enjoying the sunny outdoors!




this is what happens when you try to take pix of a 3 1/2 mo olds feet!




finally!

Nude art, is it just art?

I posted recently that we went to the art museum and that I was tired of seeing all the nude paintings. One friend said it's just art depicting the beauty of the human body. I agree 100% that the human body is beautiful and by no means do I get embarrassed or whatever with nudity, I see it all the time at work and it's no big deal to me. However, the human body is also sacred. As Nate and I were discussing this issue last night he brought up a good point: we know that sexual sin has been around since the beginning of time and do we really need to guess whether or not that included lusting after the body? Today we have magazines, internet and television rampant with pornography. In centuries past they didn't have these mediums but are we really to assume that pornography wasn't an issue then? No. So, I agree that painting the human body can be a work of art and I have been impressed with many paintings of the human form. However, I don't agree that all nude paintings are art. I think that many of the nude paintings throughout time have been pornography of the time. What was the artists purpose, desire with the outcome? I doubt every artist had pure intentions when painting this theme, just like today. Now I'm not going to be hanging nude paintings in my home but I also don't intend to keep my kids from the art museum. I think this is just a personal choice for each family.

Phoenix Art Museum

Trent has been in town from Iraq and we wanted to see him one more time before he has to go back this next week, so we decided to go to the museum. I wanted to see the Ansel Adams exhibit (which we all decided we actually like his color photography more than his B&W photos, but he mostly did B&W). Once that completely bored my 3 younger siblings in the teenage years, we asked one of the workers if there was anything more interesting. She sent us to the contemporary section that housed the "weird stuff." And most of it was pretty darn weird. We had to ignore the multiple nude paintings (why do people think that's a good subject for art!), but found some pretty cool stuff.




these are all pieces of burnt wood








definitely qualifies as "weird"- nate thinks it's a naked mole rat on the ladies face

She's 3 months old

Ellie loves her tongue, loves sticking her hands as far in her mouth as she can and after she makes herself gag she'll stick them right back in. We're working on letting her cry herself to sleep. Some days are better than others. She must be having a growth spurt because she's been resorting back to her terrible sleep habits this past week and eating 2-3 ounces every 2 hours at night. And i think she has insomnia. Seriously, to the minute, for her naps she wakes up 45 minutes after falling asleep. Even when she takes her 2 hour nap in the mid afternoon, she'll still wake up at 45 minutes and then have to fall back asleep. What is with that? It's annoying. I'm also trying to get her out of her swing (though not during this growth spurt). I'll make her take at least 2 of her naps in her crib. i haven't quite worked up the nerve to put her in there at night. Maybe in a few weeks. I just love sleeping, so knowing that she'll probably not like the change is making me reluctant. Oh I'm such a bad influence on her habits.