Morning list

1. CLean out Trash bin
2.Take out recycling
3. Hover kitchen/bath room; mop kitchen/bathroom.
4. Do dishes, clean kitchen
5. Run a load of wash (this is always the most impossible task since our washes only holds half hte loads american washers do, and it's a combined washer drier. It takes all day to do one load O.o)
6...So in comes inside clothes horn, since it's been raining all week and we have an outside clothes line but can't use it! lol.
7. Place flyers/business cards around town/ pick up library books/ buy fruit and the clothes horn.
8. Give Natasha a bath :D I've been too sick the past two days to provide her more than a wipe down before bed.
9. Work on my Photoshop painting and watercolor picture.
10. General tidy of the rest of the house.

Extra: Dusting the house if I have time ^_^

Amused Mum

No matter what I do I can't seem to get my daughter's hair to stay still. It flies away everywhere in a mess that screams: "mum why do you bother brushing my hair? I like it this way!" I try to put clips, ribbons, and twisties in her hair to no avail. She simply pulls them out sometimes taking hair with it, and then shows off a cheeky grin. Even with brushing her hair I am losing the battle, because she simply runs her hands through it or plants food in it for me to pick out later. Half the time I feel more like a monkey than a doting mother.

The other half of the time I really wish I could put fixative in her hair and see the results. It's also becoming slightly curly, somewhere between my husbands thick wavey locks and my messy mane. No wonder I have a hard time getting her hair done, she has our genes.

Water Essence

And here is the final piece. Enjoy!

Good news all around!

Today is the day for my 12 week scan. I am very excited!

Besides this I woke up bright and early to find out I had a phone call from Azda awaiting me, and that they do want to have me come in for a group selection interview thing. Yay for me. I do this on July 06, 2007. So wish me luck there!

The bad side of things is my daughter still has the sniffles and gave whatever illness it is to Alex, so I better not get sick!! I don't want to be sick before I go to an interview :P

I'm also posting my art posters and business cards around town. Also my mother wants me to do more art for her and is paying me. So i am very happy that I will be able to help my family soon!

Also I have been very creative latly and will post a new art picture as soon as they are finished. I'm 3/4 the way through my new picture of Natasha and 7/8 the way through my watercolor picture. :)

Natasha Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KPDn6zaVdc

I tried to put the encoding here and it didn't work so here is the link to my lovely little girl dancing around the living room.

Illustration of "Min" from the Wheel of Time series

This is my new art picture for those of you who don't know how to get to my art web page to see it. Mostly for my mother and grandma who views this blog :)

I think I might expand doing more watercolors as I really enjoyed doing this piece and want to do more in the future.

Alex's bike is coming today and Natasha has a cold, waking up in the middle of the night last night and tonight with lots of congestion and I had to have her sleep with me so she wouldn';t constatly roll on to her back and make it worse. Eventually around 3:30am I put her back into her own bed, but it's been a long night and I'm rather tired.

I also have that DVD coming in the mail soon, and tomorrow I get my first scan of the new baby. I'm very excited for this.

I also got a very lovely blessing from my husband last night, I won't mention a lot here as it was a private thing, but I feel a lot more at peace today than I have for many days. I felt lately that my communication was one way, and this reassured me that indeed it wasn't. Such a silly fear.

Anyways I realize this post is fragmented and strange but I have this headache and it won't seem to go away no matter how much water I drink. I really need a nap today!

New Art Work

I posted a new piece on Deviant Art, and today I'm going to draw and post some costume design Ideas in watercolor or colored pencil. I really need to work on drawing costume designs, and applying them to my pictures as I usually have no idea what to draw on my characters sometimes, and this is becoming hard when I want to draw illustrations from the Wheel of Time. We'll see how my efforts go today.

Natasha is ill again and I'm wondering if this is teething problem as she didn't sleep well last night and cried a lot. This is very unusual for her. Also she has 5 teeth already poking through and three more coming just in the past few days.

I don't really have any new photos to post, but I'll try and take some today for my family. I miss you all!

