She Graduated!!

She did it.  Emily graduated from high school and is heading off to college in the fall. 

Emily waiting for her turn to get her diploma.

If you look close, you can see her right above the teacher's head.

 

She looks a bit happy to be graduating, doesn't she?  Ha Ha

Such a lovely young lady

 

With Dad

 

With Dad and stepmom Charmaine

Grandma and Papa

 

 Grandpa and Grandma

 

Grandpa grew a beard while working on his farm this winter.  He has never in his life had a beard until now.  Emily begged Grandpa not to shave off his winter beard until after her graduation pictures. 

 

She looks so much better than me.  Ha Ha

 

Heather, Emily and Megan -- right before Emily clunked their heads together.

 I was asking Megan to stop pouting and Pat snapped the picture.  The same thing happened at my nephew's graduation last year.  I need to stop talking during picture taking.

 

Emily and Ross (Roscoe)

He just got his mission call to Russia!

 

Mercedes, Emily and Ross

Mercedes graduated a week before Emily.  The world won't know what hit them. 

Annual Art Show

Heather had two pieces in the annual school art show this year. 

This is called a Zentangle.  She drew the picture of her dad in the middle, then drew all kinds of crazy patterns around the outside.  She based the drawing on a photograph of her dad and it looks JUST like the photo!

The other piece is a batik.  She used wax to protect parts of the picture of a peacock feather, then dyed the fabric.  When it dried, she took off the wax, put on more, dyed it a different color, and so on.  It is Heather's favorite project this year.

 

I am so proud of how hard she works on her projects.  Her dad and I tell her to put less detail in because she is always pushing the deadlines to finish, but I also love the part of her that refuses to settle for less than her abilities simply to make life easier on herself.

 

Heather is also taking an art workshop later this month at a local art college where she will learn how to use computer programs to do her artwork.  She knows she wants to do something with art after college but doesn't know what field to go into.  This workshop will help her explore her options. Who knows?  Maybe one day she will display her art at her own art show!

Senior Photo Shoot

Emily is graduating from high school in a couple weeks.  My sister took Emily's senior pictures.  Below are my favorites (some of which Emily doesn't like but this isn't HER blog, is it?).  Ha Ha

This one is nice and is the one we used on her announcements.

 

My sister and I liked the duck in the background.

 

 

 

Running the Show

This spring Emily was busy with drama.  First, she was in the school musical, "Little Shop of Horrors."  She played one of the street urchins.

As a fourth year drama student she also directed a one-act play, "The Devil in Sherman Marsh."  She chose the play, cast it, and directed the first year students.  They performed the play a few weeks ago as part of a three-play performance.  Of the three, Emily's cast was the easiest to understand.  It was exciting for her and fun for us because one of Megan's best friends was in Emily's show.  She may not continue drama in college but she has sure had a fun four-year run in high school!

Published Author in the Family

Emily plans to major in creative writing / journalism in college next year.  Her goal is to "become an author," possibly writing fiction stories.

 

This year she took a journalism class in high school and had not one but two of her articles published in the student newspaper.  She was very excited that both of her projects were published.  We are so proud of her! 

Exceptional

About this time last year I posted about Heather's paper cut project.  Not only was her art included in the 2012 school art calendar, but she won recognition for the project at the school art show last spring. 

Heather was invited to skip sophomore art and go straight to junior art this year.  However, when it was time to submit an art project to the state fair, Heather chose her papercut.  Although the project was the most time-consuming of any project she has done, it is still her favorite.  The art teacher helped students prepare their projects for submission to the state fair.

Today, my niece Stephanie and her friend went to the state fair.  Heather asked them to go find her artwork.  Stephanie took a picture with her phone and sent it to us.

Heather won First Place and Exceptional Merit.  She is so excited she cannot focus on her homework now!  She posted this picture on Facebook and then sent an e-mail to our extended family and to teacher who have encouraged her. 

Heather's art teacher responded almost immediately.  She said, "Do you realize that not only did you win first place, but you earned BETTER than first?  The purple Exceptional Merit ribbon is very special indeed!"  

I am so proud of Heather!  Congratulations, sweetheart.

NHS Induction

Emily was recently inducted into the National Honor Society at her school.  

Every student invited a teacher to introduce them. Emily asked her theater teacher to do the honors.  After having Emily in his theater class, he probably knows her the best.  He said some wonderful things about her and I didn't think about writing them down.  Bad Mom moment.

Emily is growing into such an amazing young lady.  I am SO proud of her!

Art Show

Heather's high school held an Art Show a few weeks ago. Heather was REALLY excited because four of her projects from this year were displayed.

Everyone in the class had to replicate a picture from the book "The Z was Zapped." 

 Each letter of the alphabet had something happen to it. Heather's B was bitten.  This was done with just pencil and a blending stick. 

The students also replicated black-and-white ink drawings of animals.  One of Heather's favorite animals is the cheetah.

 This is my favorite project of the year.  You cannot really see it but most of this is just dots.

Heather's mandala on display 

She was  quite excited to see her art work on the walls at the show. 

This is her papercut project.

By the time she was done, she hated this project.  Ha Ha   It was a lot of work to cut out all the little pieces of hair.

Heather with her art teacher.

Heather and I had a great time walking through the art show and looking at all the projects students have done throughout the year.  There are some incredibly talented artists in her school.  And it was fun to see Heather get excited about seeing her work on display.  Good motivation for her to keep working hard!

Homecoming

The girls' high school celebrated homecoming this week.  My girls are really getting into high school football and the whole team spirit.  I think it is more fun now that Emily and Heather are both in high school.  They kind of feed off each other.

Friday was team spirit day at school. Everyone was encouraged to wear school colors and show their spirit.  Heather got up early Friday morning to paint herself up for day.  Emily was only there for the second half of the day, so she didn't go quite as crazy with the face paint.  However, she did put an inordinate amount of paint on Heather.  And Both girls had fun painting Megan up for the game that evening.  Megan even wanted to wear her paint all weekend, but I made her shower and wash it off.  (I know!  I am a party pooper.  Megan already told me.)

We went to the game with the girls' dad and one of Megan's friends.  It was a rare cool evening but that made it even more fun.  We won, 49-0.  That makes it kind of depressing for the other team, but our fans had a blast. 

Below are some pictures of the girls' war paint.  I used the "night scene" setting on some of the pictures and it blurred everything.  Sorry about that.

Heather's legs, outer side

Heather's legs, inner side

Heather's left arm

Heather's right arm

Heather

Emily's face paint

She was making funny faces while I was trying to take pictures!

Megan's arms

Megan's knuckles

Looking tough and ready for the game

She can't wait for high school!

All ready for the game

A rare moment of sisterly affection

Go Hawks!