My Art Class

Yeah! School is almost over and then, I have a month off while taking an online course and then, one more summer class before my first practicum in fall. I will be taking a full load of 4 classes plus 6 hours a week in an elementary school classroom plus continuing to work. Practicum 2 is next spring and then, student teaching will take place in the summer. Graduation and licensing will happen in fall of 2010! Here are some cool photos of projects we were taught to do in my Art for Elementary School Teachers...

This was our first assignment...Oragami. Mine is the purple one in the center. Pretty inticate.

Then, we had to do a mobile with the theme, "Changes over Time". Mine was based on energy. First, you have a lump of coal (construct. paper), then, a tube of oil (clear film case), an electric lightbulb (yellow balloon and tin foil), a wind mill (a cut soda can and stick), hydro-water power (waves on colored paper) and lastly, solar power (bottom of soda can for sun and tin foil over cardboard for solar panel). Ingenious!

We had to create and design a creature that doesn't exist and include a skeletal structure with all the working organs that couldn't be in the traditional shape or color of human organs.

Then, we had to make our animal creations into machines that actually worked to pump blood (fluid), lungs that pumped, liver and kidneys thayt filtered and a stomach that churned, etc.. out of complete random garbage!

This one was pretty cute.

We had to demonstrate how everything was supposed to work and by the time our presentations came along, half of our "machines" had fallen apart!

Here is my pride and joy...my working heart. Watch and see my ingenious design!

I learned to make string art and use construction paper to come up with ideas for decorating bullitain boards.

I came up with this idea to make a "stain glass painting" on tin foil (for that glassy look) using permanent markers. It turned out pretty cool.

This was one of my favorite projects. We had to write a story about the creation of the sun, draw a scene from our story and then, paint our drawing idea onto our paper mache masks. Mine turned out identical to what I drew. Pretty impressive.

My story was about a coyote, a halk and a scorpion who call upon a humming bird to chase a shooting star into the night and when they touched, the star would turn the moon into the sun, dividing night from day, drying up the rain and casting a rainbow over the land.

Maybe, I should turn my story and pictures into a childrens book.

This is my favorite piece! It is a black construction paper,razor blade hand cutout
picture laid over a sun crayon relief and water color background. Such a cool effect. The theme for mine was 'Love in China', as you can see the young man in the building looking across the bridge to his woman lover sitting beneath the mystical tree. So Pretty.

Easter Day

Easter Morning

Zoey woke up to her Easter basket and, of course, discovered her barking puppy first, which has become her new favorite toy and we have had to set time limits on how long the dog gets to bark for!

Here is a video clip of Zoey with her first Puppy.

She was a very happy little munchkin, so...

Mommy and Daddy decided to crawl back into bed for a while to sleep while she played. This is what we both woke up to find...

A complete disaster!

Toys everywhere, books pulled off thier shelves, play-doh in the rug, jewelry boxes dumped out, clothes dragged out of drawers, etc..

I ended up locking myself and Zoey in her room for a total of 45 minutes to clean up the whole mess. Yup, no more trusting that cute, happy, little innocent munchkin face.


Later, after Church

Brian's family arrived to celebrate Easter with us. We made Lazagna for dinner. Here is Nancy and Frieda, Zoey's G-ma 'n' Great G-ma.

This is Zoey with her "Papa", G-pa, showing her how to open her next Easter basket.

This is Daddy showing Zoey where to start looking for her eggs in our special indoor Easter egg hunt since it was dark outside by the time church let out.

Zoey really seemed to injoy finding eggs around the house, maybe we'll do it again next year.

"Look over there Zoey!"

"Ha ha, this is so much fun, Mama!"

Easter Egg Hunt Downstairs.

Easter Egg Hunt Upstairs.

"Just look at all the eggs I found!"

"You wont believe what my Mommy did! She stole all my little ponys and little Pet Shop toys and hid them all inside my eggs again just like last year! Except last year I didn't even notice but, this year I said, "Hey Mama, I have one that looks just like this one!" and Mama starting laughing! Then I opened another and another until I got suspicious and went looking in my Little pet shop drawer and guess what...it was empty! That was when Mama spilled the beans and told me the truth. Then, I laughed too. Oh, Silly Mama. Im a little smarty pants now, you can't fool me!"

