Jonah 10 Months

Yes its true, little Jonie is now 10 months old! They grow so fast that first year, don't they!
First off, he can crawl very well now.



And when he's really in a hurry, he has some fancy high stepping moves! One of his favorite games is chasing mommy or Elora around by crawling after us as we peek out of different doorways around the house. He always squeals when he figures out where we've gone.


Around the time he started crawling (between 8 and 9 months?) he started pulling himself up on objects to stand! Unfortunately his favorite place to stand up is in the bathtub while he bathes with Elora and Josh. Usually if I say in a stern voice, "Sit down, Jonah," he will, but within 30 seconds he's back on his feet again! He can now cruise around the furniture, and balance for a few seconds without holding on at all.



He loves exploring new things, and often points at stuff and seems to ask questions..in baby talk of course. He always likes looking up at the leaves and talking about the trees when we're outside, and is excited by birds, cats and other outside animals.



Jonah likes music a lot! Some kids wiggle and shake to music, but Jonah prefers to lead it like an orchestra conductor...he usually starts out waving one finger, but as the tune gets louder, he will wave both arms enthusiastically, generally with both his pointer fingers extended. I guess it was a good idea to give him the middle name of August, from August Rush!



I don't know if I could say for sure that he says words yet, but there are some words he seems to be able to say....when we eat breakfast, he always says nanananana, because he gets bananas, when he's tired and wants to nurse he says mamama. When he sees you for the first time in the morning he says, "Hi!" And (best of all) when he's attacking and wiggling his fingers I swear it sounds like he's saying "tickletickletickle!" It's hilarious.




Jonah adores his brother and sister, and thinks Joshua is the funniest person in the world. He even likes when Elora tries to carry him around, even though mommy and daddy always get mad about it! In the morning he's the most excited when Elora and Joshua get up and come to see him. Oh, and when Elora opens the curtains. He loves that.



Like most babies, he loves banging on things to make noise, especially the washer and dryer. In the last few days he seems to have finally figured out how to throw things, it just remains to be seen if he loves throwing and kicking balls as much as Joshua does!




Yup, in just two months, our littlest guy will be a year old!

Recently.....

Recently...Joseph gave blood. They had a few problems, stuck him half a dozen times, and still only got half a pint so they couldn't use it.



He was sore, to say the least.



Recently, we've gone on a few fun walks and hikes. Not as many as I'd like, due to bad weather or grumpy kids. Elora likes to be the mountain goat!



Jonah lounges in his smooth ride, enjoying all the views.



Recently, we went on a short walk just across the street and down the stream....


and found two families of baby ducks, along with their mothers! (Sorry, this was the best picture I got of one group.)



Recently, Uncle Thain came to visit! We had a swingin' time together.



And the kids enjoyed trying on his accessories,



as well as his new bike! (" It's not a bike, its a motorcycle, mom," as my kids like to tell me.)




Recently, we took Uncle Thain to sample some delicious local ice cream (and we didn't brush Elora's hair, thanks for noticing) ,



and we took him to explore our college campus and the pretty spring foliage.



Recently....... we've been having a lot of fun!

A new kind of portrait. Sort of.

Okay, so it's still a color pencil portrait. And I've done a wedding picture of a married couple before. But this time...there is a big fancy temple in the drawing! I somehow volunteered to include the structure in the drawing, which, it turns out, was probably not a good idea considering I don't really draw buildings well, what with all the straight, parallel and perfectly perpendicular lines that are required.
And you might say (tongue in cheek) that I can't even draw a straight line with a ruler! Ha hahahaha! Sorry. Private joke.


The building made this drawing much more complicated, time consuming, and frustrating. Yet I suppose we all need to grow, right? I had this vague idea that I would do the temple in some kind of impressionistic manner, so the details wouldn't be as important. But I had no idea how to do that, so it didn't happen.
So the original photo was from much farther away, showing more of the couple's bodies and more of the temple. I wanted to zoom in enough that their faces were still the focus of the drawing, while still showing a good portion of the building in the background. I like this composition alright, but in retrospect, I wish I'd have pushed the people a little closer to the center of the drawing so her bouquet won't be so cut off by the picture frame, rather than worrying about getting the spires behind them!



So I used some carbon paper to mark where all the corners were on the building, as it wouldn't come close to looking right if I did it all freehand. I thought I had checked everything before I started adding in the gray color, but later I realized some of the lines weren't quite right, making some things at wrong angles or positioned wrong etc. Too late to fix now! I was already getting too upset over this, and the faces were barely started!




I feel like I spent more time trying to fix things than I did doing any drawing, which is very sad. I have to admit, I used a couple of dabs of whiteout to fix some of the building details that were driving me crazy...hopefully they aren't noticeable in the final version, and they won't come off! Ugg.


I did like working on their faces; this is the first portrait I've done in a long time where they're not looking straight out at the camera. It was a challenge to get their profiles right (which I hope I did!) but it was more of a fun challenge than a bother.



At this point I was feeling very unhappy with the drawing. The photo was taken in the middle of the day, judging by the bright lights and harsh shadows. I was taking measures to tone down the high contrast (read dark shadows) on their faces, but hadn't done so on the building. This resulted in almost white highlights, and very dark shadows, drawing your attention to the temple rather than the people....which I didn't want, especially because there were so many drawing mistakes in the structure!



I was seriously considering throwing this away and doing a new one with just the people, but I let it sit for a few days, then decided to darken the light parts of the temple instead (and lighten the dark as much as possible), to see if it helped bring the focus back to the couple. It was working! I figured if I made the colors on the people a little brighter, this would also help draw attention away from the building. Can I say I really hate that dark portion right behind their heads? If only I could do that part over....


The flowers are out of focus and vague in the photo, so I didn't want to add details that aren't there, but I wish they popped a little more. So, in retrospect, I could've said I was done much sooner, because here at least, the last few versions look exactly the same.. so I was probably wasting my time doing stuff no one would notice but me. And..and.. that round blue window is very distracting and annoying! Oh well.



This drawing was definitely a challenge, and I'm not sure if I completely like the final version, but at least its better than it was ... and I hope they like it!

Happy Mother's Day!

(and for any grandmas out there:)



love, Elora