Ian is here!

Ian Lawrence Reyes was born November 1, 2009 at 9:28 am. He weighed 7 lbs, 11 oz, and was 19 3/4 inches long.
Labor and delivery went much faster than it did with Esther, and our doula and midwife were awesome (and Ricky, too!). Our hospital was awesome as well and respected all of our birth plan wishes with no problems. Even the mom/baby rooms were comfy and the nurses were all super nice. In short, it was a really good experience. (I'm glad all that's over with, though--and I am VERY happy to no longer be pregnant. I have ankles again!).

So our little man was born on a gorgeous, sunny, and WARM November morning--what a great welcome to the world! He's been a peach of a baby: he's been a regular eating machine from the get-go, is only fussy when he's wet or just about to fall asleep, and spends these wonderful, long moments just staring at you like you're the coolest, most amazing thing he's ever seen. It does wonders for the ego, let me tell you!


Esther has been really fantastic--she's excited about picking out his clothes for the day and getting to hold him and giving him little kisses and stuff. She's been a great help.

Pillows and Other Stuff

I finished the pillows for the rocker last week and Ricky did some clever Ricky-esque modifications to the rocker's back to make it more upright. It's great for reclining as it was, but I needed a straighter back for nursing and such. Plus it can be returned to its original state with no trouble at all! He's got this knack for finding brilliantly simple solutions to things; solutions that would never have occurred to me. Mine tend to be much more elaborate and unnecessarily complicated.



Ricky built some new work tables for his shop and Esther helped paint them. Ricky was honestly surprised, I think, that her help was actually helpful and really sped up the painting process. She's an awesome kid. And she's a total daddy's girl.


We had our 8th anniversary on the 20th (I can't believe we've been married that long--it's wild). We kept it low-key, as is usual for us--a good dinner out makes us as happy as clams!

And today is my last day at work! (Well, til January, anyway) Baby stuff is going fine--I'm on autopilot at 38 weeks. Hopefully this little guy will hold out til his due date and I can cram some painting in before he's born. I think it's funny that my nesting instinct includes feverishly and frantically making art, like I'm never going to paint again (like THAT'S gonna happen!).

Oooh! Almost forgot--I'm having my last Etsy shop update (for a while) this Friday (um, tomorrow) the 23rd at 2pm central time. I'll have some original watercolor aceo's and one original oil aceo. Here's a pic of the oil painting (on illustration board):

Not the best photo ever, but at least you get the idea...

Yup, Still Pregnant

I'm at that point in this pregnancy where people I haven't seen in the last few months say things like: "Wow! You're STILL pregnant?"

I know, I know--when you've been looking like a beached whale for the last four months, it's hard not to snap a little. And those folks mean well, I understand that. I'm just over it. Not exactly ready to have this kiddo, but definitely tired of being pregnant. Three weeks to go!

The weather's turned cold over the last week, and this morning we actually turned the heat on. I held out as long as I could, but when the thermostat shows the inside temperature to be in the 50s, I think that's hard-core enough.

My mom got me a killer rocking chair from Ikea--it's the Lillberg. It's a great chair for curling up in--very deep. It's hard to see that in this picture.

I'm making up some pillows this week for it with these Amy Butler fabrics. I'll have to post pics when it's all done. The chair's sitting opposite our large pink painting, so I wanted fabric that would pick up the pink as well as the green walls and curtains.

Minky Blankets

During one of my frequent insane nesting fits I made a couple of baby blankets using this tutorial.


This is the bigger one, for playing on the floor and/or crib use for when the baby gets older. I used this fabulous octopus fabric designed by Heather Ross and some soft brown Minky plushy fabric. (This stuff is so incredibly soft--it's really wonderful).




And this one is much smaller, for the car or stroller or whatever. I used bright green Minky with little raised dots all over it and Juicy Jungle fabric on the other side.



Hmmm. They need to be ironed, too. But who has time to iron? That stuff's no fun, anyway!