The Structure of Man

http://the-structure-of-man.blogspot.com/

This is the best thing I have bought in a long time. And I am so happy with it.
I can't wait to see how my art work progresses.

Pictures of Sick and non-sick baby

Well Natasha is feeling much better and I've enrolled her in a music and movement class for this Thursday. I saw it on T.V. and was delighted to find out they had filmed it in my area. It's call JoJingles.

I haven't decided if I want to do it for a full term, but I will check it out today and see if I like it.

Anyways here some new pictures for all you picture hungry family members. :)

I really love this picture as it shows a lot of Natasha's personality.

Daddy and Natasha cuddle right before her bedtime. Then she finnally fell asleep.

10:30AM Rock'n'Roll

The baby is successfully down for nap and the living room, kitchen and bedroom are all clean. I'm getting ready for my bath, and then will clean the baby room and get her ready so we can go down to Azda and I can pop my application in. I really need a job now, I'm just going stir crazy because see the house is clean and it's not even noon. I have time for a long bath, and lazy getting ready because natasha not only sleeps 10 hours a night, but likes to take a 2 hour nap in the morning and an hour nap in the afternoon.

If I don't have the best baby in the world, I don't know who does, even if it was ratcher hectic this morning. The situation is now undercontrol and I feel really good about myself. Who knows maybe I'll even iron clothes today :P

Go on, you know you all want to laugh!

Today is one of those days I wish I could rewind and start over.

It started with the typical problem, alarm not going off (we really need a new one) and all of us waking up late. Then I have to rush around before natasha wakes up to get alex's breakfast and lunch ready, only there's no bowls because we had icecream last night, and we only own 3 bowls. This leaves me to wonder, what the heck happened to the third bowl???

Then just as finish Alex's breakfast and he's trying to iron his shirt as quickly as possible, letting out repeated profanties as he burns his fingers in his haste. I find my daughter has soiled her bed, her linens, her nappy..her hair...well it's a dissaster. I guess that happens when you change your daughters nappy right before she goes to bed and in her 10 hours of sleep she not only pees but poops too.

The nappy was litterally falling apart, and she's screaming, and there's weird pee crystals that look like ice all over her, and i feel like a horrible mom for letting this happen and I want to just scream like she's screaming because I need to pee too, unfortunatly I don't have a nappy or even a second of my time to do that.

So then I plop my naked daughter in the bath thinking I'll clean her that way, however she decided to pee again, On Me, while I carried her to the short trip to the bathroom. Only to find out there is no hot water, which means I can't clean a bowl for my husband, but worse, I can't clean my pee crystalized daughter. (Not to mention the pee she deposited on me on the way to the bathroom)

So in come the baby wipes, and there stands a shivering, sick, just-awake baby, not entirerly sure why I have her in a bath with out water. Of course she screams. And when my daughter belts out that high pitched squeal every person for 3 kilometers can hear her.

At this point I'm ready to cry or pull my hair out, or both. All I wanted to do was clean my daughter and myself. We havn't even mentioned the bedroom I will have to clean too. And worse alex is already dressed, so what can he do? Get pee on himself and go to work smelling like he didn't bathe. I don't think so.

In the end, all I could do was take a deep breath, laugh and just shake my head.
I wish I could rewind the day and just start it all over. lol.

At least now, the water is warm, I've been the bathroom, the baby is fed and not screaming, my husband is not late for work, and finnally I can breathe.

My Daughter's Health

Well we found out 2 days ago that my daughter has Ruebella. And since I'm unsure if my blood has the antibodies or if I have previously had ruebella I got my blood tested yesterday to make sure my baby inside me is ok.

I do think this will be ok but I have been praying about it anyway. In the meantime I'm chilling at home with my husband who has the day off and we're celebrating Fathering Sunday a day early, we also will be missing church tomorrow since Natasha is still contagious.

I have a few pictures with her rashy face. It breaks my heart looking at it, but at the same time it makes me laugh too. I figure being light hearted about the whole thing is the way to go. The doctor would have told us if he thought she was in any serious health risk.

Forgiveness is harder to give than it seems

I having a hard time letting a certain memory go about a man who betrayed my families trust, the church's trust and got away with it.