"Mommy, The Guilty, Toy-Stealing, Easter Bunny Culprit"

(P.S. She loved the movies Mom, Thanks!)

Happy Easter Everyone!

Spring Time!

Spring time and Easter have finally arrived and with it warmer weather. I enjoyed redecorating for spring and getting to take my Fairy collection out of thier boxes for the first time since living in Seaside. Hope you are all well and enjoying this Easter holiday with those you Love. Jenn

A sneak peak at Easter...

This is the Easter Bunny loot I have hididng in the closet. Somehow, Zoey ended up with two baskets because one just wasn't big enough. Yeah, I know, spoiled rotton. I added a fairytopia video from Mom with a cute little fairy barbie doll in one and the other has...

...a real moving and barking puppy dog! She's going to love it! She is always pretending to be a puppy, licking us and trying to "walk" me around the house by the belt of my bathrobe!

"Prayer Changes Everything"

This last two months have been really hard on Brian and I. First, because of the economy, he was basically laid off from Office Depot as they simply didn't have enough work or pieces to be delivered. He has tried everything for 2 months to look for a new job, including warehouses, even becoming certified in driving a forklift, places for shipping and reciving like, Costco and even Sams Club and recently attended a job fair downtown where he put in over 25 resume's along with 2,000 other people. They say that we are one of the top city states for unemployement right now. He has put in for a job with the Plumbing and Pipe Fitters Union, the Army National Gaurd and even considered Border Control, where he would have to move to Texas for a year while I stayed behind to finish up school at UNLV. "No way", I told him. "You could get shot by the Mexican Mafia out there!" So, after much debate, waiting and worrying about bills and losing our house, which still may happen down the road in, say, six months or so, if we can't catch up, I was able to get a loan from school, which is what we are living on for the time being. SO...This week, three great things happened, 1. Brian decided he can become a taxi cab driver, has pased all the certification, testing and done the classes and should be able to start working by next week! Yeah! 2. Also, We, by chance, had the opportunity to attend and be introduced through a seminar on how to start an online business and so, Brian and I have become business partners and we are going downtown next week to have his independent contracting license modified and turned into a joint business license and then, we are going to start up a website selling baby items like, diaper bags, boppy pillows, accessories and even strollers, play pens and so forth. I am thinking of calling it BabyZen.com. 3. and finally, the most incredibly great news, Brian's parents found an ad in the newspaper and with Brian took Zoey in for a "showing" at a modeling and talent agency in town where she was immediately given a contract!! Can you believe it? My baby Zoey is going to be a little model moviestar! Brian's parents are going to pay the money for her photo shoot portfolio to get her started and the people at the agency say that if she were just to do one photo in a Walmart or Target Ad, even on the low end, they would pay her $400. Hello, college fund! I have been so busy with school and work lately and the idea of losing our house has been a deppressing priority on my mind but, Brian and I never lost hope, we never stopped paying our tithing, we stayed strong in our faith and we prayed for answers on how to help find work, how to make enough money to keep our house and how to stay together as a family throughout this economic crisis and I am here to tell you, we have recieved blessings for our faith.

Happy Valentines Day!

Happy Valentines Day to all our family and friends! Hope you enjoy this month with those you love and know how special you are to us. We are grateful to have one another, to be a family and to be in good health. The Valentine movie special this month is The Notebook. Watch it and appreciate your life and loved ones this time of year. Love to you all!

Eye of the Tiger

This is a painting that I did last year. It is a tiger done in oils that I made just from looking at a photo on the front of an Oregon Zoo brochure. I hope that when I am done with school, I will finally have the time to pursue this interest more often.

The Wishing Well

I made this wishing well from scratch last year for a friends wedding, for thier cards to go in. It is so cool. I even created a 'stone' stencil from plastic and used spray paint to make the rocks and then, a silver marker for the highlights. The roof is made out of card board and foam pages, cut and layered. I even hand glued all the ivy and white roses on myself and the little bucket and rope actually work. I have blue tissue paper in the well to serve as water.

When I am a teacher, I plan to use this in my classroom to give the kids coins for the wishing well which they will put in the bucket to recieve a prize from the well. They will love it!

Zoey's Booty Dance

Here is Zoey acting crazy!

Back to School

This is the University of Nevada, Las Vegas where I go to school. I played photographer one day and brought UNLV to life for you all to see... It is so beautiful in the fall.