It's Me Again

Yeah, I've been busy. Work at the auction house has been crazy-busy and will continue to be so until December. Extra hours at work are not a bad thing. Hopefully I can continue working up until the last week or so before the baby's due. I managed to do that with Esther, and so far things in this pregnancy are totally fine, so...

Keep y'all's fingers crossed! I'm going to need that extra scratch while I'm on maternity leave.

And I've been painting as much as I can on my days off, while Esther's in school. I've got a commissioned portrait that MUST be finished and shipped off by October 1st. It's totally kicking my butt. I don't know why I have such a hard time with commissioned pieces. They're the most difficult things to finish, and I'm almost never happy with the finished painting. Any of you folks out there have this problem?

Last weekend Ricky's car club, Los Punk Rods, had their car show at the Boulevard Drive-In. It was the 9th annual Greaserama show and was their biggest yet. It's always a lot of fun, and the cars are just amazing. I took a ton of photos--you can see most of 'em on my Flickr.

Here's a few pics just for grins:

Ricky's newest project, the Crack Pipe (it's a long but funny story), and his Triumph. He set up a booth there for The Anchor Motocycle Shop, selling t-shirts, chopper parts that he fabricated, and other stuff. He's got some shirts left if anyone's interested...

Vintage helmets Ricky had for sale.

A bee-you-tee-ful Galaxie for sale. Someday I will own one.

Studebaker Hawks have just the coolest body style--there were actually TWO at the show. You never see these things.

And this Chevy has been my show favorite for a few years now--the green metalflake is just incredible. Love this car.

So that's what we did last weekend. This weekend we'll be playing catch up. Our yard looks like a jungle and there's lots of other housework to do. Bleagh.

Oh! And we found a doula that we really, really like. So that's one more thing to cross off the to-do list!

Le Sigh...

We went to our good friends' house last night for dinner. Scott and Jessie are both fabulous painters and I always love poking my head into their respective studios to see what they're working on. They use wonderfully traditional (and super-luxe) materials and it fills me with longing...
They get this amazing Belgian linen by the roll--this stuff is so amazingly smooth and perfect! And heavy-duty custom-made stretchers, and all kinds of fancy paint and mediums.

I'm suffering from art supply-envy, totally! I just can't justify spending that much money on a piece before it's even started...

I'm discovering that as I get older, I get cheaper. It's not too bad, I guess. I mean, there's worse things to be, right?

New Paintings!

I just finished a couple of pieces for the Blue Gallery portrait show, which opens the first Friday in September. I had to hustle to get these done in time, and now I just have to let 'em dry and frame them. I hope I have frames that fit--I seriously do not want to have to go buy frames.

"A Tiny Prison"
Oil on canvas board, 14 x 18 inches.

"Myocastor Coypus"

Oil on canvas, 18 x 24 (just finished today!)

(It's the Latin name of the nutria, a large semi-aquatic rodent from South America that was introduced to Louisiana in the 1930's for possible fur farming. They became established in the wetlands along the Gulf coast and have caused a lot of damage, as they feed exclusively on wetland plants, damaging root systems and causing serious erosion in the process.)

We took Esther to see Ponyo earlier today. It was cute and visually pretty amazing (which is typical Miyazaki). It was no My Neighbor Totoro or Kiki's Delivery Service, but it was fun and Esther loved it. I'm just happy to see another of his films, especially since he's said before that he's done with film making. That makes me sad.

I'm at week 28, fat and sassy, and doing well. I'm ready for fall, definitely--I'm tired of the heat, even though it's been a really mild summer. I should be thankful it's not a typical midwest summer!

The baby's an active little bugger, moving a LOT. There's something kind of creepy about seeing things moving under your skin, like sea creatures breaking the ocean's surface, and then sinking before you can identify them. And I swear sometimes it feels like an octopus is in there--he's everywhere at once!