Ginger

We became an elf family this year!

Aside from sitting in a toy airplane on top of the fridge one day and sipping syrup on a kitchen counter on another, most days Ginger just returned from the North Pole to sit simply on a cabinet or table or shelf to be discovered there by Michael and Sophie in the morning and to do her scout elf duty.

On Friday, coincidentally on my last day of work before Christmas, Ginger left a note for Michael and Sophie at the top of the stairs saying that Santa knew they had been good and wished for her to do some tricks to make them laugh. After reading that note we found this:



On Saturday she left another note for the kids explaining that her favorite color is red (favorite colors are a big deal around here lately) and that she hoped their Cheerios would be extra cheery thanks to the milk she had prepared.





On Sunday she made a "snow" angel.  Although the kids did get a kick out of that, Sophie requested more red milk.



Perhaps in response to Sophie's request, last night Ginger left a note saying she would only be hanging around for a couple more days.  She also asked, "What color is the Grinch?  Go have some milk to see!"

The ornaments she strung are ones Michael and Sophie have been making over the last few weeks.  She must have overheard us talking about stringing them in the playroom doorway.



And that colored milk got a big laugh again.  Silly Ginger!

Tomorrow I bet she'll be in the Christmas tree so she can easily hitch a ride back to the North Pole with Santa.

I'm very glad that Ginger came to us.  We will definitely miss her and look forward to her return next year!

A glimpse of winter

Here's a quick glimpse into some Christmas and winter fun from this last week...



Last Saturday we picked out a tree in 20 degree weather and decorated it on Sunday.  This is the view from the landing upstairs.  Looking at it, especially from up there, fills me with joy, gratitude, and awe, so I think we picked a good one.

While we could (and surely will) put some living room furniture in that space as well, I'm really enjoying how functional it is empty.  Furniture would just get in the way of our "ice skating" in slippers.

On Wednesday evening we attended our 4th Christmas party at the kids' child care center.  Like last year, Sophie tried to sing in the two-song class concert and tried to muster up the nerve to sit with Santa, but once again both events led her to tears.  Another kid kept bumping her as they stood to sing, and her big smile and excited waves turned into flustered sobbing.  She spent the concert snuggling on my lap.  Later she walked right up and started to talk to Santa, but when he and Mike both leaned down to lift her onto the big guy's lap, she screamed in terror (for real...terrrrrror), her feet kicking in a blur as Mike carried her away.  She really tried!

Michael participated in the concert, but he was hidden a bit behind some taller kids, so the video isn't great.  He said he would sit with Santa after Sophie, but her reaction caused him to politely decline his turn.  The sweetie.

Sing it with me: Maybe next year.  However, Mike does have a work party this week and the kids know they can try again to talk to Santa there, so they're thinking about it.



Prior to the songs and Santa, we hung out in the kids' classroom for a bit.  I got there a little early and changed the kids into fancier clothes than the finger-paint and spaghetti stained gear I usually pick them up in, sitting in the same spot you see above to do so.  This is where the teachers sit for circle time, and within half a second of sitting there I had a dozen preschoolers around me showing off their sparkly shoes and tambourines and...that spot is asking for it.  When Mike arrived and offered to read "Sleeping Beauty" to Sophie in this spot, I almost warned him. Instead I enjoyed watching him get initiated as a preschool teacher.

This morning we welcomed the first big snow in our new house and finally put that little hill to the use we envisioned back in September.



Happy winter!

Buzz and Jessie

Way back in September I shared the plans for Michael and Sophie's Halloween costumes.  Since the forecast for tomorrow's trick-or-treating is not camera-friendly, I costumed up my buddies on this 50 degree afternoon and snapped some photos.

















These were all taken at our new house.  In most of the photos our property ends where the kids are standing.  More on that when we come up for air.  The whole packing-moving-unpacking ordeal has been kicking our butts!



Happy Halloween!

Pumpkin Fruit Cups

To keep them busy and out of the way, I'll be taking the kids to a Halloween party on our moving day next weekend.  Since spending any amount of time cooking in the next week is unlikely (I also have a desperately-needed hair appointment and parent-teacher conferences in the middle of all of this), I opted to bring this make-way-ahead option.

I spent Friday evening following the directions at Crab and Fish and am pleased with the final product. These are a combination of Dole pears, peaches, and mandarin oranges in 100% juice.  I'm not sure if this always is the case, but the expiration date on the peaches in all three packages was notably easier to remove with rubbing alcohol than the dates on the other fruits.  Although this whole project turned out to be much more time-consuming and expensive than pretty much any other dish-to-pass, doodling while catching up on shows in my jammies was probably a better choice for my sanity than baking something in the midst of moving.

