Creative Consequences

If your house is anything like mine, you find a random collection of items scattered throughout the house at any given moment.  I'm sure for our family, part of it is that we are home together every day..... but how is it that no one can seem to pick up after him/herself?

I take the blame.

Clearly, I haven't trained my kids well in the area of picking up after themselves but I'm telling you - it's going to stop.  I'm drawing a line in the sand and these kids are either going to pick up after themselves or.... or..... well, lets just say mama can't take it any longer.  

I came upon a blog of another mom who was also exasperated with the junk laying everywhere so she decided to create a 'ransom box".  The basic idea is this: if after one request of "Please put your stuff away", the 'stuff' is left out, the mom gathers the items and places them in a 'ransom box'.  For a child to get his things back, he needs to draw from a bag the 'ransom' to pay in order to get the item back. Her ideas were a variety of creative tasks ranging from scrubbing the bathtub to telling your sibling three reasons you love her.

I can't tell you how this plan will work long term, but I can say that after my son had to do 25 jumping jacks while shouting, "My mom is da bomb!" I don't think he will leave his favorite sweatshirt on the living room floor again.  :)

If you'd like to check out her blog and see her list, check it out here.  

Artprize 2012

Every year I am AMAZED at Artprize.  Creative people.  Unconventional materials.  Lovely eye candy.  Who would think to use bottle caps for a self-portrait???  Or Jelly Belly's?  How about taking a solid piece of black walnut and creating a seal only by burning the wood !!!!!

And then we have the extraordinary talented Mr. Chris LaPorte.  

Astounding.

The room that City Band was in was definitely my favorite and actually took my breath away.  When you walk in, on the right, you see City Band.  In the middle of the room there is a collage of sorts on the floor of little photo frames that looks like nothing as you're walking around it.  Until you get to the front of it and see that all the little photos form one giant portrait:

From the first moment you step into this particular room, though, you see a smattering of colored papers on the left hand side of the room.  I will confess to you now, that when I initially walked in and glanced to the left, I though, "Wow, a collage of colored paper.....art???"  However....the mystery continued as we meanered throughout the room.   I kept looking at the colored pieces of paper and also noticed a light slowly going on....and going off.  It wasn't until Ryan pointed out to me that I understood that the papers were actually shaped so that the shadows were profiles of people's faces!!!  

99 distinguishable profiles of real people - you could even glance closely and see eyebrow hairs and extremely tiny whiskers.  I loved this - so creative and mind-boggling.  

Can't wait until next year!!!

A New Baby (not ours)

As we slowly move up the list to find out the newest member of our family, we are thrilled to have added another one to our extended family!  My brother and sister-in-law had their second daughter several days ago.  Below are some photos from the hospital.  There is nothing like holding a newborn baby - priceless!!!

One of my favorites - baby feet!!

Moment with Mama

Kisses from Mimi