Which such precious feelings I have towards the church, and my true belief that it IS the one true church, I find it astonishing that young men, specifically soon-to-be missionaries can take those precious teachings and make them so wrong.

What right does a man who is fornicating my younger sister have to go on a mission only a month later? Not only was she younger than him but a minor, him shortly turning 19 at the time, and her only barely 14. In any other state that Utah, and in any other culture than that of Utah this would have been not so lightly handled. And where was the voices and cries of the people against this man?

I was reading This Blog about the missionaries who tried to baptise underage people, and those in sporting avents in South America. And the reason it ties in with my previous concerns about Missionary X that so blantantly went against the rules and fornicated with my sister, is that he went to south america. And while there continued to correspond with my sister, continued to say how much he loved her, and yet found a young woman there who married him only a few short months after he returned home.

After all this my family, and my brother who is his best friend, STILL forgive him. I find it not only wrong that he did those things to my sister, who was young an impressionable, but that he continued to pursue women on his mission, and who knows if he was fornicating with her too! Why is someone like that allowed a temple married, conviently within a few months of his mission, and yet hard working saints like my husband who struggle with being a convert, not having gone on a mission and all that, got blantantly told he couldn't go to the temple yet from a bishop who simply didn't like or understand him.

I'm really angry that so many people just let this go, and let it slide. Everyone has forgotten now, but I havn't. What kind of example was he to those South American people? And to my sister? Who now can't live with out sex or a man since him, who has fallen away from the churhc at a tender young age of 16, after he broke her heart! I'm not saying my sister was completely innocent, but come on at 19 you should know you actions affect other people, and at 14 you're only just understand who you are and what it means to be you.

I don't know if I will ever forgive Missionary X. And it makes me sad to think that.

It all came to head last night that I realized I don't like men. It causes a barrier between me and my husband, my step-dad, my relations with any man, and even my ability to get a job. It's amazing to me that alex puts up with it, as every day I can't stand the way men can abuse the system, especially in the hcurch, and get away with it. I think I might be less bitter if I wasn't raped as a child, and continually see images of that when ever I even think of other men who tried to do the same to other women. Convincing a 14 year old she wants sex with him, is as bad as rape even if nothing happened, becuase the emotional damage is there, and I watched as she became bitter about men too because of that one Missionary.

I pray every day I can let go of this bitterness that eats it's way inside of me. I pray every day that I won't dislike men, and that I can over come this. I just hope some day soon those prayers are answered, for the sake of my peace of mind, and because I can't move forward holding on to the past like this.

Edit: After reading THIS POST...It really hit me hard spiritually. Like knock you off your feet with the holy Ghost. I have much to reflect on and much emotional baggage to shed.

My daughter has broken out in a rash all over her body and I don't know what it's from. It's even on her face but mostly concentrated on her legs and feet.

I called up to have a doctor look at her and I'm waiting to hear back from them to find out when I can see the doctor.

If you all could say a prayer for my little girl that would be great. She's really poorly right now.

Sick Child and deliveries

We got the items in the mail. Yay. Minus alex's bike. But Alex is putting together my stationary bike after he puts NAtasha to sleep. She's been sick all day and I got very little done in the way of house cleaning. She slept for a little while, then woke up cried, spent about an hour in my arms then went back to sleep. Every time I'd put her down she'd cry again so most of my day was with my daughter in my arms.

I'm really worried about her but I don't think it's that serious. So no new pictures until she gets better. The weather is the same as everything else today, rainy, and reflecting my poor baby's mood.

Thoughts running nowhere

I think this is my routine now, to get up and use the time when natasha is asleep for her morning nap to write in my blog and do some housework, which usually only includes dinner dishes and breakfast dishes and a general sweep/wipe down of the room.

I didn't get to take pictures yesterday because our batteries for the camera needed to be recharged. So I bought some spare at Azda yesterday to fill in the gaps when I'm charging the other batteries. That way I can take pictures every day and not worry about it.