I linked up here:

Buzz and Jessie Costumes

With our move likely taking place just a couple of weeks before Halloween, I thought I'd better get thinking about costumes in this calm before the packing/unpacking storm.  I suggested dog and cat or Woody and Jessie from Toy Story 2 to Michael and Sophie.  Sophie was all about both ideas, but Michael insisted on Buzz Lightyear instead.  Sophie will be Jessie.

After some eBay, Etsy, Pinterest, and Google Images exploration, here's what I came up with.

Buzz Lightyear

Buzz PJ top - I bought jammies similar to these on eBay, but he'll wear just the top for Halloween.
White sweatpants - They'll be warmer and look more like a costume than the PJ pants.
Winter boots - In a few weeks I'll do the yearly winter gear stock-up, aiming for white or grey boots for Michael with the costume in mind.  Buzz's toes are green, but I think this will work fine.
Inflatable wings -  Michael tried the wings on this morning and was thrilled!  Luckily he was cool about taking them off to be stored safely for over a month until our first Halloween event.

The Buzz costume parts are all re-wearable aside from the wings, and the whole thing requires no DIY, assembly only.

Jessie 

Red hat - A cowgirl's gotta have a hat.

White shirt with a yellow bandana - It's not exactly Jessie's look, but it will be cute and more functional later.  The shirt was only $6 from Old Navy and the bandana was $2.

Red boots - I didn't intend to go for boots, especially since they'll hardly be seen under the jeans and chaps, but red cowgirl boots were staring right at me when I went on the Old Navy site to get that white shirt.  They were on sale and look like this:

I'll do my best get $15 worth of use out of them, perhaps swapping out the jeans for a denim skirt and white tights for one of our Halloween events.  Knowing how much my girl loved her brown suede boots last year, I suspect they'll get additional wear.  With all of that in mind, I just couldn't resist the splurge.

Jeans and cow print chaps - This is the only DIY-ish part of the pair of costumes.  Here's what I've done:

I bought 1/2 yard of "dalmatian" fabric from JoAnn Etc. (already 30% off) with a 40% off coupon.  It came to just a few dollars, and there's a lot left over, which is good in case Sophie outgrows those jeans this month.

I just traced around the legs of the jeans Soph will wear, from the crotch to the bottom, adding a little "tab" at the outer ankles for fringe.

I cut the non-fringed sides and bottom with pinking shears (seemed cowgirly to me) and the top and fringe with regular ones.

I traced the edge of a big plate and cut to get the rounded top edges.  The straight lines looked too severe when Sophie had them on.



I may or may not sew some ribbon onto the backs of these to tie them onto Sophie's legs with.  Pinning with safety pins in between the two layers worked fine but really isn't a ton easier than whipping out the sewing machine for a few minutes.  We'll see.

Those are all the ingredients and major steps.  You'll have to check in next month to see the costumes in action!

"...and called it macaroni!"

Happy 4th of July!



We took in a local parade before heading to Mike's parents' house for dinner.

Easter 2013

Like last year and the year before we took Michael and Sophie to their child care center's Easter egg hunt event that includes an opportunity to sit with the Easter Bunny, crafts, snacks, and a small petting zoo.

The kids' interest in sitting on the bunny's lap has diminished more and more each year.  The best we could get this time around was a high-five for the bunny from Sophie which seemed much more like a defensive smack.



Michael and Sophie did really well with the egg hunt, though.  They both picked up a few eggs and kept their cool in the daunting crowd.



They enjoyed the animals, of course, but the turn-out was easily double what it has been in the past. It was hard enough just to get both kids a turn to pet each animal. Getting a picture from the other side without much interference was nearly impossible.



It was a sunny 50 degrees on Saturday morning, the warmest day we'll enjoy for a while.  Michael and Sophie enjoyed playing on the center's playground for a bit before we went to lunch with Grammie, Grandma, and Grandpa.



The Easter Bunny hooked the kids up with some favorites this year: A Thomas book and flashlight set, Dumbo DVD, and frog eyes for Michael, and a Ladybug Girl doll and book, Peter Pan DVD, and a butterfly headband for Soph.  They both also got the same Rice Krispy bunnies as last year (well, fresh ones) and colored eggs we dyed for the bunny on Friday.



