Africa

Jaiden says THANKS Grandma!! He loves it. Very nice, I love it too. :)

~ Jeffery

Where's Waldo

There are 4 of the kids in this picture, can you find them? I call this where's Waldo. I realize it is not that difficult to find them, I just like this picture. :)

~ Jeffery

Hockey Boys

~ watching the MN Wild take on the Dallas Stars. Minn 1 Dal 2 Booo

Towards the end of Jaiden's hockey season they had a open game kids against parents. Well, since I can't skate I called Anthony and he skated for me. Jaiden was very excited to skate with his big brother. It was fun to watch. :)  Jaiden had one moment where he had a break away with the puck and Anthony was the defense trying to stop him. Ultimately Jaiden did not score but he played very well against his older brother. :)

~ Proud Dad

Minnehaha Falls

~ watching the MN Wild take on the Dallas Stars. Go Wild!!

The kids and I took a trip to Minnehaha Falls today. Though it was a little chilly and a few small sprinkles we had fun. It was pretty cool seeing the water fall and cut through the ice. Very pretty.

If you see the Vertical black area within the ice, just to the left of the middle of the falls, we were looking at the water fall and suddenly a person showed up in that little hole. It turns out if you go where you are not supposed to go you can go behind the wall of ice, underneath the water falls from the right side of the picture all the way over to the left side. Again behind the wall of ice. I would have gone but I did not want to teach the kids that as there were signs posted not to go. People were saying it was very cool back there. Ok, and I suppose there is some risk there too. All that water cutting way at the ice, hate to be back there and have a large chunk fall away. Anyhow...we enjoyed the falls from the path. :)

~ Jeffery

Playing with Clay

~ listening to Mumford and Sons their Babel Album

Remember you can click on the pictures to see a larger version of  that pic.

I thought I would try something with some clay. I had no idea really what I was going to do or how it would turn out. I should have taken some pictures along the way...but they would have probably been kind of boring. After conditioning the clay and making some flat pieces I ended up with the below hunk of clay.

The start of my first Mokume Gane. After slicing I can't believe what I ended up with. See below. (I think my Mom is going to *#!^). hee hee, she likes things that look different like this. I saw her save a small scrap of  tiles once to make art out of, well she is a great artist. :) Love ya Mom!! 

Hmm, what am I going to do with these? So I cut some of them out and placed them on a black border as seen below. 

The above pieces I am probably going to glue them to a picture frame, which is the actual project out of a book I got. I ended up with a lot of this stuff. So then I decided to create a necklace for each of the kids. 

then I noticed one of them kind of looked like a fish, so I started making fish out of it. This first fish (rotate problem again) should be rotated counter clockwise once. This was actually the last fish I made, I added some texture for scales and raised his tail feathers and fins. I also gave him a little different background. 

This little guy below, well, he should be rotated clockwise twice. He is actually upside down right now. I do not know why I cannot rotate some of these. 

Here is a school of fish. Again, rotate once counter clock wise or tilt your head. hee hee. 

This one I thought looked like a Koi. He needs a tilt once counter clockwise. 

I am not sure what I am going to do with the fish yet. I'm thinking about attaching them to some sort of background like a piece of slate or marble to then hang on the wall...?? 

~ Jeffery

Drawings

~ listening to Mumford and Sons (GREAT album)

...started drawing again...

Geico 

Snoopy - my favorite

For some reason some of the pics from my phone, I am unable to rotate. >:-\

This is Kai from Ninjago for Evan .

~ Jeffery

Projects

~ Listening to Gotye

Evan had a school project to build a Lion so we got out the clay. Evan did 99% of this guy. There were just a few places where I showed him how to do something and then he took it over. :)

I decided to try my luck at making Frash, below. 

~ Jeffery

More Creatures

~ listening to "Dog Days are Over" by Florence and the Machine

~ Jeffery

Dophins in MN

- listening to Unchain My Heart by Joe Cocker

~ Jeffery

Another adventure with the kids!

~ Jeffery

Abstract Lexi

~ listening to Blurry by Puddle of Mudd

Lexi "Dad, stay there and take a pic of me!"

Dad "Lexi, that's not going to work there are trees in the way?!"

Lexi "Just try it dad!"

It's one of my favorite pics!

~ Jeffery