Cheaterwads, Cursing, and Gorrillas

Christmas was just great. Matt and I received the delux version of Scrabble, which made us think we ought to try the game out. Sarah and Luke, who are Scrabble pros, taught us how to play. It turns out, Matt is a natural Scrabble genius. He came up with 94 points in one turn, with the word "cursing", which is exactly what I felt like doing. The best word I came up with was "cheaterwads", which would have counted for a whole lot of points had it not been for my opponents, who were cheaterwads themselves. After we completed the game, I insisted that everyone pose for a picture so that I could try out my favorite Christmas gift, which was the "gorrilla". It is the Gumbi of tripods that will perch onto any object for easy picture taking on a timer!

Freckle Fairy A painting. For my cousin. For Christmas. Cute.

If you're into that kinda thing.

Dr. Sketchy's Delivers

Oh yes, Dr. Sketchy's Art school has been the best part of Denver so far. December's model was a fabulously curvacious woman who's curves I usually only dream of. This last time, I actually won another gift certificate to Capelli Floral, which came in handy when my neighbor went into the hospital last week, proving that not only does the Dr. deliver sparkling models and cocktails, but also pays off in other ways too. I have also made a few artsy fartsy friends there, which is something I have been praying for (cause I hate feeling like the only freako in this world). Enjoy AnaBella:

"2008 Yo"

These are the 12 images I designed to go into the 2008 calendar I made for Sarah for Christmas. If you are over the age of 30, you wouldn't understand.

Joy To The World

I finished this diptict of two paintings yesterday in church. I completed the two works over a period of eight sermons about the hymn "Joy To The World". One of the wooden boards was on the right side of the sancuary and one was on the left side, and I alternated between the two boards every sermon. Tonight, the two boards will come together (as seen in the picture), and you should be able to recognize the word "joy" that is formed throughout the picture. The project was great fun and a wonderful way to worshipfully contemplate the truly colorful story that is the Nativity for the last four weeks.

Haverland Elf Family

Have you ever wondered what it would be like if the Haverlands were an elf family living at the North Pole? Ok well... click on the link below anyways (you won't regret it).

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1304543471

Happy Thanksgiving... a little late.

I realize that this post is out of order and overdue. But better late than never. Thanksgiving was delightful for us- again reminding us of the many blessings that stop by our house occasionally for which we are incredibly thankful.

This was the first time I got to get out almost every color of dish I have. I have been collecting them from thrift shops over the past year, and I have always wanted to sit them all out on a table at once- it reminds me of an artist pallette. Notice the Christmas tree in the background- it has been up since November 5th. Also, notice Sarah over to the left crocheting... I don't know what that was all about- she was being weird the whole day.

At any given tme during the day, if you had stopped by our house you may have encountered any of the following: someone snoring on the couch, a pilgrim killing an Indian child, someone who had been sitting on the potty for over a half hour, someone starting a fire, someone devasted and pounding their head on the ground, or someone crocheting. And I was emensly thankful for each and every one of them!
The fire was quickly contained and Matt successfully fried the turkey- which is a dream come true for him. We all felt lucky to be able to witness this monumental event in his life.

Although Thanksgiving is over, Christmas is almost here, and this month seems to remind me even more of the many people I have to be thankful for- mostly because I have to remember to buy a gift for each of them. But I wouldn't give them up for anything. We're so lucky to be near our family again.

Roxannerina Ballerina

Today we attended Roxanne's first ballet recital. Being the biased mother I am, I thought she was the most beautiful little ballerina in the world!!! When she danced on stage, I couldn't stop laughing and crying- all at once. Gosh, I'm such a sappy mom.

Matt gave her flowers afterwards. She thought she was all that and a pair of slippers.

Merry E-Christmas

If you would like to read our annual Christmas newsletter, it is located at the link below:

http://merryechristmas.blogspot.com/

Merry Christmas to all!

Our Daily Bread... and so much more. This summer, I had been pondering the signifigance of saying the Lord's prayer, as it is one of the most literal and simple ways to apply the teachings of Jesus. When we started looking for a church home here in the Denver area, we bounced around a lot before landing at an E-free church that we are now attending. On Sunday morning, when you walk into the church, the air is filled with the smell of fresh baked bread. In the lobby, there is a table piled high with day-old bread from Panera bread free for anyone to take. Usually we take a couple loafs the cheesiest, tastiest looking bread, and it is such a wonderful addition to the upcoming meals of the week. It seems like a literal answer to the portion of the Lord's prayer that says "give us this day our daily bread". In this case, we did nothing to earn the bread!
Even though Thanksgiving is almost a month away, October has brought us so many things to be thankful for. Last week, Rocket went on a field trip to a farm with his kindergarten class, and came home with a backpack full of freshly picked vegetables. We made a vegetable soup that night and ate it with a loaf of Panera bread and felt so spoiled! We had enough leftover to freeze for two more dinners! Also this month, Matt's parents took us to a pumpkin patch where we all picked out a couple beautiful pumpkins each. Usually we only have two pumpkins for the whole family, but this year, we have a whole family- and extended family- of pumpkins on our front porch which we had a lot of fun painting. When we pray for God to give us our daily bread, he not only does that, but he also gives us daily delicious vegetables to eat, and daily pumpkins, just for looking at... and so so much more.
Last night, we also ended up with a huge grocery sack full of free candy. I'm not sure if that was from the Lord or not... but I'm still thankful... and hiding it all.

The adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl

The real ones: Rocket spends the majority of the year prior to October, deciding what he should be for Halloween. After much thought, he decided he should be Sharkboy. Knowing that Sharkboy was never without his counterpart, and then he had to convince Roxanne to be Lavagirl. She was persuaded pretty easily. However, I wasn't so convinced that this was a good idea, mostly because you can't BUY a Sharkboy and Lavagirl costume at the store, which meant I would have to make them myself. But, hey, that's what good moms do.... right? I even got out my sewing machine for parts of the costumes. The kids are thrilled and can reinact many scenes of the movie almost perfectly. Tonight, when we get trick or treaters at our house, the kids who have store bought costumes get the smarties. The kids with good costumes get mini candy bars... if I haven't already ate them all.

Fall Festival

As we discovered this year, Fall Festival is the highlight and anticipation of the entire school year, at Rocket's elementary school. Among the activities that we were pressured to participate in, was the poster contest. Ofcourse, after hearing that it was a competition, Rocket was enthusiastically ready to participate. He put a lot of hard work into his poster, and it payed off, as he received first place for the kindergarteners! His name was announced over the school intercom, which means he is now famous! I couldn't be more proud of my artisticly talented son! Below he humbly poses in front of his poster (he is disguised as sharkboy). Now, if only he could have won the cake walk!!!

Dr. Sketchy

While I haven't made too many REAL friends in the Denver area so far, I have made one new best friend. That friend is Dr. Sketchy's anti-art school. I don't know why it is called "anti-art" because it seems very "pro-art" to me. But, anyways, it is at Lannie's Clocktower Caberet every third Monday of the month. For seven dollars, I can spend a couple hours sketching some lovely burlesque models posing under sparkling star spotlights and accompanied by some intriguing music. I don't know what could be better than a sketch pad, plenty of skin and a glass of wine (but NO more). I'll have to come early next time to get a better seat.

Here, one of the models examines the dipictions of her. Extra impressive drawings win prizes.

Soccermom

Ok, so I live in Highlands Ranch; I drive a minivan; and yes, I'm a soccermom. This is never what I envisioned my life turning out like, and it's a good thing I didn't see it coming, because I would have dreaded it. But it's not that bad! Especially with an awesome soccer star like Rocket. His team won every game this season, thanks to him. Ofcourse, with Matt as his dad, we always knew he had some studly genes. He is quite cocky too, as you can see from the picture above. I must be a bad soccermom cause I was secretly hoping he would lose atleast one game. I thought it would be good for his character... and his oversized ego.

I put this little team picture together for the team, the Golden Stars. I had to paste people in, but I bet you can't tell who. It made the kids very happy and proud. Rocket framed it and put it in his room.

Here, Rocket is about to score a goal. But, what was more entertaining than watching the game, was watching the fabulous cheerleaders:
This one was the most impressive. Look at that height!

Pictures of Roxy

Rocket often accuses me of loving Roxanne more than I love him because I take more pictures of her than him. While I may love one child more than the other, I won't tell who it is, and it's not neccessarily the one I take the most pictures of. I just like taking pictures of Roxanne more than Rocket because she is prettier. But, I dont want him to feel unloved, because I really do love him, so sometimes I take pictures of him on my digital camera and then delete them later when he is not watching. Look how perfect they are for each other. Sometimes I think they are in love- but in a brother and sister kind of way, I guess. Can you tell how much Rocket loves to pose for the camera?

This is Roxanne's "lady" face. It is very sophisticated!

Roxy got this dolly from my mom for her birthday. She named her "Miss Heart". Miss Heart and Roxanne wear the same size clothes, so Roxanne loves to dress her up in all kinds of unmatching tacky outfits, that I would never let Roxanne wear out of the house. Miss Heart also has green eyes, just like Roxanne. Miss Heart is almost a clone of Roxanne.

I gave Roxanne these boots for her birthday. She has worn them every day since. Gosh... she is one spoiled little girl, isn't she?

Happy Birthday Four Year Old!

Yesterday we celebrated Roxanne's fourth birthday. She has come a long way since her third brithday. She can tell you her age and name now, as well as coming all the way to Colorado, which means she had lots of wonderful cousins come to her birthday party!

