said, "It sounds like how a lot of my student's act."
3. My student's didn't do so hot on Wednesday's assignment. I was super excited about the assignment. You can imagine how I felt when I was grading them in disappointment. I think they rushed it just to get out of the building. They can leave after their written exam. I had two options: 1. Give them crappy grades, and hang up work I knew was not hang up worthy. 2. Force them to rework it in my Friday class. I picked number 2. I'm so glad I did. I think a lot of them learned something today. Not only do they know I want them to push themselves, they also know how to see details, contrast and colors better!
   
   The Assignment: I took the posters below, and cut them up into 30 rectangles. One is of Toadstool park, and the other is Crawford, Nebraska. I the photos this summer on our trip. I added Mario Brothers to the images to each of them. All of the student got one little rectangle. They didn't know what the image was of. They also got different techniques to do on them.
   
   
   
   
   
   
4. Flighty people need more to do. My assistant is a great guy, but he is so all over the place. If I ask him to do something he says, "Ok!", but is then on his computer doing something totally different. I've found that if I give him a lot to do, he functions better. The dynamics of different people is so interesting.
5. My sister has been waiting all day on MRI results for my nephew Emerson. They were supposed to get them last night, and call this morning. Doctor's offices and health insurance is so needed, but really suck at times. They are looking to see if he has fluid on his brain. I guess that happens with his eye sight issues, but also swelling of the brain/head happens to. His head looks fine, and hasn't changed. We don't think there is anything to worry about. It would be nice to know the results though!

Forgiveness

I truly believe that no matter what kind of person you are, you can not get along with people all the time.

Is there a day, time frame that one of your kids/grand kids have went through a phase that bothers you? I think we all could shake our heads yes. The 3 year old melt downs just about pushed me over the edge at times. Then I'd fall asleep, think about a cute thing they did that day, and say, "Wow I have a funny, amazing child." All those temper tantrums that happened that day are nothing compared to that beautiful child I have.

We get bothered. Some of us are more forgiving than others. Let's face it, life is too short to stay mad. My Dad taught me that. His uncle and Dad fought for years. My Dad would sneak in visits with them both. They were fighting over a farm house that my uncle got through a will. Was it my dad's uncle's fault he inherited a farm house? Not really. Did my Grandpa have a right to be mad? I suppose so. He wanted his chunk of pie, so to speak. The difference me and those men, is that neither one of them ever woke up forgiving.

When I don't like something that's happening I can't always deal with it at the time. Weeks, months may go by, finally something triggers me off. It's like I don't even realize the situation bothered me as much as it does, until I confronted with the situation again.

Today it was at work. For years I've gone with my class to Kansas City. The field trip was fun! Other co-workers would find it annoying to get up at 5:30 am, and roll in late around 7 pm. Not me. I was excited to go. It was a trip down memory lane. I went to college there. All the sudden they swiped the trip from me. The trip went in a different class, so no one asked me if I still wanted to go. They just gave it to another person, who teaches the current class it is in. I know, no big deal! Now I don't need to get up early, and go home late. But I enjoyed the trip. It got moved to a day I teach, and a class I don't teach in. The guy that's going is my helper on that day. He asked just this morning, "Can I get out of helping Alissa to go to KC?" I happened to over hear this.

If something happens at home I tend to talk about what's bothering me. Then move on.

At work it's different. What seems to be a big deal to me, is not to someone else. I start to question my own emotions. Am I silly for being upset? Maybe I'm over reacting, and so on. As a woman I react differently than my male co-workers. They fly off the handle on things. I sit in my office and debate with myself for awhile before I say anything. I try and look at my problem from all sides, which sometimes makes the problem much bigger than it really is. I tend to over think things.

I've noticed that work, and swimming lessons they do not like my lengthy evaluations. So I address things at the moment now. People react better when they don't get accused. I have to be very careful about saying how I feel without saying, "You are wrong, I'm right." tone to it.

In an email I address it as I feel this way and that. I'm writing now because you have asked me in the past to address things at the moment, not in an evaluation. Towards the end I ask if I've understood something wrong, or if I did something wrong please let me know. No accusations. The crazy thing was, is right after I wrote the email I didn't care what the answer was. I just felt better for writing my thoughts down.

What do you do when you get mad? Do you have trouble letting things go? Do you get mad at big things, or little things more?

Hand Holding

Daddy decided to go meet up with Isaak at school last Friday. He wanted to see how Isaak is with his classmates. Especially since the teacher said Isaak follows one girl around all over. A boy makes fun of him for having a "girlfriend".

Daddy ate lunch with the lil' man, and went out to recess to play with the kids afterwards. Daddy said, "I was the cool big kid on the playground. All the kids wanted to play with me." I was laughing. He's "cool" now. Back in the day he was picked on just like many other kids are.