Yesterday my mother and I looked at wheely bugs for Natasha. I really like the mouse one personally, and i'll be really excited if my mother does buy one for her. Speaking of new toys, Alex got natasha this baby pool for the summer a few weeks ago, but it hasn't been warm enough until today to get into it. So I'm going to blow it up and put the hose in it to fill it up and then play with Natasha this afternoon. I think she'd really like it, and since we can't always go to the pool it will be a great way to let her splash around!

Also our shipment of exercising equipment should come today, I'm really excited for the body scuplting set I talked about yesterday. The stepper and yoga ball/mat in particular as these are going to be staples to keep me healthy while pregnant. Besides the yoga ball will be great for my hip as it keeps getting popped out of place.

I've also trimmed down our dietary needs as well. Alex asked if I bought him any treats and I hadn't except yummy fruits veggies and some sunflower seeds. We do also have plain popcorn, and when air popped is hardly any calories at all. There was one thing I bought though, that wasn't healthy and that was a store pizza. lol. I only did that because it's cheaper than buying dominoes and we'd always buy WAY too much. So instead of laboring over a homemade pizza; It makes such a mess to hand wash, I bought this one instead. Last night's dinner was super yummy though. We had roast chicken with garlic and herbs, sweet potatoes, salad with avacado and corn on the cob.

We also had Geoff visit for dinner last night and we really enjoyed having his company around for dinner. He only stayed for an hour or so, but it was still enjoyable. Alex and Geoff have agreed to go swimming together on monday evenings. I think taht will be great for the two of them. The more you move, the more you want to move. So getting energy pumping in the household is just contagious and I can't keep the constant smile off my face. Even getting up to a whiny baby hasn't put me off today. I'm going strong!

Lots of Energy abounds!

Today natasha and myself were dressed and ready for the day before 9:00 am. I see this as a personal achievement and after my daugheters morning nap we're walking down to Azda together to get some groveries for the week.

I love this extended walk I do with my daughter once a week. Sometimes I go into town and such, but this walk is special. I get to walk farther, and go on a public footpath that crisscrosses the river near by. It's such a beautiful walk, and I enjoy shopping for this reason alone. It also gets all the jitters and bugs out of my daughter before we get into the store and she's much more calm than if I take a taxi.

I think I'll take some pictures on my way out so you can see the lovely scenery I'm privvy to on days like today. I might even be really adventurous and carry my daughter instead of use the push chair.

----
Alex came home with good news yesterday, he passed his formal 6 month review! It means A) He's doing well enough in his job that there is no need to worry about him loosing it, and B) there was talk of a promotion soon if he continues doing as well as he is.
I'm super proud of my husband and we continue our vigiliant efforts and prayers to Heavenly Father that he does get promoted soon.

For fathers day we got Alex a Bike from Littlewoods. And me, since I can't bike with natasha got a cheaper version: I stationary exercise bike. I'm very happy about this purchase as it's something that will help me greatly maintain a healthy weight during pregnancy. It's also something easily done at home after my chores has been finished. We also invested in one other healthy purchase and that was a fitness kit. With a yoga mat, and pregnancy/yoga ball, skipping rope (which i won't be using), and a stepper. I love steppers, and I used to love running up and down stairs as well. But since we don't have stairs in our bungalow, I will use this instead, like during dishes or watching television.

All these things have been spurred on because Alex has found out he's obese, not just overweight. This really scared him, and he's been trying really hard to lose the weight the last 2 weeks since his doctors appointment. It's hard not to gain weight when your job involves so much sitting. (He's a banker, and mostly works with cash handling and customers right now).

I'm really proud of his efforts in this as well, since I know how hard it is to lose weight! I lost close to 40 pounds within a year after my first pregnancy. I went from 190, at the end of my pregnancy down to 150 right before my surgery in march. I gained a little bit of weight after the surgery because of lack of exercise and general healing process (it doesn't help that for 2 weeks in march i was stuck in a hospital bed while waiting to get my gall stones/bladder removed), but overall I'm much healthier now than I have been at any other time in my life.

I need to be healthy to have a home birth! That's my plans and I'm contacting my midwife today to set up an appointment to talk things over with her. I want to know when my first scan is too and how many weeks I am along. I don't even know lol.