Among the exciting presents she received, her daddy gave her the best gift- a little kitty which she named Necklace. Her prayer before dinner was this "Dear Jesus, thank you for the kitty. Jesus, don't lose this kitty. Amen." Jesus lost her last kitty.

After eating cake, the kids (and Grandpa) played "pin the lips on the mermaid". During the week prior we had created an underwater scene to play the game on. Everybody contributed something to the scene, even Matt (but not much). When we played the game at the party, Milo put his set of lips on the fish to the left of the mermaid! I think Grandpa was the only one who didn't cheat, though.

We spent the last weekend with Matt's family camping near the beautiful collegiate peaks. We had a wonderful time and I will post pictures of our experience later, because I have to weed through all the pictures I took to find the best ones still

When I came home, I was surprised to see that Ruby had molted! At first I thought there were two tarantula's in her cage, but then I soon realized that one of the spiders was just her old "outfit" that she apparently outgrew. She is now much bigger!!

This is Ruby with her old skin in the background. Her new exoskeleton has a beautiful rosie hue- hence the name Rose Haired Tarantula.

Also, last night was supposed to be a big night for seeing meteors outside. When I went out to see, I didn't see any shooting stars, but I did see this little guy:

It was a Jewel Spider that had built an almost perfect beautiful web that glistened against the light of our dining room through the sliding door. Then an unfortunate lady bug flew into his perfectly formed web, ruining it. He attacked the lady bug and wrapped it up, and it was gone in the morning:

Backpacking- just like the good ole days!

This last weekend, my Dad and I decided to attempt to venture to our long-time favorite backpacking destination- the remote Anglemyer Lake. While backpacking has always been fun in itself, we decided to add to our adventure by bringing Rocket along. I knew that the 3 to 4 mile hike up the mountain to the lake would be a challenge for Rocket (and possibly me as well), but I never doubted that he would be able to make it. This little boy has enough bottled up energy to make it up any mountain and back. However, the challenge is a matter of convincing him that it is in his best interest to do so. We figured out that the key to getting Rocket up the mountain was to provide a constant stream of questions regarding Power Rangers, Ninja Turtles, and Spider Man that he could readily answer while hiking. So we made it. Then it rained... and rained... and rained. And the camping stove didn’t work, which meant we spent the weekend huddled inside a soggy tent with nothing to eat except Ritz crackers and pudding. I found the circumstances to be pretty disappointing. But did any of that discourage Rocket? No. None of that bothered him at all. Is it because he is just such an easy going guy that things like that don’t seem to bother him? No. It’s because he doesn’t know what things he should get mad about and which things he shouldn’t. He got mad, angry and frustrated, yes he did plenty of that; just about the WRONG things.
One thing that really got to Rocket was a little unidentified personality disorder that my dad has. We’ve know about it for a while, but it seems to present itself more often when we’re camping. You see, my dad has a sort of “tick”, where whenever the words “blue sky” or “smoke” are mentioned, he has an involuntary uncontrollable reaction that causes him to spontaneously begin singing a Willy Nelson song. My family has always been pretty sensitive and tolerant of his condition, but Rocket, on the other hand, wasn’t as understanding and became very very angry with my dad’s behavior.
Another thing that ticked Rocket off was being asked the same question twice. It made him feel as if we hadn’t listened to his answer the first time. For example, we accidentally asked him what his favorite Power Ranger was twice. In reality we knew it was the red ranger, but we just wanted to hear him tell us one more time. Instead, though, we heard him rant and rave about how we should already know that.
The third (but certainly not final) thing that sent rocket “over the edge” was being asked to look at the view. It was a beautiful view- one of the prettiest I’ve ever seen. Who wouldn’t want to look at it? But apparently Rocket thinks that “look at the view” means “go jump off that cliff”, and being asked to do that was out of the question for him and really ticket him off. He thought we were literally trying to send him over the edge, and he made it clear that he did not want to die. In fact, he threatened to eat ALL of the Ritz crackers to get revenge, which was a big deal since it was one of the only edible things we had. After Dad and I finished looking at the view, Rocket was missing. We eventually found him hiding in some bushes munching on the crackers… and scowling.
All in all, everyone had a few complaints about the trip. I was mad because it rained constantly and because we couldn’t cook some of the tastiest fish on earth. Rocket was unhappy because he hates Willy Nelson, shouldn’t have to repeat himself, and doesn’t want to die. How about you Dad? Did you have a good time??? Oh and... how was my use of the word "literal"???

RubyThis is a better picture of Ruby, the tarantula. Whenever I try to take her picture, she puts all of her legs in front of her face, as if she really is shy. It's kindof cute, but hopefully she will open up, so I can get a picture where you can see her better. This must be a defensive position, but I am not sure. Roxanne looks better than Ruby in this picture. Roxanne always whispers if Ruby is out of her cage.