Lucky 13

Thirteen things I love about Mikay

1. She plays the oboe.

2. She's a "friend for babies," and she always has been.

3. She is sarcastic in a funny way.

4. Even though she has been sick most of this school year, she still managed to land herself on the honor roll.

4. She is happy.

5. She chooses her friends well.

6. Her smile.

7. Mikay genuinely cares about people.

8. She is dedicated - to her family, to her friends, to her schoolwork, and to God.

9. I can ground her for the rest of her life, and she doesn't mind (little does she know, I plan on enforcing that one because I never want her to leave!).

10. She is well-rounded.

11. She is kind.

12. She's my kid.

and

13. I get to be her mom.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY KAELA MISHARON!

(or Mikaela Sharon, whichever)

A Real Artist

So, my best friend from second grade only lived in Utah for one year. Her dad was here working; they were from New York. Her name was Annie. She and I bonded over identical Miss Piggy lunch boxes. It was some sort of sign.

Although we exchanged addresses and promised to write, we were, unfortunately, only eight-years-old (read: not very good at keeping in touch). Years later, after the Internet invaded our home, I would look her up online from time to time. But, I never found anything.

Enter Facebook.

Oh, so terrible in many ways, but for one thing I will forever be grateful. Through Facebook, I found Annie again. We've picked up our friendship as if time never elapsed.

Always creative, Annie has stayed true to her nature. She's a wonderful artist. Earlier this year she sent me a personalized piece. Can you believe that? Art made just for me? Like, about me?

It is personal in many ways. There is a picture of the lunchbox. There is a picture of my dog. There is the jacket to one of my all-time favorite books. There are pictures of the actors in my favorite shows and movies. There is a crochet monster and a sock monkey. I like to think, though I do not know for sure, that the two women in the bottom right corner represent her and me, out having a fabulous time in NYC. Someday...

Annie has also sent many things for my children, things they love. We decided to send her a package back. For it, Tessa painted some pictures. Tessa was really proud of her work, and asked if I thought Annie would like them. And if Annie did, maybe she'd declare Tessa a "real artist," just like herself.

change, it kills me.

so i was trying some new layouts. new fonts. new colors. the best i could do was a new pattern (which i really like, by the way) from the cutest blog on the block. i like to change that from time to time, but putting my links on the right-hand side of my blog? Ack! i don't think i could cope with that.

some other strange things? i hate, hate, hate to touch metal. i can only use certain pieces of flatware because (and i kid you not) some of them hurt my hands. or my brain. or both. i really don't like going to bed at night. i suffer from huge amounts of anxiety (topped the charts when i took the profile test thing) and it increases as the sun goes down. i'm left-handed but only for writing, eating, crocheting & knitting, everything else is done with my right hand. and finally the blog changes, this entry, are only lame attempts to stall bedtime.

blah.

a picture. birdie's birthday cake. it was good.

a few gifts

For some young friends of mine:

Bubble Gum, for a little girl who reminds me a lot of my girls when they were preschoolers.

Caramel Kitty II, for my nephew's birthday (brother of the nephew who received Buster II)

Dots, a birthday gift for my adorable niece who just turned one.

13 things I love about Birdie

1. She is one of the most intelligent people I know.

2. I've never once worried about her misbehaving at school.

3. The effort I've seen her making to have good relationships with her sisters & cousins.

4. She's very musically talented.

5. Her laugh.

6. That she is open with me about more than I was at that age.

7. How hard she works at school, especially this past year.

8. She is dependable.

9. Her long, long eyelashes (though sometimes it borders jealousy for me!)

10. Like her aunts, she's a fantastic writer, her 6th grade teacher would often read her pieces to the class.

11. She is a talented artist.

12. I get to be her mom.

13. She's my kid.

Happy 13th birthday, Girlie!

I miss having babies

chapter books

This is one of those happy/sad things for me. I have them often when Tessa starts something new and exciting. She has begun to read chapter books. And she's started with Charlotte's Web. Happy because, well, who doesn't want their kid to read? (super funny clip by Brian Regan: here) And sad because this is my baby. And she isn't much of one anymore.

But lest anyone be concerned, she began reading this book with motives that were not quite pure. It seems her teacher is reading it to the class and she, my darling, my baby, my Tessa, was merely interested in getting ahead of everyone else. Yep. That's my girl!

a valintim

"I love you so

much you shine

like the stars

I love you"

dinner

My kids won't eat chili, but they LOVE ham and beans.

beans, pre-soaking, pre-soup, pre-ham

a rag blanket christmas

This year I made several rag blankets (or nokies, if you are my friend Michelle). There was one for each of the girls and 3 others for 3 others (those ones I neglected to photograph). I had fabric for a blanket for Doug, but that didn't end up happening until the kids went back to school. I'll post a pic of it later.






Instead of our traditional Christmas eve jammie present, the girls opened the blankies and got to sleep under them while visions of sugar plums danced in their heads.

