Love The Burbacks.....

but sick of family portraits.

I seriously love this family more than any other family I have never met. Sometimes I think they're like a little mirror image of my own family (oh, except for the extra baby...). Although I've never met any of them in person, I feel like I've gotten to know them pretty well through Cassie's blog. Reading it makes me feel like we are living in parallel universes. I began noticing the similarities the week that I began the flylady program, and then read that Cassie had began the program the very same day!! Incase your wondering, no I haven't kept up with the program... but my shoes are tied right now. And I've read about her 7 year old baseball obsessed little boy, who relishes going to see live games at the baseball stadium with his dad. And her little girl, the artist, who spends her time painting, and tip toeing through nature and creating masterpieces, but could care less about learning letters. All this sound familiar? There's more parralles as well- I can't even start to list them all.

The other night, we were having a typical family evening- Matt and Rocket were watching Rockies baseball, and me and Roxy were at the kitchen table doing something crafty. That's when I overheard the guys discussing the Rockie's oponent of the night- the Cardinals... which normally wouldn't have registered with me, except that I had just recently google searched the word "cardinal" so that I could know what it looked like, so that I could paint the mascot on Cassie's little boy's hat. That's when I began imaging that the Burback household was probably a very similar scene at that very moment- the two boys cheering for the Cardinals and booing the Rockies; the girls making something pretty. So, perhaps I feel like I know this family better than I really do, just because I imagine them to be exactly like my own (well... except for the adorable little baby... which I won't discuss... but I DO have an adorable little doggy that I sometimes pretend is a baby).

On another note... please don't hate me for saying this but... I think I might have to make this my last family portrait project. I actually do enjoy the actual process of figuring out how to best portray a family to reflect their personality and dinamic. The problem is that I spend WAY to much time on it, for the amount of money I charge. The problem with charging more money is that when doing high priced commission jobs, customers begin to demand more a level of perfection that I cannot live up to. I would rather do ten $100 jobs, and receive a lot of grace than do one $1,000 job and be expected to turn out perfection. Matt does a good job at bringing my attention to this issue by calculating the amount of time I spend on each project (...and informaing me about all the other things I COULD have gotten done with that time). Maybe I will return to family portraits when my painting skills have gotten better... or perfect. Don't wait around.

Fun At MorphThing.com

There is quite a bit of fun to be had at morphthing.com. The site enables you to upload photos and morph them with other photos.

Here is what Matt and I would look like if we were the same person. I created it with a simple recipe of one part Matt, one part Naomi:


Then I made things even more complicated by morphing images that were already morphed, in order to make more multifaceted morph recipes. This one depicts what Rocket could likely look like when he is older: two parts Rocket, two parts Matt, one part Naomi:


And what Roxanne might likely look like: two parts Roxanne, two parts Naomi, one part Matt. I just asked Roxanne who this was and she said "Me... no wait... you... ummm... Actually, I don't know that person."



This is me and MonaLisa....



This is Matt and Einstein:

And the site even has a baby making function. This is what it says Matt and I's baby should look like.... oddly enough it doesn't seem to look anything like Rocket or Roxanne.

And Then She Turned Six

Since I started blogging, I've never failed to blog about each and every one of my kids' birthdays. Despite my blogging lull of late, I musn't forget about the latest one either, because it has brought with it much realization to me of how much I truly enjoy my six year old.

On Friday, we celebrated the day by having three of her girl friends (and one who is also a cousin) over after school. I assisted the girls in creating their own tie dye shirts, a craft for which I have developed a specific method. I will share that method with you now, so that you can also learn from my years of trial and error.

The day before the celebration, Jodi and I practiced tiedying on our own in order to make sure the method would work. I originally told Jodi that the best way to tie dye is basically do everything, and then just leave it in God's hands, since we really have no control over tie dye results. She disagreed with me, and in the end her's turned out slightly better than mine, thus disproving my theory about leaving it in God's hands. Determined to perfect my tiedyeing methodology, I tried again on Thursday night.... and this time I got it right. So here is my completely perfected tie dye method:

Step 1. Rubber band up your tshirt (or whatnot) in whatever which way you want.

Step 2. Use a squirty bottle filled with a concoction of different types of dyes to squirt your shirt- be sure to squirt deep into the folds using the nozzle of the squirty bottle.

Step 3. Put your tshirt in the microwave for 12 minutes or until the residual dye is kindof crusty and the shirt is steaming.

Step 4. Leave the results in God's hands

Step 5. (this is the new step I added) Pray for the tiedye while it is cooking.

Step 6. Rinse with cold water until it runs kindof clearish (it never runs completely clear).

Step 7. Put it in the dryer until it is dry and then wear it!

The tiedye turned out well for the girls (and Rocket) on Friday as well:

Then we took all the kids to the infamous Casa Bonitas (a Las Vegas style Mexican restaurant with strange skits, cliff diving, waterfalls, haunted caves, and puppet shows). They all wore their new tiedye shirts. In this picture Roxanne is angry because she just had to have a time out in the car when we got there, because she was very naughty during the car ride. I was most excited for Roxanne's birthday, because I had made her a gift that I couldn't wait to give her, because I knew she would love it- a painting apron. A few years ago, her Auntie Sarah had given her an apron that she wore almost constantly, but it was getting to be too small, so I thought it was time for a change. Plus, it was filled with her very own paint brushes, so me and her don't have to fight over the good brush anymore. I think she liked it. She hasn't taken it off very much since she got it. But then things got even better, because we also gave her what she has been begging for: canvases. She is always pretty angry that I paint on canvases, and she has to paint on paper, and is always asking me to buy her her very own canvas to paint on. So we gave her eleven canvases. And lastly, we gave her a paint set with "real" paint. I'll tell you something- once you let a kid use nice artist paints, they will never ever want to use craft paint or tempera paint again. I guess I can understand that. She completely her first painting on a canvas today, but says, "I can't use another canvas for a while, because I want to save them."
Her birthday ended in a fort, with her favorite cousin. They were supposed to go to sleep in there, but when I checked on them at about 11pm, I found that their barbie dolls were still whispering to each other. But, I guess that's what birthdays, and cousins, and barbies are for. Even though she doesnt always enjoy me, she doesn't know that I am always smiling at her because I see myself in her.... it would probably drive her crazy if she did know! And that's why I enjoy her so much. We are artist together, and my favorite times are when we are both wearing our painting aprons, making our own separate creations, and chatting about what's pretty and what's not and how you should mix colors. I can't wait to see what beautiful things she will create as she grows up.... my little artist.