Reflecting Back on Christmas...

Hi all! Wowee, can you believe it? Two blog postings in one day! As I sat reflecting on our trip home I was (oddly enough) reminded of a survey that my dear friend Ashley Whipple posted on her myspace only two years ago. (Seriously, I have no idea what made me think of this) So, I have decided to share with you my answers to these fun Christmas questions as I keep reaching for my kleenex (reminder: I am sick!): 

1. Do you like Hot Chocolate? 

Who doesn't??? During the Christmas season I usually prefer peppermint hot chocolate though. 

2. Turkey or Ham? ummmm probably turkey. Though we don't usually have either of these during Christmas...

3. Do you get a fake or real Christmas Tree? I have always had a real Christmas tree. You just can't beat the smells of a real one. 

4. Are there decorations on the outside of your house?

We hung a wreath with twinkle lights on our front door.

5. Snowball fights or sledding? Probably sledding... Snowball fights are fun too but not when you get hit in the face. :/

6. Do you like hanging around the fireplace because it is warm? I feel like this question is missing a second part like, "because it is warm? or because you like to snuggle with Pepper the cat and that's her favorite spot?" IF this was the question I would say: both. :) 

7. Do you enjoy going Christmas shopping? When I know what I am shopping for. Otherwise I get pretty stressed out.

8. What is your favorite Christmas song? Baby it's cold outside.... that song is really quite inappropriate. geeeeesh.... but still, classic. 

9. How do you feel about Christmas movies? Love them. 

Give me Christmas With the Kranks any day, but leave A Christmas Story for December 25th. You just can't watch a classic like that in mid-summer. 

10.When is it too early to start listening to Christmas music? Any time before Thanksgiving. That's just nuts. 

11.Do you open your stockings before or after you open your presents? Traditionally with my family we opened them after presents. That way there is still a little something left to open after presents. 

12. Do you watch Christmas Carolers? Not usually, but this year some happened to cross my path. I stepped outside palio's one night to take a phone call and to my great surprise a horse drawn carriage passes me with 12 people behind it caroling. 

13. Do you go to someone else's house to celebrate or do they come to you?

This was my first year away from home. We ditched the snow and traveled to California.

14. Do you read "the Christmas story," if so, when? 

ummm...... I think we read that when we were little....who knows when.

15.What do you do on Christmas day? 

growing up I would wake up really early with my brothers to open presents. Eat breakfast together. Lounge around all day eating candy and watching A Christmas Story until we got ready to go to my Grandma's house. 

16.What is your favorite holiday smell? Rain on the ground and chimney's outside....

17. Iceskating or walking around the mall?Ice skating for sure!

18. Favorite Christmas memory? Waking up to see what elaborate display Santa left for us.

19. Favorite part about winter? Thanksgiving, and Christmas.

20.Favorite Christmas decoration? The lights. I love looking at Christmas lights.

21. Lights: colored or clear? I like them equally. What I don't like are blue Christmas lights (no offense to any of you who like this). 

22. What is the best Christmas present you ever received? The first present that stands out in my mind was a homemade closet full of clothes for my American girl dolls along with homemade bunkbeds. they were amazing....... oh the good ol' days.

23. What is your favorite Christmas tradition in your family? My favorite tradition growing up was going to my grandparents house Christmas night. 

 

24. What is your least favorite thing about the holidays? How crazy some people get over shopping. Did you hear about that walmart worker who was trampled to their death from Christmas shoppers? 

25. What is the one thing you were excited to see under the tree this year? I was very excited to open my Toms Shoes. 

25. What is your favorite holiday drink? Peppermint hot chocolate or peppermint mocha. Or, I tryed this really yummy drink that had spiced rum, pear puree and cinnamon. yummy....

26. What is your favorite holiday food? I always like potatoes!!!  and anything pumpkin...

27. What is your favorite holiday movie? Elf or A Christmas Story

28. How early do you wake up Christmas morning? It has varied from 5:30am to 7:30am.

29. Do you have any plans for New Years Eve? I have a date with my Kleen-ex box and the couch. Maybe Wes and I will watch fight club or something. ha ha! It's hard to celebrate when you are sick.... 

missing you all,

Katie

Sick Together

Sore throat? check.

stuffy nose? check.

body aches? check.

coughing? check.

We are sick people. At least we get to be sick together..... (awwwww) just kidding. I think it's harder that we are sick together because it makes it more difficult to take care of each other. How do you decide who gets up to get more blankets? Or cook dinner? or... or.... do dishes? Once again I am kidding. My point simply is that Wes and I are both sick, though Wes has different symptoms than me. We will struggle through this week together. Unfortunately we are both back to work today. I went to work yesterday but I wasn't nearly as sick as I am today. Anyway, we had an amazing Christmas with our families. It was much harder to leave this time around. We love you all so much. You truly are our favorite people to be with. We miss the nephews big time. When I saw Charlotte yesterday for the first time in about two weeks I picked her up as if she was Preston. We love our family. :) Talk to you again soon,

Katie

One week 'till Christmas

Hi!!!!!!!!!!!

Have things been as busy for you as they have been for us? I'm sure they have... This week we have been working, getting presents together and have gone to two Christmas-y party/ gatherings. It's been a fun week but I just wanted to stop by and say that we can't wait to be at home with our families to celebrate. Marisa and Ashley are on there way home today. Cory is already home. Courtney and Carlos will be heading in on Saturday. Bekah and Scott on Monday. Then Wes and I on Tuesday! We are comin! Can't wait to see everyone. It has been a very long time since we last saw some of you. I think Scott takes the cake for the longest.... actually, maybe Carlos does. Can't wait to see you all. Love you very very much and see you soon. :) 

Katie & Wes

Our first day of Christmas break.

