Art Appreciation 101

Growing up as the daughter of an artist, I'm asked all the time, "Did you inherit your dad's talent?" The answer has always been, "No".

My dad is a wonderful visual artist. He has worked in all sorts of different media and styles throughout the years. His favorite would be watercolors. He is amazing, and this is a talent that I do not possess. Not only is he a brilliant painter, but he also has the talent of passing on his skills and love for art to his students. He is a wonderful teacher!

I'm so blessed to have been raised in a family where we were exposed to so many different kinds of art. I always told myself that when I had kids I wanted to expose them to many different opportunities, so that hopefully they would grow up to be well-rounded individuals. I want them to be knowledgeable about a variety of areas. I want them to know that it's okay to "think out of the box". I want them to be able to quote sports stats. one minute and be able to name which musical a song is from the next. Talk politics at the opening party of the art museum. You get my drift... I try to make sure that my boys are exposed to, and have some level of appreciation of the arts.

That being said. Every once in a while, when my dad is watching the boys during the summer, or on holiday breaks, he'll break out the paints or clay and do a mini lesson with them. This past summer Mason completed a piece that he had worked on for many hours and put a great deal of thought into. Dad suggested that we submit his work to ArtBeat Oklahoma for publication in their "Artist Showcase" section. I emailed a picture of his painting to the magazine and got an email that it was selected. They would love to include his work in their next publication! Very cool!

In addition to that email I received an email from the Owner/President of ArtBeat Oklahoma, Eric Templeton. He was inquiring about purchasing Mason's piece for his daughter. He, first of all, wanted to be sure that Mason would be willing to sell the painting. Secondly, if so, he wanted Mason to receive a fair price for his work. After talking it over with Mason, he was thrilled that someone was interested in his painting! He realized that he had spent many hours in thought and labor over this piece, and so he came back with a figure (very maturely, I might add) that sounded very reasonable for purchase. Mr. Templeton agreed, and Mason sold his very first work! We sure do hope that Samara loves this painting, and more importantly, that she grows up to appreciate and love the arts!

Is Facebook the Unforgiveable Sin?

Dear, sweet, little blog,

I would first like to ask for your forgiveness, as I have ignored and all but abandoned you. You see, I gave in to temptation, I joined the Facebook community. It took over my life. In all of my spare time, it consumes me! I have thoroughly enjoyed reconnecting with long lost friends, managing my little restaurant and organizing my mafia. With all of this, I have neglected you and I am truly sorry. I will do my best to write more often. Please accept my apology.

Robin

Dear, sweet readers (if any of you are left),

I ask for forgiveness from you, as well. I really never thought that my life was all that interesting, but apparently there are a few of you that checked in on me and my family to see what was going on.

I don't think that there is anyway that I can completely re-cap what has happened in the last 8 months or so without penning a novel. Therefore, I'll try to hit some highlights:

Mason's birthday

My birthday

End of School

Easton wearing contacts

Fast summer

That should take care of some of them. I make no promises, but will try my darndest to keep you up to date about the Gayle Gang and all of our excitement.

Robin

BY THE WAY... IF YOU ARE NOT A MEMBER OF THE FACEBOOK COMMUNITY, YOU SHOULD BE!

NEW ARRIVAL

After a much delayed arrival, John and Jessica were blessed with the birth of Colton (Colt) Thomas Anderson. We are all so excited for them and are so in love with Colt! You can read all about their adoption experience here and especially here.

Colt was born on December 16, 2008. He weighed a whopping 9 lbs. 7 oz., and was 22" long.







Mason met Colt on the first day that we was home. He is completely enthralled with him! He wants to see him and hold him all the time. It's so precious!



Easton thinks he's pretty neat, but he's too cool to come right out and admit it. Christmas day was his first time to actually hold him.





Even Gracie thinks Colt is amazing!

I was abducted by aliens...

Not really. It was just a CRAZY December!

OIM is over and Mason and I had a great time! It took up a lot of time, but it was a great experience!

Here are some pics...



Me, Mason and Aunt Renee (Mary)



Mason and Justin Attebery (Joseph)



Betcha didn't know that little boys in Bethlehem played with Gameboys too!

Sorry about some of the following pics... we had trouble coordinating the stage lighting and camera.









If you were at the show, thanks for coming! We saw lots of friends. If you didn't make it, you should try to come next year. They're not sure if they are doing One Incredible Moment again next year, but I'm sure any production they decide to do will be very uplifting.

One Incredible Moment

This holiday season Mason and I will be participating in the First Presbyterian Church's (Edmond) performance of One Incredible Moment. The show is based on Max Lucado's book.



The show is directed by my high school choir director, Terry Attebery. He contacted my sister, Renee, about playing the role of Mary this year and said that anyone who wanted to could participate.

