Leaves at Christmas

On Christmas day, in between rainstorms, I went for a little walk and collected a few leaves.  I love the leaves of the sweet gum tree.  They are so bright in the fall.  Even though it is December there were still plenty around on the trees and on the ground.  One of my Christmas gifts was a set of quinacridone watercolors.  These paints are rich and vibrant pomegranate reds, golds, and copper colors.  It just screams autumn leaves.  As a gift to myself I spent a little time painting.  Here is what I came up with.  Not perfect, but not bad for a first attempt.

It's hard to get a good photo on a stormy day so here it is with and without digital fussing to brighten it up.  Either way, you get the idea.  It was a lot of fun.  It made me want to dig out some of my old photos of South East Utah to paint.  I'm sure I spent enough time hiking and biking in Moab to get a photo worth painting.

Christmas party party party

Here are (more than) a few pics of our Christmas fun.

 

School Christmas music programs.  Dad and I had to divide and conquer on this one.  Both schools had their programs at the same time.  I took the The preschool has some really cute songs.

 

Graham cracker gingerbread house/castle building.

Snow cake designing and constrution.  My Girl has been planning to bring a Christmas cake to our Christmas Eve party for weeks, but didn't come up with the final design until that morning.  I did my best, but I don't have the pans for a proper stacked cake.  Something was also funny about the royal icing I made.  It never really set up.  That may have been due to the extremely high humidity lately or a faulty recipe.  Most of the snowflakes crumbled, but I managed to save enough for the cake. 

 

Snow flakes made from the left over house icing.

Edible markers left over from Halloween made great marshmallow snowmen.

The snow cake with the malva pudding and stollen in the background.  That topped of the chioppino - crab feast.  Always delicious.

Here is my yard tub with the 3.5 inches of rain we got from Friday night to Sunday afternoon.  By Wednesday afternoon we were up to 4.75 inches.  Not exactly accurate, but any way to stack it, that's a lot of rain.

 

Buddy Boy modeling my nephew's top hat.  It isn't a costume really.  But my nephew's 13 so you can't really tell what he's thinking.  He wears it to school and and around town.  It's a lot of look on a gangly kid.

 

 

The kids got stuffed toys made by by other nephew, the 11 year old.  The kids named them Tuff-Tuff and Ding-Dong.  Very cute and much loved.

 

                                         

 

Spy gear night vision goggles came with the laser trip wire, which was carefully set up later that night to see if they could catch Santa.

Santa brought roller skates.

and Heroica Legos, which are apparently not carried in any store anywhere.  Thank heaven for Amazon resellers.

and carboard.  Really, it was on the list.

 

See.. Here's the list for the Good kid.

 

My wish list

Dora cup and dish set

Cinderella bike

cardboard

beachball

roller skate - Good kid.

My Girl got a RC car for Buddy Boy.  He quickly turned it into more spy gear.  I won't show you the movies.  It's fifteen minutes of shaky carpet and ankles.

 

So that wraps it up.  It was a great Christmas.

Christmas FHE or Sharing time

Christmas is past, but it isn't too late for a good mini-film.  At church we had a special Christmas sharing time just before Christmas.  We watched a 9 minute movie.

I asked the kids a few questions before the movie and told the kids to watch for the answers.  Then we talked about them and applied the answers to them.  Most of the kids are pretty familiar with the Nativity story by now, but hopefully this helped them to think about it in a new way.

Here is a summary of what we talked about.

Who did Mary go visit after the angel came to her?  Her cousin, Elizabeth.  How do you think Mary felt?  Our family can help us when we face new situations or we are worried.

Where were the shepherds when the angel appeared to them?  In the field watching over their flocks.  Christ is the good shepherd and we are his flock.  He watches over us.

How old was Jesus when the wise men came?  a young child, not a little baby.  The wise men had waited for the star and then traveled a long time to come see him.  Sometimes we have to wait for things and sometimes it takes a log time and a lot of work to find what we are looking for.  We can be patient and keep working.

Where did Joseph take Mary and Jesus?  Egypt.  Following the directions of Father in Heaven help keep us away from danger.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from our family to you!