Anyways the baby is taking her nap and I need to get some housework done. Lots to do today and not a lot of time to do it! How exciting and challenging it will be with 2 kids. I really am looking forward to it!

All I have to sya is my daughter is adorable. And I could stare at her all day, if I had the time to. lol. I think I'm going to pull out our baby pool for her today and let her splash around in that as well. That should be really fun. Or maybe we'll just go to the pool too. I also need to call Geoff tonight for alex.

List of things to do today:
Clean living room
Pick up bed room/make bed.
Do dishes from roast dinner last night.
Pick up baby room.
Hover all rooms.
Attempt to sweep/mop kitchen floor.
Dusting all wood furniture.
Ironing husbands work shirts/another load of laundry
And my least favorite chore of all: Clean the hampster cage.

I've really enjoyed this weekend, but it's back to work now!

Natasha 2

Natasha1

Some pictures to feast your Eyes on

Questionaire day :D

Four jobs that I have had in my life:

1. Private Art Teacher
2. Mother
3. Freelance jobs/misc. jobs
4. Don't really have/had any other jobs.

Four movies I could watch over and over:

1. The Prince of Egypt (have you actually seen the artwork done in that? It's amazing!)
2. Ever After (i'm a sap for this one)
3. Firefly series and movie
4. Red Dwarf (this is more of a favorite for me and my husband and it's a really funny british sitcom from BBC)

Four places that I have lived:

1. Somerset County, United Kingdom
2. Seattle, Washington, United States
3. Easton, Maryland, United States
4. San Antonio Texas, United States
(we're hoping to move to spain/france or japan after living in england for awhile..)

Four television shows that I watch or wish I got to watch:

1. Scrubs is a ritual for alex and I to watch after dinner but before natasha is asleep.
2. I can't fill up four because I have watched the TV shows I want to watch and maybe once a season I'll find something interesting, but I dont like most TV.


Four places I have gone or will go on vacation:

1. Alex and I are planning a trip to Disneyland15 in France in the next few years to take Natasha with, most likely with one of his bonuses in February.
2. We are most likely taking a weekend to Ireland soon to visit Alex's family there.
3. I have been to The Alamo, Canada, Mexico, and Yellowstone National park. (the last one was a dream of mine since a little girl..weirdly enough.)
4. I really want to visit paris and the Louvre while in France in the next couple of years.

Four websites I visit almost daily:

1. Blogger.com
2. Tiscali.co.uk (for my email)
3. Kotaku.com (gaming news..really funny stuff)
4. Photobucket.com (to upload recent pictures of our family.)

Four favorite foods:

1. My husbands homemade chips (frenchfries for all you americans reading this..)
2. I absolutly adore cheesecake of any kind
3. Fruit- but mostly plums,cheeries, and bananas..and maybe strawberries too.lol.
4. I love a good homemade roast dinner. YUM! Especially if it;s pork done in the oven with crackling on top..and a lovely gravey with mashed potatoes or parboiled potatoes.

Four things I would like to learn or be better at:

1. Alex and I are talking about me taking a course in something to have a job inbetween pregnancies and such. I'm looking at a physical fitness trainer.
2. I want to learn how to cook better.
3. I want to know the secret behind getting ironing ironed perfectly.
4. I want to take the national qualifications for flute here and see what grade I am (or fallen to) so that I can improve that skill I have.

Four places I would rather be right now:

1. Amazingly nowhere! I'm very happy where I am right now :) Although I would love to be on some sort of vacation with my husband, we make most of every day and today he comes home early so I get to clean clean clean before he gets home and then we'll probably go to the park. We don't have any plans for today so it's going to be a rather relaxing day I think.

Weymouth and adventures

This weekend has been really exciting and revitalizing for me. Alex and I had a whole day trip with Natasha to Weymouth on saturday. We forgot our camera so I don't have any pictures. Sorry! But I can paint a picture with my words so you can imagine you were there!

