Happy {Everything} to me!

Our time in New York is getting shorter and shorter, so I wanted to do something really special that would remind us of our life here. I have always thought that one of the coolest things about living here was being around so many immensely talented people. Our ward has first-class photographers, opera singers, musicians, and artists. I wanted to somehow capture that idea with whatever we decided to do.

At first I wanted to get family pictures taken, but after a practice run turned out disastrous (i.e. screaming baby, grumpy 3-year-old, no decent pictures) we opted for a different route. One of the women in our ward is a wonderful artist. She is particularly gifted at drawing and painting children. I thought it would be fun to have her do our boys' portraits. It was a little pricey (not for the amazing work she did, but for our student budget), so I told Jonathon it would be my Mother's Day, Birthday, and Anniversary present this year.

I am thrilled with how they turned out. They truly look like angel babies.

Now they are framed and hanging on the wall above the couch.

(Ignore the bad picture... the glare on the glass was bad, and they really are hung straight despite the strange angle of the camera :)

Mary Sauer is the artist, and she is truly amazing. Originally, we were only planning on getting the large one with both boys, but Mary surprised us with the individual drawings as well. We LOVE them! They were done using nupastels (similar to charcoal). These pictures don't even do justice to how beautiful they really are. You can see some of her other work at marysauer.blogspot.com.

*Note: all of the pictures were cropped slightly for a project we did for Mother's Day, but the originals are on Mary's blog.