New Job(s)

I wasn't really looking for a new job all that much, but now I have three.  Last summer when we were thinking we would need to mover I made a few inquiries about teaching jobs at a couple of local colleges, but state budgets being what they are I had no luck and I didn't think much more about it. 

A few weeks in to school we started a car pool with a neighbor whose kids go to the same school as ours.  A week or so later she got a full time job and was looking for after school care for her kids so I agreed to watch the kids one day a week.  They are good kids, but I didn't want to feel too tied down by it.  Job #1. 

In November I got an e-mail from a local community college.  Two of their instructors for Winter quarter quit.  Did I want a job?  Job #2.  I'll be teaching the introductory nutrition course similar to the one I've done in the past starting in January.  Classes start in January, but prep starts yesterday.  I haven't been in the classroom for seven years. 

Then at church the Bishop smilingly asks to talk to me and my husband.  Hmmm...  Job #3 Primary president.  I'll be in charge of the children's program for the ward for all the kids age 18 months to 11 years old.  We have about 120 kids which is a lot for our area.  The ward we share a building with has 15 kids.  My biggest challenge right now is finding teachers for all of the classes next year, a chorister to fill in during a maternity leave that starts in two weeks, and a pianist, and a couple of other spots to fill.  Any takers?

So, if the posts seem a little few and far between for awhile.  This is why.  I'm just trying to keep my head above water.

A little cozy sewing

In spite of what some may think it really does get cold here, especially at night when I forget to turn the heater back on because it's been off while I had the windows open on sunny afternoons.  So I made fuzzy pajamas for the kids.  They each got to choose their own fabric.  My Girl went with the ballerina slippers, Buddy Boy went with a dinosaur camo print.  I don't have a picture of the dinosaurs since Buddy Boy has been sleeping in them every time I've thought about it.  Here are the ballerina jammies.  My Girl refuses to believe that long sleeves are necessary.  I thought that this might convince her, but I was wrong.  She happily wears the bottoms with a t-shirt to bed.

She refuses to wear long sleeves most of the time, but I don't like the idea of her freezing so here we go, fuzzy vests.  I hope you appreciate the buttons.  We spent a good twenty minutes picking them out.  It was a tough decision for a very opinionated little girl and her mother.  She also has a vest that matches her pajamas.  Maybe I could get her to wear it to bed.  Maybe not.

This isn't cozy, but it was fun.  Buddy Boy's class mascot is the Lightning Lizards.  One Friday was dress-as-your-class-name day so we came up with this t-shirt.  Buddy Boy drew the design and I helped him put it on a shirt with freezer paper stenciling.  I really liked the skeleton inside the lizard.  It looks great and it glows in the dark.  What more could you ask for.

Happy Birthday

It's finally time for the much anticipated, long planned, eagerly awaited birthday party.  My Girl has been planning it for roughly 364 days, give or take a few days, with the excitement reaching a fevered crescendo this past week. 

Buddy Boy is glad it's finally over.

The day started with preschool where I came as the parent helper, My Girls got to bring snack, and sharing, AND have a birthday crown all in the same day.  She could hardly sleep the night before.  The snacks included cupcakes which were gluten free, vegan, with no peanuts or tree nuts.  No nuts, easy, gluten free, not so bad thanks to cake mixes, vegan, it's starting to get a bit tricky when the mix calls for three eggs.  They weren't the best cupcakes ever, but they had sprinkles on top and everyone got to eat one.  It must stink to always be the one who can't have what the other kids are getting even if it isn't that great.  Did kids my age have this many allergies and food things?  I don't remember it, but I was probably not paying attention.

After school was THE PARTY.  My Girl has been planning this party and changing her mind about it pretty constantly for the past eleven and a half months.  We went with a wintery snow theme, since snow is a novelty around here.  We started with snacks and stickering goodie bags.  We also colored snowman paperdolls.

 

 We followed with making it snow in the living room. It's amazing what you can do with cotton balls and a blanket.  We had a regular blizzard.

What do you do after it snows?  Build a snowman of course.

We followed up the snowman/girl building with a few rounds of Once There Was a Snowman.  This was a new song for a few of the kids, but they caught on quickly.

We had "snowy" cupcakes.  Hooray for whipped cream and marshmallows.  The "snow" got eaten, but the (non-gluten free non-vegan) cupcakes didn't get much notice.

