Bundle of Joy!

Dear world! I'm writing to you from California this week where I've been spending the Thanksgiving Holiday with some of my best friends: The Raleighs! It's been an adventurous week to say the least! We've done some snorkeling, swimming, shopping, eating, cleaning, playing, Turkey-ing, Black Friday shopping (and grey Thursday as well) and spending time with the most beautiful bundles of joy that ever did exist! Aka, Morgan and Alyvia. If my future kids are half as cute as these adorable babes, I will be the happiest Mom in the world! In other words, all I'm trying to say is, they are adorable. Uh-Door-Uh-Bull. Nuff said. Take a look at this!

Morgan is just the most angelic beacon of cute-ness! She makes a toy out of eveything, and even when she's messy or mad, she can't help but be cute!

However, the best is when she is happy (usually as long as she has had her nap) and she just wants to curl up in your lap and cuddle with you! I've never had a baby so sweet climb up into my lap before and demand to be loved!

If she were my own child, I'd sure struggle with not being wrapped around her tiny finger. She's also so impressive, because despite not even being two years old, she has the most impressive vocabulary! She can say things like "keekow keekow" (or in other words "tickle, tickle") "shoes," "hurts," "I did it," "I want some," "drink," "ow," "buckows" for her seat belt buckle, and so many other words! Even when we just went swimming, she heard us saying goggles, and was repeating the word, pointing and asking for her own set of "goggows." She even goes and gets her own diapers when she needs to be changed! Man, this girl is a genius!
Then there is cute little Alyvia, whose fifth birthday will be coming up soon, too!  This young lady, though she has her moments of disobedience, is surprisingly well behaved. She helps her mommy unload the dishwasher. She clears off the table and sweeps the floor. She helps take care of Morgan and hardly even fights with her!

She loves to be picked up and spun around, which used to be an easy thing for me to do, but now that she is getting bigger... is starting to be a strain on my back. Even though she isn't the baby anymore, she is just beginning to blossom and grow every time I see her! She even swims by herself in the swimming pool, without even plugging her nose... (that's way more than I could do at the age of four!) Anyway, I just wanted to brag on these sweet little children.

Everytime I visit the Raleighs, I can't help but melt all over again every single day I'm with them! They are the sweetest children I've ever been "fake aunt" to and I just love to be around them! I wish I could do it every day!  Maybe someday I will have sweet little chidlers of my own. :)

Ice sculpting and Santa Clause!

So, Ben and Isaac and I decided to go check out the Riverwoods Mall this weekend. Partly we were there to see "Wreck-It Ralph," (which was an amazingly done movie in my opinion!) and partly because Peter Breinholdt was supposed to be singing there. Well, unfortunately we missed the singing. However, we DID run into something else that was rather amazing:

An ice sculpture!!

A life-size, fully carved ice sculpture!  I've only ever heard about these or seen them in the movies! Never have I seen such a big and beautiful one in real life before!  I couldn't get over how it just sat there, solidly, yet so slippery and wet to the touch. I had no idea they could sit out for so long and still maintain their beautiful shape! (Hmmm... maybe I will have some done for my wedding someday... wouldn't that be awesome?! Anyway, I just HAD to touch it and feel it's textures! It was so amazingly done!

Further along our walk through the Riverwoods, we ran into a few other ice sculptures as well: 

This bear was in front of the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory!

This cool Christmas Tree almost looks like a rocket ship!

Anyway, it was fun to be out and about, see Wreck-It Ralph, and spend some time with my friends. Oh and by the way, guess what else we saw:

 None other than the jolly old man himself!  Better start getting those letters to Santa ready for the mail!

Snowgirl Christmas Card

So my latest assignment in my Character Design class has been to design a Christmas card and place a character in some kind of setting. I'm not so sure how the setting part will work out (it doesn't have to be too complex, but can in fact be very simple), but here is my sketch for my little character I intend to use:

I've got her all colored up on photoshop already, but I'm not sure where I put the picture of that... so as soon as I find it I will add it too and update this post. However, it is still going to need some editing. My teacher mentioned that it looked more like a snowman than a girl and that maybe I should add some hair or something so you can tell what she/he/it is. That's a good point! I also need to stop reverting back to the anime faces I grew up trying to draw, as well as fix the funny blob on the back of her head that can be a little bit hard to read...(what is it?? It's supposed to be the ball... like on the end of Santa's pointy hat!)
Anyway, I'll update you a bit more when she is better, updated, and improved upon! Just thought I'd give you a sneak peak of the thumbnails. (Can I still call it a sneak peak, even if I'm no where near publishing it professionally? lol)

Mary Poppins!

I guess it's time to give a little update on my recent art stuff. Mostly I've just been doing things for the character design course I'm taking this semester. We've done a lot of very fun and helpful assignments so far including hand studies, head designs, silhouettes, stretch vs. squash, villians, hair, etc! It's probably been one of the most influential classes I've taken here at BYU and I fully accredit that to my amazing teacher Boston Madsen. She has only been graduated for a few years, but has been working for Avalanche part time as well as doing many other pieces of beautiful artwork of her own! I've fully been enjoying her class this semester and have been taking so much from it!  Do you remember the first assignment I posted back at the beginning of September?  Well, contrast that to my latest assignment: taking any live action movie character and designing her in our own character style. It was so amazing and fun to do this!  I chose to do Mary Poppins, and I am actually quite pleased with how the drawing turned out! Check it out!

 Isn't she cute?!  I decided to give her a more conventional way of flying. This way she can sit down and take a nap if she'd like, and also, now no one can see up her skirt as she floats down. In my imagination, the giant umbrella would shrink down to normal size the minute she set foot on land. If she can pull lamp shades out of a carpet bag and make toys go into their toyboxes by using magic (and not to mention fly) then why can't she have a magic umbrella that shrinks and expands when she needs it to? Now I've just got to figure out a way to color her and make her look realistic-like (in an illustrative-type way) I feel so proud and that my skills have certainly improved a lot over the last few weeks! I hope they continue to improve (especially since I'll be graduating soon and leaving all my professors and their helpful critiques behind.) :,(
Thank you, Boston, for all you've done to help me improve over the semester! The time you take to work with us individually has been so helpful and exactly what I've been needing. The time and effort you have put into making this class so great has been much appreciated!