I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas! I'm such a slacker!

(Originally posted December 20, 2007)

While my side of the family has some interesting history when it comes to Thanksgiving, my husband's family has Christmas covered in that area.

Charles W. Howard is my husband's great uncle. He is known as the most noteworthy santa of all time. He began enacting as Santa in 1935 after working as a toy manufacturer. He worked as the Santa-in-chief at Macy's in New York. During this time he appeared in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade and in the store throughout the season.

Charles W. Howard opened the first ever Santa School in Albion, New York in 1937 because he saw so many Santas perform poorly. Department stores would send their Santa impersonators to his school in the fall for training. They learn everything from proper Santa hygiene to how to answer each child's questions to the history of St. Nicholas. The school is still open, but is now located in Midland, Michigan.
Here is an old brochure from the school:

Holiday Cards on Ornamental Twist Invitations

I put some holiday cards up in my portfolio at Ornamental Twist Invitations. Check it out and let me know what you think. I still have to do my own Christmas card, but right now I'm working on a wedding invitation. I have my first non-friend/family consult on Friday and I need to make sure I'm prepared. I'm a little nervous.

Happy Thanksgiving!

(Originally posted November 21, 2007)

My grandma (dad's mom) passed away this past June. About a week after she died my parents received a package full of old family pictures that my grandma had sent to a distant cousin of hers that is into genealogy. He has a website with my entire family line. While looking at it I realized that I am a descendant of William Bradford. He is my great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandfather (I think that is enough greats).
William Bradford came over on the "Mayflower" and was the second person to sign the compact of government before they landed. John Carver was the first to be elected as governor and when he died in 1621 William Bradford was elected in his place. He and his assistants negotiated with the Wampanoag and other Native groups and according to Wikipedia, "Bradford is credited as the first to proclaim what popular American culture now views as the first Thanksgiving."I think this will make a pretty cool history project for Maddie and Gabe when they get bigger.

On a side note (also from Wikipedia):

Other noteable descendants of William Bradford (besides myself, of course):

The Baldwin Brothers (Alec, Daniel, William and Stephen): American Actors
Julia Child: American entrepreneur and chef of French and French-influenced cuisine
Frank Nelson Doubleday: American publisher
Clint Eastwood: American film actor, producer and director
Christopher Reeve: American film actor, political activist

Last Drawing Class

Saturday was my last drawing class. I really did enjoy it and when I look back at my drawing at the beginning of the class I really have improved. I'll do a side by side comparison at the end of this post. Here are some of my drawings from the last two weeks.

The drawing above is supposed to be the girl in the picture below. I realize she looks nothing like her. For some reason, all of my portrait drawings look like they could be brother and sister no matter what they really look like.
Below are some noses, eyes and lips.

This guy was our final drawing. Below is what he really looks like.

Finally, below is my first drawing in class.

and here is the last drawing again.

Fun at the Circus

We got to go to the circus last night and had SOOOO much fun! Maddie's favorite act was the sway poles and Gabe's favorite was the dog act. Maddie stopped and thanked me several times during the show and then this morning as soon as she got up she thanked me again. Here are some pictures:

This is Bello. He was in a lot of the acts. He is in love with the sway pole girl.

Gabe clapping.

Maddie and I.

Daddy and Gabe watching the sway pole act.

Maddie watching the sway pole act. She was so scared someone was going to fall. She kept hiding her face in my arm.

The sway pole girl on the say pole.

Right before intermission there was a clown act and some ticket holders got to ride around in little trains. At the end there was a huge explosion of confetti and Maddie and Gabe had a blast trying to catch it.

Maddie and Gabe trying to catch more confetti.

The tight rope act.

The Tiger act. There were a couple of times when I thought the Tigers were going to attack.

Dave and Gabie having fun at the circus.

We had such a good time. I'm sure the kids will be talking about it for a long time.

Poor Baby Gabie!

My poor little baby is sick. Well, he has been sick, but now you can really tell that he is sick. His nose is runny and he coughs a lot and he is now complaining very frequently that his ears "hurt me". He will stay home from school tomorrow and I will take him to the doctors where they will probably give him something for a double ear infection and possibly (as long as he doesn't have a fever) give him his flu shot.