We wrapped it up or really unwrapped it with pass the present, freeze dancing, and duck, duck, goose.

All of that in less than an hour and a half.  Whew!  Only 364 day until the next one.

Thanks for the photos GranDad!

Thankful

 

This is Nuc Nuc, our thankful turkey.  Monday night we wrote on his feathers things that we are thankful for.  For My Girl we had to explain the difference between things that we are thankful for and things we want for Christmas.  There were a few things that we expected such as family, home, nature, and Teddy Panda, and a few unexpected things as well such as cardboard, mud, and rubber.  I have many things to be thankful for.  Especially my family and friends.  Thanks to you.

New movie on Police Jones

 

There is a new movie on the Police Jones website, Revival of the Stranded.  It is the story of a group of adventurers stranded in the desert.  The adventurers explore a cave and use their robots to get crystals from a cave.  There is a pig living near the cave who falls in love with the girl and gives her the crystal.

 

P.S.  The video quality is much better than the original version thanks to the automatic YouTube anti-shaking fix.

Blue Jay feathers

A couple months ago we went camping.  We found some blue jay feathers in our campsite in the morning.  I really liked them for some reason.  I thought that they would look great in a very large scale painted on a scarf.  I've never painted feathers before so I started with pencil drawings.  These are close to life size, several inches long.

 

 

Then I got out the paints.  It took a few tries, but I got something that I like.  My first tries were too tight and didn't have enough variation in values.  I was trying to reproduce them too literally.  When I took a step back and loosened up a bit it was much better.  The painted feathers are much bigger, about 18 inches long.

The next step is to try it out on silk.  It's been fun.

Bendaroo stamps

Awhile ago we got a care package in the mail that included Bendaroos.  They look like slightly sticky waxy yarn or string that you can use to build things.  We've had fun with them, but I came up with a new use for them, DIY stamps.  You can shape the Bendaroos and stick them on to wooden building blocks, or anything flat, to make a stamp.  I got the idea after seeing stamps made from plasticine on Pinterest.  My Girl and I had a great little crafty time making stamps and stamping our pictures.

 

Birthdays have been on the brain lately.  Not just lately, more like ever since her last birthday, last December.  It's picked up a bit as her next birthday has gotten closer.  So she wanted to make a birthday cake, not just any cake, a multicolored picture with a cake, plate, candles and a flame.  She actually made four different stamps for the four colors and did a good job of carefully lining up the stamps just right.

My shapes were a little less complicated, but just as fun.

Cub Scout Coasties

Saturday we went with the Cub Scouts to visit the Coast Guard.  One of the Dads is a civilian Coast Guard employee otherwise I'm not sure how you get on base.  Our first stop was the air station near SFO where the search and rescue helicopters are stationed.  This air station has been here since 1941 and SFO, the huge airport grew up around it.  We had a great tour led by a lieutenant who co-pilots helicopters and the crew chief.

 

 

Buddy Boy was able to answer questions about how the helicopter worked.  I'm not sure where he learned that.  Mythbusters? Ruff Ruffman?  I don't remember ever talking about drag or vertical and horizontal stabilizers.

They certainly have a great view.

The kids had a lot of fun climbing in and around the helicopter and rescue basket.

 

Our next stop was the Coast Guard station on Yerba Buena Island.  You get there by taking an exit off the middle of the Bay Bridge between SF and Oakland.  The station has a great view of the Bay Bridge construction.  I'm glad we were there on a weekend.  It would be pretty noisy during construction.  I saw ear plug dispensers by the doors of one of the buildings.

 

We got to go aboard the Coast Guard cutter Pike.  It is an 87 foot cutter used to patrol the Bay.  The Captain and officer of the day were there to show us around.

Here's My Girl sitting watch. The kids were especially interested in seeing the "bedrooms" and the kitchen galley.  They loved the fact that there was a TV with video games in the mess area.

Luckily we were there in November instead of the summer so that we could get a warm sunny day.  The weather is just crazy that way. 

This island really has some great views of the city and the bridges of the bay.

SF and the Golden Gate bridge

 

SF and the Bay bridge

 

Overall, a really great day.