A peek inside my sketch book

Today was one of those days where I should have brewed a pot of coffee.

Ethan was up early and I had stupidly stayed up late last night skipping around in blog land.

I was tired and cranky about the loads of housework to be done. Naps couldn't come soon enough.

We tried a few times over three hours and naps didn't happen.

Why is it when the mom is wiped the kids are wired?

So by mid afternoon the whole nap idea was ditched and I dug an old slurpee out of the freezer and slurped back some sugary goodness.

Ahhh, now I felt alive. Distractions were next so I could pull away and tend to the floors.

Kaitlyn found my box of markers and my sketchbook. She loves this book as much as I do and I suppose it is because we really share it.

So since I have nothing but mush on the brain tonight here is s sneak peek at a few pages.

I was sweating hot yesterday and tried some reverse phsycology on myself by drawing this chilly pic. It kinda worked, for like a minute.

Here are a few pages from our days out at the lake. Before bed Kaitlyn likes to do school work. What this means is that we go through one after another Pre-k books doing puzzles, learning letters and numbers. For some reason while at the cottage she wanted to put all the stickers from two books in my sketch book. This is the family she requested and then dressed.

The girl on the rt side is her...hoarding all the stuff.

The baby gets toast.

Then she wanted shape people to "match." Kaitlyn loves to match things no matter where or what it is.

Two weeks ago we ended up checking 8 doubles of books out of the library because they matched.

Now the fad of the last few days is her obsession with learning how to read.

I had no idea why a not yet three year old would even have any interest in reading but she is actually extremely frustrated when she looks at a book.

She declares, "Mom, I can't read these words, come teach me now."

I am just as frustrated. Doesn't learning the sounds of letters come first, or even  word recognition?

I have no idea and did not think I would be dealing with this for at least another year.

Not only that but Little miss 'I wanna grow up right this minute' has turned into a teenager in the mornings.

Waking her is like waking a bear.

She cracks one eyelid open, shrieks "I am still tired!" and pulls the covers over her head.

She then rolls around and moans and hides. This whole charade sometimes goes on for an hour before she finally comes out rubbing her eyes looking for breakfast.

Seriously if this is what three is going to be all about what the heck is 13 going to be like?!

Enough of a jaunt off there, back to 'my' sketch book.

Many pages are filled with ideas for paintings. Some of them make it to canvas and others wait. Maybe or maybe not, depends if the inspiration comes around at the right time.

Some of them are just an idea to start with and completely change as the painting evolves.

Some pages are filled with doodles to pass the coloring time with the kids.

Some pages are shared pages.

And some pages are completely taken over by the kids and in this case it looks like daddy made an entry in the form of a little man with a balloon and a few cars.

More ideas. You can see a few that have come to life in canvas and the others are still dying to get painted. The canvases are ready waiting for their moment. On the right was the inspiration for this tote of Kaitlyn's.

And that is all for the sneak peek. I might share more another day but I do want to keep a few ideas up my sleeves.

The rest of the day was actually quite smooth.

 As I was hauling up the vacuum  I thought I heard a still small voice. I usually think this is just me in my head but sometimes I think it is God. Don't know what it was this time because it backfired in the end but what it said was...." The long days with the kids may be rough sometimes. They may not nap when you need it but just think, when they go down early you will have more time to get done what you want."

Turns out they went down early but too early and Ethan was back up by 8 and raring to go till 11 pm.

We had a few minutes though so no complaints here.