Website Is Up!

Please go to www.paintingsbymarissa.com to see Marissa's new website (you can click on the link at the right).

New Blog

This blog will be changing over to a website in the near future (so please come back to check it out) to showcase Marissa's designs and paintings. We're trying to get the website up before Marissa is in the spring issue of "Shawnee Magazine" later this month. The address will be www.paintingsbymarissa.com - please check it out toward the end of this month.

Also, the Shawnee Magazine issue with Marissa's article should be out next week in hard cover, but...is now available online! So if you go to www.sunflowerpub.com/magazines you can click on the Shawnee Magazine icon and turn to page 28 to see our little artist.

So, for those who actually like to see pictures of Marissa and our family just being a family...we have a new blog at www.lifefullofsparkles.blogspot.com. Please check it out and PLEASE join us as followers! I know a lot of people don't like to follow blogs, but if we see we have people following, we'll keep writing. So, if you're one of our followers, or someone who follows, but has never signed up, please do!!

Right now Marissa has a few paintings at "The Great Frame Up." Marissa will have an exhibit at "Hook Gallery" in Westport coming up this June (as soon as we know the opening night date, we'll post it to the new website). Marissa will also have a showing at "Homer's Coffee Shop" in August. We've also had interest from a couple of other galleries in The Crossroad's area, so keep checking back to this blog for the link to Marissa's new website and to see new paintings! As long as Marissa loves to paint and the doors for opportunity keep opening, we'll keep walking through...

The Latest

Marissa and I had fun in school last Friday. At the end of our session, we scheduled a new art project. Marissa picked a photo from a selection I'd pulled from a travel magazine and we pinned the photo up next to a blank canvas on her easel. Marissa painted the scene - a triple waterfall in Hawaii. Although the photo we took of her painting doesn't show as well as it looks, we think you can tell she did a fantastic job! She had so much fun, too, as she discovered she could paint from a photo. I told her next we'll go to the lake in the spring and she can paint from the shore. She's ready and excited!
Oh, one more thing...she also was great at using her creativity in the painting. Marissa added the pool of water at the end of the waterfalls, and she also added the flowering plants. Great eye!

In A Bird Mood

Marissa's latest work.

Yeah, we love her...Everything about her!

Marissa's Latest

We love Marissa's newest paintings...especially the last three posted (fish, flower field, and bonsai tree). We hope you enjoy them, too.

Paintings by Marissa...again

We've had so much interest in Marissa's pictures that I wanted to repost some of them for the people who look for them daily, so they don't have to scroll to find them. Our little painter has had to take some time off for the holidays and because her Nana had been very sick in the hospital and rehab center, but Marissa has been begging to paint again, so she'll be back in her "studio" soon to create more masterpieces!

A Really Long Time Ago

The other night we were doing our nightly Bible reading and Marissa was very thoughtful. After a pause she stated that Jesus must have made the world a really, really, really long time ago...like in the fifties. We cracked up. Okay, yes, the fifties were even before our time, but they really weren't that long ago. How she came up with that decade eludes us, but she did and she knows that it was a "really long time ago."

Merry Christmas to all!

Marissa's Disney Photos

Every so often I post pictures Marissa takes. Even though she decided not to take her camera, she still confiscated ours at times and took several photos. Here are a few...and you can see she got a little silly and mischevious at times.

Even Better With A Friend

Disneyworld is so fun...but even better with a friend! We joined Emily, one of the girls adopted at the same time as Marissa (her parents were in our travel group) at Disneyworld for a mini reunion. The girls are just one week apart in age and had fun together as they went from activity and rides and shows. I told Emily's mother that Emily had no idea what a joy it was for me to just sit with her. When you adopt with others, it's as if you all gave birth together. Even when you don't see the girls often, you have a special love for them and when you are together again, you just rejoice in that while you can. I loved seeing Emily again (hadn't seen her since she was nine months old) and I truly look so forward to seeing her again in the future!