So... I thought I'd jump back on stage for a few nights and Mason decided that he wanted to do it too! We've had a ball at rehearsals, Mason's a true diva!

A couple of weeks after starting Mr. Attebery told us that he has a special part that he would like for Mason to do. In the show, Joseph sings a solo and during the song a little boy, representing boy Jesus, runs out to him and stands with him while he sings. Mr. Attebery wanted Mason to be the little boy! He was very excited and said that he would like to do that. Mason and I watched the DVD copy that we have so that he could see what he's supposed to do. After watching the video, Mason told me that he thinks he should have a microphone and sing with Joseph. I had to tell Mason that that was not the way that the song was written, and I didn't think they were planning on rewriting it as a duet. Bummer...

Anyway, the show is Dec. 12-14, 7:00 nightly. You should make plans to attend!

Calling All Turkey Cookers

To brine, or not to brine? That is the question...

Killin' Time

Scott has this random list posted on his blog. Yesterday was a horribly boring day at work, so I decided to fill in my own answers... Composed yesterday... posted today.


1.What time did you get up this morning?
6:00 am

2. Diamonds or pearls?
Uh, both!

3. What was the first film you saw at the cinema?
I have no idea

4. What is your favorite TV show?
I don’t watch a lot of TV. I like House, Reba and What Not To Wear

5.What do you usually have for breakfast?
coffee

6. What is your middle name?
Leigh

7. What food do you dislike?
Liver

8.What is your favorite CD at moment?
Too hard… Something different everyday

9. What kind of car do you drive?
Explorer

10. Favorite sandwich?
Ham & Swiss

11. What characteristic do you despise?
Dishonesty

12 Favorite item of clothing?
Sweats & flip-flops

13.If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation, where would you go?
Italy

14. Favorite brand of clothing?
affordable

15 Where would you retire to?
Oh man… that’s hard! Costa Rica, Vermont, Disneyworld… just as long as I had the means to travel and have my kids come visit me often enough! I don’t want too much, huh?

16.What was your most recent memorable birthday?
Probably the big 4-0, just because everyone else made such a huge deal about it. It was very laid back… time with friends and family!

17. Favorite sport to watch?
Football

18.Furthest place you are sending this?
Friends in France will prob. read at some point

19.Person you expect to send it back first?
Not really expecting that.

20. When is your birthday?
February 21

21. Are you a morning person or a night person?
Morning (just don’t talk to me, I'll talk to you first)

22. What is your shoe size?
8

23. Pets?
Elphie (black cat) & Gracie (gray cat)

24. Any new and exciting news you'd like to share with us?
Can’t think of any that I haven’t already mentioned on here.

25. What did you want to be when you were little?
surgeon

26. How are you today?
bored (it’s Veterans Day, and I’m at work… and no one else is…)

27. What is your favorite candy?
Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups

28. What is your favorite flower?
Red roses

29. What is a day on the calendar you are looking forward to?
Christmas… always

30. What is your favorite pastime?
playing Trivial Pursuit with family

31.What are you listening to right now?
BOB FM

32. What was the last thing you ate?
A mint from Sonic

33. Do you wish on stars?
sometimes

34. If you were a crayon, what color would you be?
RED

35. How is the weather right now?
lovely

36. The first person you spoke to on the phone today?
Matt (which is rare… we’re usually IMing. I HATE talking on the phone)

37. Favorite soft drink?
Coke Zero

38 Favorite restaurant?
Another hard one… I love to eat (as if you couldn’t tell). Bravo & Iron Starr (for the fancy mac 'n cheese) to name a couple

39. Real hair color?
Dark Brown

40 What was your favorite toy as a child?
Tie between Ms. Beasley and Drowsy

41 Summer or winter?
summer

42. Hugs or kisses?
Uh, both

43. Chocolate or Vanilla?
Chocolate

44. Coffee or tea?
Coffee

45. Do you want your friends to email you back?
Depends on if I’m asking for a response from them

46. When was the last time you cried?
at a funeral a couple of weeks ago

47. What is under your bed?
Wrapping paper stuff, prob. a cat, leaves for the dining room table

48. What did you do last night?
Vegged in front of the TV. Honest… that is SO very rare!

49. What are you afraid of?
Bad influences on my kids

50. Salty or sweet
Both

51.How many keys on your key ring?
3

52. How many years at your current job?
9.5

53. Favorite day of the week?
Saturday

54. How many towns have you lived in?
4

55. Do you make friends easily?
I’d prob. have to say “not really”

56. How many people will you send this to?
N/A

57. How many will respond?
N/A


58. How do you drive? Grandma or lead foot?
Lead foot (AKA Mario, by my husband)

Tooting the Horn

Have to brag on Easton a little bit!

He was bummed over the weekend to have to miss his first youth group retreat. He had to stay back and go to his audition for CODA.

