The Ryan Family: March 2010

I was going through the closet in preparation for our move next weekend and I stumbled across my art portfolio and decided it was time for a trip down memory lane. Here is some of my artwork from the past. Enjoy!

I painted this pink flower for a friend

I painted this orange flower for another friend

This was a still life in a drawing class

This was a morphing project, I had to find and object and morph it into an animal

This was a charcoal still life, took a long time.

These were white objects, also done in charcoal.

This is a stippling still life project. Its made up of dots from a fine point Sharpie, this was by far the most time consuming of all my projects from this class. I think I spent an estimated 39 hours or so on it. The basic outlines were pencil but all the shading was from staring at the still life.

It's time to start blogging again. A lot has happened since my last blog, ahem, in Oct 09! Wow, I need to get back into the blogging shape here! I will just catch y'all up :)

November- This was a stressful month. I lost my job as another result to the failing economy. Going through my last week was rough to say the least and I do believe that I saw the company's true colors in that time and was VERY happy to have left! So it was Goodbye Mpower Entertainment 8am-5pm M-F and Hello Stay at Home Mommy!

December- Within a couple weeks of leaving Mpower Johnny and I boarded our California bound plane for a LONG Christmas vacation. We would meet up with Daddy in a week after his semester ended. We spent the month visiting family and friends. We learned some hard lessons on that trip, one being that people and things change when you leave. The old saying "You can never go home" hit home for us on that trip. Though it was an emotionally hard trip we did enjoy those we had the time to see. We were all eager to be home but the January air was certainly not clear.

January- We had a busy month with the Homecoming of my brother from his year long tour in Iraq. The Army is reliable on absolutely no level so our plans were constantly changing as his arrival date kept changing. My sister-in-law Shannon came out to stay with us the first couple weeks of Jan in anticipation of Keith's arrival. In mid Jan Shannon and I hit the road early ahead of the family to pick up their car in San Antonio so that it was ready for their traveling when he came home. This was a LONG drive! We stayed in Kileen (this is where Fort Hood is). On our third day there it was official that he was in the US and on his way to us. The family met us in Kileen and all waited impatiently for the hours to pass by for his ceremony. It was an exciting time. We arrived at the field with a half our to spare and there were already so many waiting families there too. We set camp on a corner bleacher and waited for instructions. At close to 4:30 pm we heard someone say over the loud speaker, "The troops have landed in Kileen and are boarding the buses, 10 minutes!" Oh the nerves and emotions started flying, and so did the tears! Especially for mom, sob! They explained that when the word "Charge" was said, that meant we were to Charge our troops and find our soldier. So exciting! There were over 300 soldiers to be sure! There are pictures and video, it took forever to find him! Afterwards we met at a yummy oriental buffet restaurant and then proceeded the 5 hours to Paris, TX where we would all stay for the weekend. Dad was unable to brake away from work to be at the ceremony but he was waiting in Paris for us! We had a good weekend and then saw them all again in a few weeks for Tiffany's baby shower and Keith's Birthday celebration in Tulsa :)

February- This was also a busy month. I started having complications with this second pregnancy and was put on bed rest in late Jan. It wasn't until the end of Feb that they discovered the true problem and I was diagnosed with a Hematoma of the Gestational Sack. It just means that the sack isn't completely attached to the uterine wall at some place. Bed rest was lifted at the end of Feb, Thank God! Just in time to enjoy JBF and my brothers birthday at Dave & Busters! A week prior was my sisters shower and that was such a success and a lot of fun!

March- So far it has been an eventful month but a lot more calm. No more traveling until my sister goes into labor in early May, we'll see when little Nehemiah decides to make his grand entrance! I started 3 online 8-week courses, ruff but going good so far! John is still ruffing his 15 units as we approach Spring Break! Johnny is growing like a weed and recently broke a moller, poor kid! Can't wait for Spring and Summer and the arrival of our new addition!