Maybe next year I'll feel brave enough to attempt sewing jammies!

da bense

my nephew. we call him da bense. i love him!

unicorn

I made a unicorn before Christmas for a little girl in Tessa's Sunday school class. She and her brother are so super adorable, I could squeeze them! Her brother reminds me of my Suzy when she was littler. He went to "big church" instead of Sunday school, with his parents and grandparents because he was always hitting the other kids in class. One of my friends I met at the library when Suz was a year and a half. Suzy bit her son on the back and drew blood through his shirt. I was horrified. Little Boy's mom was still nice to me and I decided I needed to do whatever it took to remain friends with someone like that!

The boy from church would watch me crocheting and was very interested in Silas. The next week I brought him a duckling I had previously made but for no purpose (his mom said he sleeps with it every night! Oh, my heart!). I asked his sister what her favorite animal was. Unicorn. Of course. She's five-years-old. And her favorite colors? Purple and pink.

Yummy!

Tessa. Eating cotton candy. At 10:30 Saturday morning. Yikes.

Yes, There is a Santa Claus

Yes, VIRGINIA, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist... Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus. It would be as dreary as if there were no VIRGINIAS...

Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies! ... Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that's no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world...

No Santa Claus! Thank God! he lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.

- Francis Pharcellus Church New York Sun 1897

finally getting to the fun stuff!

Getting in the car after school today, Megan, who is in seventh grade, said, “Mom! We finally did something fun in science today!”

I asked what that fun thing had been and her answer came in an excited rush, “We had the periodic table of elements and we looked at the abbreviations. We had to write the atomic number, what the letter stood for, like H was for hydrogen and we wrote down the weight. Then we figured out how many protons, neutrons and electrons there there are in each one. There were one two or three (graduated) rings. We had to draw how many electrons there were...”

It’s good to know that school isn’t all academics and the kids are getting some fun and games in as well.

a crafty slacker

Mikay on the 4th of July. We walked up to the park by my parent's house where she got dizzy from spinning too long on the merry go round - aka death trap. it's the same one we played on as children. I just closed my eyes and pretended not to see.

I've been a serious slacker in the crafty department. I've got a water bottle sling half way done for my sister. I've got a ladybug started, but couldn't get the head to work like I wanted so it's having a time out. I was very stressed about Mom's surgery (ps, she's home now) and I'm not even sure what I did all of last week. Now I'm just tired. I need someone to come crochet/knit with me. Someone to keep me company so I can get back into the groove. Anyone? Anyone?

anyone know what flower this is? We passed a couple houses with them out front along the way. I'd love to have them in my yard.

guilt

While Doug was out of town early this month I started what was supposed to be a quick and easy project. My second daughter, Mikay, has some white gloves with a shiny, fuzzy cuff. Tessa coveted the gloves very much and Mikay would never indulge her youngest sister and let her wear them to school (she likely wanted to show off for her 'boyfriend' Tyler).


So one day Tess and I went to Walmart (not my favorite store, but *sigh* I do buy a few things there from time to time) where we couldn't find any white fuzzy gloves but we did find white stretch gloves and some fake white fur. To make her gloves a little extra special, we also bought some gold edging to go along the tops (but it doesn't show in the picture).

I started the project expecting to finish quickly. But. The thread got a knot in it so, of course, I got mad, put it down and left it. Until today when the guilt of not finishing anything got the best of me. So I finished the gloves. And now I have a very happy little girl who can look super-fancy for Tyler and, a new favorite boy, Mario.

Duck the Halls

A Christmas Carol sung by Tessa

Duck the halls with holly jolly
la la la la la la la la la
Only with a pair of jammies
la la la la la la la la la

She tells me it's a song about everyone wearing only jammies all of the time, oh and always having a duck with you.

So from my little spot on the web, I wish you all a happy Christmas filled with nice things like ducks and jammies. I, personally, am most excited about the jammie part.

treat bags for classmates

It's the last week of school before Christmas break (or winter recess, as it is now known). The girls have been working on these little treat bags that will be filled with trick-or-treat sized candy bars and mini candy canes for the other children in their classes. I have 4 students and that equals a lot of tiny lunch sack style bags. This idea came thanks to Mrs. (Miss?) Moss' second grade class' bulletin board santas.

pie: an original recipe

From the play kitchen of Tessa

The other day she asked if she could dictate something to me while I wrote it down. Sure, I don't mind. We do this often. Usually it's one of her many books, though typically she simply wants me to spell roughly 9,000 words for her while she writes them down, sometimes her little five-year-old hand gets tired from so much writing and she asks me to write for her. This day it was a recipe. For pie. I will copy it here for you so that you, too, may recreate this masterpiece for yourselves:

PIE
3 c. dirt
2 c. water
4 c. grass
6 c. sun

Let sit in sun for six minutes. Serve.