Extended Family Christmas Party

We had a fun family Christmas party on Thanksgiving weekend, with 4 generations attending. Only 2 of the third generation were unable to come: Mark's daughter, Kam and her husband Tony from Montana and our daughter, Caleen and and her family from Dallas.We had plenty of good food and renewing of friendships and a visit from Santa and Mrs. Clause.

More Paintings

Here are 3 more of my paintings. The top one is one I did for Adrianna and hangs above her fireplace. It looks great with the colors in her room! The next is a desert scene with a light dusting of snow clinging to the cliffs. I let Matt pick this one out for me to reproduce and it was HARD!. From then on, I pick what I want to paint. The bottom one I did for mom and dad and gave it to them for Christmas '07. It hangs above their mantle, too. I'm working on a landscape now that will be my last one for awhile; I'm going to try some portraiture. Depending on how they turn out, you may or may not see them in this space!!

The Twins' Blessing Day

Clay and Elise had their twins, Jaden Belle and Bryn Elise, blessed in Clay's parents' ward on Nov. 2nd. Four generations stood in the circle, with G.G. Heger, age 88 1/2 being the oldest. Both G'pas and of course Clay, plus other family members were also in the circle. After the meeting, everyone came to our house for hot soup, rolls and desserts. It was a good day and a day of family togetherness. In the pics, Matt is holding Jaden and Luke is holding Bryn. I can't tell them apart yet, but Elise always dresses Bryn in pink and Jaden in a darker shade of pink or another color. Elise started a method of telling the girls apart in the hospital with pink and teal nail polish: pink for Bryn and teal green for Jaden. Elise still paints their nails, which is a big help to me! For the blessing gowns, I was able to find tiny heart buttons in a soft pink and a teal green shade. You can just see the buttons down the fronts of their dresses.

G'ma and G'pa Heger

Here are two pics of "the folks". Batman and So-n-So Fett ( Molly's boys, Cohen, 2 and Hayden, 4) having lunch with their Greats. And having dinner at Red Lobster.

My Paintings

The upper left is my only seascape. The original artist is Aspevig, so when I sign it, I put "Debbie Costello after Aspevig" to give proper credit.This painting is for sale, with the discalimer that it is a copy of another's original, and that it was used for teaching purposes. Top right is for Luke for Christmas. Bottom left is my very first and Steve actually worked on it, too (I don't let him paint on my paintings anymore).The mountain colors are what took me so long to mix just right. The clouds I painted in honor of Dean, my brother, since he always had such a great view of them when he was a pilot. My first painting and the clouds are hanging in my house.

When I was at BYU, I was an art major. When I got married, I left my art on the back burner to raise our kids. I rediscovered my love for art 2 years ago when I started a class in oil painting. My teacher, Steve, has us paint from "scrap"-- a photo of a painting. He has to approve the painting; it has to have good composition, a strong center of interest etc. We are allowed to use only the primary colors: red, yellow, blue plus white to mix all of the colors in our painting. My first time, it took me 2 hours to get the right hue! Anyway, two years later, here are the results of some of my efforts.

Craig's Summer '08 Trip

Craig finally left on a road trip he's been talking about for years. He left on June 6 for the Great White North, pulling our 22' hi-lo trailer. No he didn't hunt or fish; it was strictly a sight-seeing/ wildlife spotting trip. An important obervation he made about the trip was that, being alone, he could live in the past present or future in his thoughts. When your with someone else, you tend to live only in the present. I thought that was pretty profound.

Debbie & Craig

O.K. So I am now an official blogger! Yeah! I don't know how exciting or interesting it will be. One of the main reasons I created it is to be a portfolio for my art work. I have given away 6 paintings to family with 2 more to be given at Christmas; I sold one and have 2 hanging in my onw home. I need to figure out how to down load the photos of the paintings. Thanks for visiting!!