Do you ever think that it would be nice to have one adult play with kids on the playground? I think this would help kids to get along. I know teachers are out there, watching, but not playing along with the kids. Just a thought I had.

Daddy was playing tag, all the kids were trying to catch him.

Isaak has a new kid in his class. Isaak was happily running along the playground like many of the other kids. He was running holding hands with the new girl, and another girl was holding his other hand.

What can I say? He likes the girls. Kindergarten drama! At least he talks about a few boys as well.

Just curious what did you get picked on for when you were a kid?

I got picked on for being shy. I just had trouble opening my mouth back then. I was so shy, I wouldn't even order food at a fast food place. I would have thought I would have been picked on for needing special help with reading and math, but I wasn't. In upper elementary I was picked on for having a bra early. A few boys snapped it. It was so embarrassing then. Now I'd just turn around and punch them.

Daddy got picked on for being skinny, being the new kid {he moved schools once}, and being shy as well.

Emerson Standing Like it's No Big Deal

I haven't shown my nephew Emerson in awhile. Many older readers know about Emerson. I do have some newer readers that do not.

He was born with Trisomy 18 AKA Edward's Syndrome. In the hospital babies born with this, and Trisomy 13 are called, "Incompatible With Life". It is because many are born with a hole in their heart, in their brain, or have other severe issues.

Emerson hasn't had it easy, but he hasn't had it as rough as many others with his genetic condition.

I could get into all the stuff he has had done, he's doing pretty good, so I'm not going to. He will have to get an MRI on the 10th for an eye surgery coming up.  It's to double check if there is fluid on the brain, but he has no other symptoms to go along with that. It helps that we have many nurses in our family that know what's what.

Emerson has been practicing being in the crawl position, sitting and in the stand position. One fun thing I got to watch is him playing with a car. Isaak pushed the car towards him, and Emerson pushed it back. He thinks his brothers are funny to.

The only thing he's missing in these photos are his glasses. They do help him see better, but they fall down a lot.

He stood for a few minutes. Then he got excited, and started to tilt off to one side.

WW: Story Time With Grandpa {Linky}

This weekend we went to celebrate my Mom AKA Grandma and Brother in-law AKA Uncle Eric's Birthdays.

I got some great expressions on camera. The sucky thing was the lighting. I had the camera set to manual, I bumped up the light, and they still came out grainy. Oh well.

My Dad AKA Grandpa was telling Mica and his cousin Evan all about how he met my Mom AKA Grandma.

Mica and Grandpa

Mica, Cousin Evan and Grandpa

Bunny Ears

If you have a moment enter my low entry Ergonomic Pen - The UGLee Pen Giveaway

Cheez-It Review

My Dad told me a story a long time ago about how my Mom was in labor to have me, and he was sitting off to the side eating cheese crackers. My Mom of course said, "Put the cheese crackers down! Come help me!"

I think I was destined to like cheese crackers.

The trouble is, is that many types of cheese crackers are loaded with calories, and awful oils. I still have to watch my intake of cheese due to my lovely allergies. A little cheese to satisfy my craving goes a long way. 

Cheez-It gives the same taste as Cheese Nips or Cheez-Its, but has half the calories!  I really want to try out many of Fiber Gourmet's other snacks and products. They make sure their products have extra fiber added to them. They've been featured in Good Housekeeping and Woman's World.

 Ingredients:

Modified Wheat Starch, Wheat Flour, Wheat Gluten, Palm Oil, Natural Shredded Cheese and/or Natural Cheese Flavor, Salt, Yeast Extract, Yeast Lactic Acid, Paprika, Red Pepper, Yellow Mustard Seed, Dough Conditioner (Enzymes). Contains wheat and milk ingredients.

About Cheez-It: 

• Tangy Cheese Cracker Taste.
• 11g Fiber Per Package (44 % of Your Daily Value!)
• Each package has about 30 crackers.
• Just 60 calories per oz - compared to 140 in Cheeze-Its®

	FiberGourmet Cheese Thinables®	Nabisco Cheese Nips®	Special K Cracker Chips
Serving Size	1 oz	1 oz	1 oz
Calories	60	140	110
Fiber	11g	Less than 1g	3g

What We Thought:
  
Daddy, Mica and I each tried a single bag. We all thought they were pretty good! 

Daddy did say, "Well they do taste healthier than other cheese crackers." I don't know if that's bad, or good. He says that with anything I make that's made to be healthier.

Mica gobbled them up in seconds. 

I couldn't tell a big difference in them in comparison to other crackers. I think it would be a great thing to have around for school lunches. Generally if I'm packing the kid's lunches I try and add something snack like in there.

$5 Off Coupon 

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Disclaimer: The opinions on the post are my personal take on the product. This blog is a personal blog written and edited by me. I was under no obligation to review it if I so chose. Nor was I under any obligation to write a positive review. I did get products to help with the review.
 
   

I received one or more of the products mentioned above for free using Tomoson.com. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers.