In Memoriam

This is dear Pico, beloved hamster of Hannah for almost two years. He died Sunday night of unknown, but natural, causes. He will be sorely missed by his surviving family.

Lanier took Hannah to Polly's Pets yesterday to get a new hamster. They came home with the tiniest creature! We think it's a girl, and Hannah named her Tuesday. Coincidentally, they got the hamster on a Tuesday. She's too quick to photograph just yet; hopefully after Hannah tames her I will get a few pictures. She's half the size of Pico and the exact same coloring.

These are the gorgeous flowers my sweet husband got me on Monday to soften the blow of my trip getting canceled and the death of poor Pico.

And here is a bird's eye view of my dining room table: it's looked like this for two weeks. I painted four bags last night for AOTL. I think they turned out nicely! See more photos below...

These are the big bookbags I've done. I have six (two are unpainted as of yet).

I really like the blue plant-like image. Each bag is painted on both sides.

Here's my favorite of the small bags so far. I really like how this one turned out.
Very tedious work, hand painting these.

And here are the four I did last night. I found some smaller book bags and thought, how cute for little girls like Sophie to use. Hannah and I thought it'd be good to put scriptures on them. Hannah supplied some of them. AND, Mom please tell BigMama that Hannah just finished reading her Bible all the way through! Congratulations, Squirt!

This one was taken from two paintings I have in my house that I did about three years ago. At our old house we had a kumquat tree growing in the front yard; our only bit of landscaping. One summer the tree was just loaded with fruit, so I did some sketches on napkins and then painted two canvases. They hang over my bed. This bag's my favorite.

On Monday Hannah had a choir performance at school AND a mission trip meeting. Despite her sore throat (and dead hamster) Hannah didn't want to miss either commitment. Here are photos I got of her in action:

Here is Hannah with Storm and BJ. They're all in choir and theatre together and all three are going to the Joseph Baldwin Academy for Young Scholars in July! Storm went last year but Hannah and BJ are going for the first time. It's a three-week long college program for top students at Truman State University. Hannah is thrilled to pieces to be going.

The entire Canyon Middle School Choir

Here's Hannah (far left) practicing a skit for her trip. Each girl is pretending to be enslaved, overloaded with the weight of sin.

Here, the boy playing Jesus comes along and "frees" each girl from the "chains" that link them all together.

They watch as Jesus takes on each girl's "weight." The load gets heavier and heavier.

Finally he "dies" on the Cross and each girl falls at his feet in worship.
It's a pretty powerful skit! The whole thing is acted out to music and is very well choreographed.

Well that's our week so far! More to come as we participate in Art on the Loop this Friday.
Cheers!