Ever since I was in high school I have cherished these nights of freedom. Freedom from homework. Freedom from stress. Freedom from plans. When I have moments like these there is a part of my brain that sends me straight back to a summer night in highschool. A night where everyone has gone to bed and I sit in my room writing or reading knowing that I don't have to wake up and go to school or work the next day. Nights like those are rare as you get older. I am fortunate enough to have that this evening. One of my favorite things is a night before a weekend or a day free of plans. Anyway, today was just such a day. Church was actually cancelled today because of snow. Yes, if you haven't heard yet, it snowed today in Oregon. Getting to sleep in this morning was the best gift ever after a 4 hour nights sleep on friday night (due to painting until 1:30 am and waking up at 6am to continue painting before class). So, Wes and I slept in this morning and woke up to a very pleasant surprise. A blanket of snow. Pretty amazing first day of Christmas break don't you think? So, today Wes went to work while I went to Palios. It's been a really great relaxing snow day for me and the super exciting thing is that I get tomorrow off. Good news also, our hard work payed off and Wes and I both got A's in our painting class. We cannot wait for Christmas next week to be with our families and celebrate. So, this morning I got my jacket and rain boots on and stepped outside for some pictures...

Our car....


Our Front door...

Our door mat....




And, I took pictures this evening of the paintings we've spent so much time on that we turned in yesterday....


This first assignment was a painting of a collage. Meaning that we had to create an 8 x 10 collage from magazine clippings on paper and then create a grid on a 24 x 30 canvas and scale it over.

This is mine...



This is Wes'....

The second assignment was to paint an interpretation of music. We had to pick a song and paint whatever our imagination led us to...

This is Wes' to a radiohead song...


This is mine, inspired by Eleanor Rigby. Though, I can't explain to you how I got to this picture or what it means. I struggled with this assignment because we were told to not paint the song literally. If I had had more time to paint I would have given more detail to the back ground and to the man. I dont' like that his skin color looks so similar to the backgroung color...


The third assignment was to actually make a collage. In which we include clippings from things on our canvas.

This is mine....


I didn't take a picture of Wes' because he doesn't like his. :) Anyway, I hope you enjoyed seeing what we've been working on and talking about for the past couple of weeks. See you soon!

Friday

10am: walk to plaid pantry and get cream cheese for blueberry bagels. eat bagels.
11am: Start painting.
12pm: more painting.
1pm: frustration begins with how lame my painting is.
2pm: more painting.
3pm: more painting.....

............

9:30pm: Wes has a beer and stuffed garlic olives break.
10pm: still painting....

I apologize...

...for the rather short blog about our Christmas tree. I intended to add more pictures than that and put them in the correct order but I was having internet troubles... So here are some more pictures of our Christmas-y evening... enjoy them! also, this time in two weeks we will be in California with our families. Yessss! Can't wait!

Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree!

Goodmorning to you! It's 9:30 am now. Wes is watching The Bourne Ultimatum as I look through pictures of our Christmas Tree. So, the story is this:

On friday we went to safeway for our grocery shopping because believe it or not they don't have Smirnoff or Mikes hard lemonade at "the friendliest store in town" sooo safeway it was. As we were leaving we notice a tiny little tree lot set up in the corner and since we had made no effort towards finding a tree yet we decided we'd go have a look. We asked the man if he had any tabletop trees and he presented us with two options. One looked more like a puny tree branch and then the other looked like a rather bottem heavy miniture tree... (Wes calls it our Christmas bush) anyway we now have a tree and we decorated it Saturday night as we ate our homemade pizzas! Here are some pictures...

Quick!

I've been at Palios since 2pm today. It is now 9:30pm. Needless to say, if I wrote a blog about decorating our Christmas tree last night it would not be very good. I am getting tired and can only seem to think about the peanut butter cup, ben and jerry's ice cream that's at home in our freezer. Sooo my point is, check back tomorrow for Christmas tree stuff... I will try to post it in the morning! Love to you all-

me

A Good Day...

So, I won't brag too much but Christmas break just got one step closer for me. As I sit in this moment I have nothing left of school work except for the three paintings that need to be completed. The past two days I have been pouring over my notes and text book in search of all the information I would need for my final. Finally it is finished. Though it was only 12 questions long, with a weeks worth of time to complete it and all notes and internet resources at my aid, it was still test. I mean seriously, how can you afford to get a single question wrong knowing you were allowed the whole of the world wide web to help you? Though I am excited to no longer worry about chapters to read and deadlines to remember there is a part of me that is sad this class is over. Really for the first time in my life I took a class that captured my interest from day one and I succeeded in it. I am proud of the work I put forth and the knowledge that I have gained. This class taught me that art is FAR MORE intentional than I ever knew. Most of my assignments were to describe different works of art. I can now look at a painting and explain in paragraphs all that it holds. Just for fun I thought I would share with you the painting that I had to describe for my final. 

[unfortunately I can't place the image from the internet directly into the blog so you have to click here to view it.]

The painting is called Le Dejeuner sur l'herbe (Luncheon on the grass in french) and was painted by Edouard Manet. The painting was considered revolutionary for its time because it was the first time an artist painted a woman naked in an ordinary setting as if it were normal for a woman to just be sitting at a picnic naked. In the past paintings that portrayed naked women were generally scenes from history or greek mythology. This painting was the first of it's kind and marked the beginning of Realism/Impressionism when artists began painting images from ordinary life. Interesting huh? Manet was definitely trying to create change, wouldn't you say? 

Anyway, thanks for letting me share, I find it all very interesting in case you didn't notice. :) Wes and I are off to do some painting. Love you!