It was a gorgeous day, the sky was clear and crystal blue. It was swelteringly hot, and we hopped a train from our home town to Weymouth around 10 am. The trip was not terribly long, and Natasha and I loved looking out at the rolling country side of england. Everything was bathed in vibrant greens, as we clicked and clacked a long on the train. I was full of energy as I knew the house was already clean and I could enjoy my day with out worrying about coming home and doing all the cleaning as well. I love seeing the different shades of green the english country side provides. I love how if you watch carefully you'll suddenly see spires of old stone stick out of the green as you wiz by old forts, ruins, and villages. Mostly however it is sheep and cows you see making black and white spots against the green.

When we reached weymouth it was a pictuesque view that greeted our eyes, opening to cobbled stone streets and spanish influenced stone housing. There was an old cathedral only a short distance from us, and the ding of a church bell was heard in the air. There was old among the new as well, as arcade as like mini casino's here and are tucked in among the old the buildings flashing their lights and tantalizing the tourists. Only one short street away you crest a small rise to see the boardwalk, and beautiful sandy beach. Off to the right it was almost a white sand and off to the left it tapered to a rock beach. We chose to go to the left as it was easier to get on the less sandy beach with a pram. We stopped at a small underground public toilet, which I found I prefered to the garishly covered smelly ones america. A lot of little things like this showed the discrete taste and eye for beauty that I've come to love about england.

After changing into swim suits we made our way along the boardwalk to a good place along the semi rocky beach and planted ourselves there for an hour enjoying the sunshine and letting our daughter play with the rocks. My husband is not one for getting into the water, so he just skipped rocks along the edge while natasha and I played in the waves. We didn't go in far as she's very small still, and the water is not that warm in early june.

Afterwards we decided to wander around the city and dry out some, and look for a place to eat. Many places we found were take away, or too expensive. The ones that were our price range were mostly pubs and not always child friendly as we unkindly found out in one pub. So, not letting it ruffle our feathers we headed towards the warf, and the river that man-made canal that opened into the ocean. This was a beatuiful sight as there was a sea festival going on and many brightly dressed people were promoting their fishing wares, and tourist boat trips. There were house boats on the river as well and I always love seeing these as they are usually pretty blue and red colors dotting the water. We crossed the draw bridge and finnally came to the perfect place to eat. It had a palasade facing the river and the smell of fresh water and sea salt wafted in the air, mingling with the smells of delicious food. We decided to sit out of the sunshine, and this was an obviously family friendly pub as it had many small children both in and outside.

After eating and plastering ourselves with sunblock we headed out again to browse the shops in the local shopping center and then head back towards the beach. On our way out I noticed my feet getting blisters and when we meandered over to the shops I popped in a shoe shop and bought a pair of black flip flops. I'm always a fan of having one good pair of flip flops for the summer season. Natasha was gettign really tired at this point and decided to nap, while alex and I chatted pleasently about waht to do next. We stopped in a few stores he wanted to go to, but by now it was almost 4 pm and we had to leave in an hour. I decided the beach was the best place to go back to and I let my husband loose to check out the arcades as I knew his little-boy insticts couldn't resist playing a few shoot-them-up games. I amused myself with an icecream cone and watched an old eenglish tradition dance from a festively colored group of older people. They had bells on their feet, and tamborines in hand. Their outfits reminded me of jesters in white and bright green. But the way they danced reminded me of leprechauns, since it was mostly older men with white beards dancing. I really enjoyed watching this, and close by was another old english tradition as well. We passed through the dancers and the crowd around them to see a mauve wooden puppet box that also looked like it had steped out of the victorian times. I could just imagine the women in large dresses, and men in top hats with their pretty children sitting and watching these puppets. Apparently this tradition has been around for more than a few hundred years.

After natasha woke up I have about 20 minutes until rendevouzing with my husband and was eager to spend one last time on the beach. I plowed through the fine sand, which wasnt easy and made shapes in the sand with natasha. We used little buckets and spades to play iwth and she was so adorable. I love her little red swim suit that makes her look like a strawberry.

At this point I was exhausted and met up with my husband with 10 minutes to spare to go home. We both got a drink and something for natasha to snack on the way home and then headed home, tired full, sunburnt, and very happy.