Recently he has started protesting basically everything I ask of him by saying (sometimes screaming), "No!" This morning, however, he has been saying, "No 'cue." I'm pretty sure he is trying to say, "No thank you." How cute is that?

I won, I won! (and class stuff)

Thanks to Jenn over at Good Job Mama our family will be going to the Barnum and Bailey Circus on Wednesday night! Yay!!! We are so excited! Along with the family 4-pack of tickets we also get to go down to the show floor and interact with the performers for an hour before the show. It will be lots of fun!

I haven't posted anything about my class for a while, but it's been going really well. We worked on still lifes for a while and now we have started working on bodies. Next week will be faces. I can't believe I only have 2 more weeks left.

This one is kind of fuzzy, but it is a ladder with a flower pot and a bottle on top of it.

This is my homework I did. Most of you will recognize the items in the picture from my mantle and book cases.

This is a gesture drawing we did in class today. We only had 6 minutes to draw the outline and get as far as we could with it. My teacher really liked this one.

One of my teacher's friends came in to model (clothed) for our class and this is her laying down.

This is another drawing of my teacher's friend laying on her back.

Free Samples of Teasta Tea

I found out over at Money Saving Mom that Teasta Tea is giving away 2 free samples of tea. I got the chocoloate mint herbal tea and the wild blueberry green tea. I love getting free stuff.

Introducing Ornamental Twist Invitations!

As most of you already know, I have decided to start my own custom invitation company called Ornamental Twist Invitations. I have been working on my website for the past couple of weeks and it went live Saturday night. I only have content on a few pages right now, but I'm hoping that by the end of next week I should have it all done. Make sure you check it out.

I had to put invitations in the domain name for search engine optimization purposes, but I will do more than invitations. The list is long, but will include, invitations, announcements, seating charts, table numbers, tent cards, business cards, mommy calling cards, possibly web design. I'm sure I'm leaving a few things out.

I don't know. We'll see how it goes. I actually have some follow through with this one, so maybe that is a good sign. Only time will tell.

Our Look-alike Meter

MyHeritage: Look-alike Meter - Free family history - Geneology

Our Look-alike Meter

MyHeritage: Look-alike Meter - Roots - Free genealogy

Hope Everyone Had a Happy Halloween - We Did!

Here are some pictures of our Halloween/Day Before Halloween:Maddie and 2 of her friends from school

Maddie as a pretty witch

Gabe as a dragon

Maddie making a bootiful mask at her school party

Maddie's class with their masks

Gabe saying "Rooooaaaar!"

You Know It's October When...

You open your front door in the morning and hear, "Gobble, Gobble, Gobble!" Then 3 or 4 Turkeys (yes, I said Turkeys) waddle through your front yard.

Now I'm afraid to take the kids to the bus stop. Hopefully they will be gone in 25 minutes. Please be gone!

Homework

So, I attempted my homework today and was pretty pleased with myself. It didn't turn out as bad as I thought it would and you can even actually tell what it is. I drew it upside down (like I was supposed to). Here it is upside down:
Here it is right side up:

Drawing Class

I went to my first drawing class yesterday. I was so nervous for some reason. The last time I had an art class of any type was in junior high school. Looking back now, it seem silly that I was so nervous. It went well though and I think I am going to learn a lot and really enjoy it.

We all walked in and sat down and the teacher told us to take 10 minutes and draw the person sitting next to us.

This is Monica.

Then we had to draw a picture that was upside down. The point was to look at the picture as lines and shapes instead of an object. The picture was of a mannequin. When I turned it around it looked like a man with a beard. I guess I need to work on my shading and proportions. Here is my drawing:

Then we talked about positive and negative space. The second one was upside down again. Here is what I drew:I didn't post about my class sooner because the teacher is supposed to send an email with the actual pictures we drew in class and I wanted to post them next to the ones I drew. I'm really excited to get the email because she's supposed to also include some "homework". I'm not sure I've ever been excited about homework before.