I didn't really know what CODA was, but from talking to some folks and researching a little bit, I found out that it's pretty much the equivalent of what was called "All-State" back in my day. We went to All-State choir, or All-State band, etc...

Anyway, he's been working on the audition pieces since the beginning of school, and last Sat. was the audition.

It's so interesting for me to watch Easton at things like this. It amazes me! I have such a hard time comprehending what is going on in his little head. What it must be like for people with ADHD. How they process the day, as opposed to how I process what's going on. It's intriguing.

We got there a few minutes early for a 9:30 audition time. We ran into another guy from the youth group who was monitoring a room. I didn't know who he was, but he greeted Easton and told us where to find our room.

We checked in and had about 20 min. until his turn. I asked if he wanted to go warm-up and he wasn't interested in that. He was too busy looking for other people he might know, begging for money for the vending machines, and going back to "ask Alex a question". I had to find out all the pertinent information for him. They had the music posted outside the room with any changes marked on it. It was all I could do to get him to come over and look at it and note the changes. He was "excited". He finally took out his horn and sat on the floor and waited to be called. I stood out of view and didn't say much to him at that point.

He went in and I refrained from being "that" mom that stood outside the door and listened. It didn't take long and he was back. He wasn't carrying a pink card, and that meant that his audition was over. He would not move on to the second room. I asked how it went and he said, "okay" and that was about it. He was ready to go. He packed the horn. No discussion... no self evaluation... just "what's next"? At that point the monitor walked around the corner and handed him his pink card back. He had left the room so quickly, he hadn't given the judges time to pass the card back. We were moving on to the second room! He had made a "call back"! Yippee!

We had to take the card to the second room and sign in there. They gave us an approx. time to be back to play in there. In this room he would have to sight read. (I always hated sight reading at contest. At least in choir you were in sections, and could confer with everyone else as to the notes, tempo, etc... I guess we church of Christ kids always did have a leg up in that department. I remember choir teachers loving us because we knew how to sight read! Singing a capella every Sunday of our lives helped out with that!) Anyway... we listened outside the door of the second room and discovered that he would play the three pieces again AND sight read (by himself). After a long wait because of monitoring glitches he was called in. I couldn't resist, and this time, listened outside the door. He did awesome on his pieces! I, of course, being a choir geek, had no idea if what he was playing for the sight reading was on or not.

We were then done. We talked to some of the other Oakdale kids that were there and then continued on with our Saturday.

He didn't really say much more about the audition. His brain was ready for the next activity, next adventure. Why talk about, speculate, analyze, or re-live what had already happened? That's not how Easton works... not at all!

Later Sat. afternoon I received a message from Mr. Scott that Easton had made 1st Alternate! So... out of about 80, 7th grade trumpeters, they took 12. He was number 13! If one of the others is unable to perform, or gets sick, or is struck across the knee with a metal bar, etc... he will step into their place! Yeah!

I'm so VERY proud of him! God shows me again just how different and special he is!

I'm so completely different in my way of thinking. I would have gone to the warm-up room, for crying outloud! Probably more than once... I would have gone over every note in my head numerous times... I would have stressed about the sight reading.... I would have compared my playing to the others I heard... I would have obsessed...

Why do I feel frustrated when Easton doesn't act that way, or feel those things?! Why do I care? Why haven't I already learned that this is not the way that Easton "rolls"? God just has to keep on showing me!

For Easton, it's simple. Just show up and play... what more do I need to do?! Hakuna Matata...

Season's over. No "S".

Bless their hearts. The Saints finished the season as the _aints. Didn't win one game... not one.

It wasn't for lack of trying, or lack of coaching... don't really know what the problem was, but a win sure would have lifted some spirits.

Mason had a great time playing! He says he wants to play again next year... we'll see when that time rolls around.

By the way, THANKS to Uncle John for coaching! I think he had almost as much fun as the 2nd graders did!

Halloween

It came... and it went...

That's pretty much it! We don't really get "into" Halloween like some folks do. I don't know why. It's not because of religious reasons, and we LOVE candy just as much as the next guy! It's just a holiday that I let sneak up on me and then it's too late to do anything about.

Anyway... Mason dressed in a cheap, store-bought, Iron Man costume and Easton didn't dress up. He, of course, wanted to tag along and trick-or-treat with Mason. Some folks I guess felt sorry for him standing in the background and gave him some candy too. We went in my parents' neighborhood again. For such an older neighborhood, they still have tons of kids that go around and the people still turn their porch lights on and hand out candy.

Sorry... I don't even have pictures.

Saints Football

Thanks to Uncle John and his new camcorder, we have some video from last night's game.

Too bad the entire other team tackled him... he might have done something productive.

Tagged

Audrey tagged everyone...

Here is my 6th picture in my 6th folder.


Exciting, huh?!

Definitely not as precious as Miss Kerrigan!

Now I tag all of my readers... you two get at it!