Hunting for the baskets when the kids woke up will be a fun memory.  Michael matter-of-factly saying he didn't think the bunny came when we didn't find the baskets right away, and Sophie slowly pointing to the baskets on the kitchen chairs with a look of awe as she spotted them--kind of wish I'd taken a video, but the memory will do.  :)



Lazily watching Peter Pan, eating Rice Krispy treats, and blogging about Easter will be a pleasant memory as well.

Later today we'll head to Grammie and Grandpa's for Easter dinner!

To the tips of our toes

We also sent some valentines to the kids' grandparents this week.

Someday I'll get out the good camera again.

I'm not sure who got the most enjoyment out of these--the grandparents who received them, the kids who "made" them, or the mom and dad who got to hear the giggles while painting those footsies!

Despite looking pretty calm here, Michael's extreme ticklishness was a riot!

 

To avoid red footprints all over the house, we did the painting part of the project while Mike was home.  I put some plastic on the floor (a dollar store tablecloth bought for this kind of activity), set one of the kids' little chairs on it (important so their feet could reach the floor while seated comfortably and still), painted and stamped one foot several times on the several valentines (one for us to keep).  Mike then snatched that kid up to wash the red piggies in the sink while I got started on kid #2's first foot.  We repeated the process until all four feet had done their Valentine's Day duty.

 

It's too bad the grandparents thought these valentines were stupid and sent them back. 

 

Yeah, right.  ;)

2013 Valentines

You may recall last year's valentines.

I put the project to work again around Christmas, using up a bunch of our broken, naked crayons.  Sophie had a crayon peeling and breaking compulsion for a while there, and as annoying as all those crayon wrapper scraps had been, those stocking stuffers were done in no time!

This year I made separate valentines from both kids.  Michael will give silly straws to his friends tomorrow.

 

I bought the straws at the Dollar Tree (5 per package, I think), created labels in PowerPoint, and printed them on card stock.  They say, "Sip, sip, Hooray!  Happy Valentine's Day."  A few cuts with the paper cutter and a couple hole punches later, and there you have it.

Sophie will give out bubbles.

 

Sorry for the not-so-great photos from my phone.  Upgrading that thing has made me a tad lazy in the picture department.

 



The bubbles are from Michaels craft store.  The labels are stick-on address labels that I use for everything (Christmas cards, invitations, etc.).  You can get those at any office supply store, and the packages will direct you to templates available online.  Sophie's valentines say, "Your friendship blows me away.  Happy Valentine's Day!"   The label edges started to curl up off the round bubble bottles, but a strip of clear Scotch tape was the perfect width to make the fix quickly and neatly.
 



Valentine Kitchen

I'm usually not a fan of artificial flowers, but big fluffy ones do tend to turn my head.  I went with three white ones in turqouise glass vases, all from Michael's craft store, for our Valentine's kitchen table.  There aren't a lot of centerpiece options that wouldn't attract little hands (like candy) or kitty teeth (like real flowers).  Even this arrangement inspired Sophie and Michael to pull the flowers out and use them as umbrellas while waiting for dinner one night.  :-)  The napkin was a wedding shower gift that, along with its buddies, didn't get much use in our old green kitchen.  Now that our kitchen is gray with accents of blue, it's a fun addition, especially for Valentine's Day.

I couldn't resist the dual meaning of using X's and O's in the grid, suggesting a game of Tic-Tac-Toe as well as hugs and kisses.  The letters are also from Michael's with twine staple-gunned to the back.  The picture above shows how I taped the twine first to be sure the length worked with the hooks that were still up from the snowflakes.  It did take a couple of adjustments, so I'm glad I thought that one through.

Instead of going back to the mid-century album covers that I think of as the regular residents of this wall, I had the idea to get a few more albums of love songs for February. If garage sales were an option during a Michigan January, I might have upped the cheese factor, but for Ebay prices I had to resist Billy Ocean and Liberace and lean toward albums I would actually like to listen to.

On the other hand, if I was willing to increase the budget for this kind of thing and play the online auction game a little more, I might have worked even harder for Sid Vicous, Jimi Hendrix or a number of other decidedly cooler artists than Henry Mancini.  There's still admittedly a significant cheese factor with my taste accounted for, but what can I say?  Slow-dancing to Doris Day and scooting in circles around the table to Johnny Cash have become regular memory-making events around here, and it doesn't get cooler than that.

I was excited to mix the red and turquoise together for the holiday, a combination I love and even considered for the kids' room before giving in to the inevitablity of pink and baby blue elbowing their way in through blankets and toys and clothing.  I'm thinking of spreading more red around even after 2/14.  This heart is really the only detail that screams Valentine's Day.  That red napkin, at the very least, will likely stick around.