Sleep little Kaila

"Mommy, you know what? You know when I'm at school and I don't have anyone to play with I sometimes will sit like this in the swing (rocking slowly back and forth) and sing "Dorme Kailinha do meu coração ...". I'll sing it very softly, nobody can really hear me. I like it."

Dorme Kailinha is a lullaby that my mom would sing to her when she was only days, weeks old. I continued to sing it to her into her toddler years as I put her to bed. To this day, when Kaila is having a hard time falling asleep she will ask - Mommy, can you sing Dorme Kailinha? She will drift off to sleep within minutes...

What a sweet and special gift on Mother's Day.

May 08, 2011

Dr. Maya Angelou receives Presidential Medal of Freedom

K is Maya Angelou on a school production celebrating Black History Month. Her teacher sent home a whole page of lines to memorize... It opens with:

"Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave, I am the dream and the hope of the slave. I rise, I rise, I rise."

and closes with the words President Obama quoted as he presented Dr. Angelou with the Presidential Medal of Freedom a few days ago:

"History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again."

Dr. Maya Angelou - poet, author, educator, dancer, producer, actress, historian, film maker, civil rights activist.

Photo: Associated Press

100 Days of School

A challenge from Kaila's teacher...write 100 things you learned in the first 100 days of school! I'm helping Kaila with her project this weekend. She is looking back at the material from the past few months and wow, I can see so much change from when she started the school year. The handwriting, the spelling, the concepts taught - quite amazing how quickly kids can learn.

Fluttering

I love Kaila's drawing and color choices - working with soft pastels.

Angel

Oh what fun it is to play... we are closing 2010 with lots of laughter and happiness!

Scratch-off flakes

Kaila's holiday party at school was a blast today. Pizza, chicken nuggets, chips, veggies, fruits, a bite for everyone. The kids made a frame for their class picture and decorated scratch-off snowflakes! To finish it off they had a book exchange - it was truly fun day at school.

I was happy to visit and spend time with the class today.

Happiness

There is nothing like hearing your kids laugh spontaneously and worry-free. We had a great weekend!

Skating

Kaila found a new love last night - ice skating! She is all excited about going out to the rink again...

The Story of the Orchestra

On my shopping list for the kids - The Story of the Orchestra by Robert Lavine. The book discusses the history of orchestral music, famous composers and instruments of the orchestra. A CD accompanies the book with selected pieces paired to specific pages. Beautifully illustrated by Meredith Hamilton.

Owl

Schoolwork - connect the dots and color.

I love how Kaila colored her owl. The marker strokes on the wings and body follow the feathers, as does in the eyebrows. The yellow feathers on the feet give her drawing dimension. I also really liked the orange outline around the eyes and feet.

"Who, who... am I?"

The Nutcracker & Dreidels

A traditional Christmas ballet and a party for the kids to play dreidels - that started our holiday season this Saturday.

The kids attended their first Nutcracker performance. Kaila and Daniel were completely enchanted by the music, the dance and the story. The first act went by pretty quickly. The Christmas tree scenario was beautiful making the living room setting come to life. The children playing on stage added fast movement and interest. The Nutcracker becomes a prince after saving Clara from huge mice that invade her room. Intermission and act 2 begins. Clara and the Nutcracker Prince travel to the 'Kingdom of Sweets' and a series of dances begin - Arabian, Spanish, Chinese, Russian, ...and it went on as Daniel falls asleep in my arms 3/4 of the way through and Kaila starts to want to go home...at this point I shift Kaila's focus by asking her to watch the ballerinas' feet very closely to see their movement. That did it pretty well - a few minutes into it she says very quietly, "How can they do that without bars?!" And by 'that' she meant all the footwork and arm positions she started learning in ballet class. That exercise took us through the last 10 minutes of the performance and everyone was happy. The Sugar Plum Fairy and the Nutcracker Prince dance beautifully and as the celebration ends in the enchanted land, Clara finds herself back at home drifting off to sleep and Nutcracker salutes everyone goodnight.

A game of dreidels followed at a friends house. The kids played for pistachios and were treated at the end to making their own marshmallow dreidels decorated with pretzel sticks and raisins!

A fun afternoon for everyone.

Photo Credits (www.HoustonBallet.org)
Ballet: The Nutcracker
Dancers: Amy Fote and Nicholas Leschke
Photo by: Amitava Sarkar

Martha Stewart Punchers

Quick note cards are easy to make with edge punchers. I used a monarch butterfly figure and bubble punches for the kids' birthday "thank you bookmarks".

I just discovered while shopping this weekend the new "punch everywhere". The top and base separate allowing a punch to be made anywhere in the page, not just at the edges! There is a heart that will be really neat for Valentines and a set of stars that I fell in love with (and, of course, not to be found at the store!). Will check back in a couple of weeks...

The Butterfly Project

One and a half million innocent children lost their lives in the Holocaust. In an effort to remember them, Holocaust Museum Houston is collecting 1.5 million handmade butterflies to be setup in an exhibition scheduled for Spring 2013.

If you'd like to participate, create as many butterflies as you wish and send them to The Butterfly Project.

Better than chocolate

I love those moments just before Kaila falls asleep when she just has to share something that pops in her head. A couple of days ago she told me:

"Mommy, I love you more than I love chocolate..."

"I love you too, sweetheart", I replied and she drifted off to sleep.

First Day of School

Kaila loved the first day in her new school.

DIY light pens

Kaila drawing with "finger lights" (on July 31st).

Drawing with light! Neat tools - gotta try it!

LED Light Drawing Pens: Tools for drawing light doodles - More DIY How To Projects

Let's Draw

Kaila has been having fun with her Nintendo DS "Let's Draw". She decided that she wanted to keep some of her drawings and used the DS as a guide, but made her drawings on paper rather than on the screen. And, of course, she always draws herself as the spunky "teenager"...

At the beach

Hurricane Alex managed to agitate the Gulf of Mexico waters pretty well in early July. The beaches in Padre Island were covered in sargassum, an earth-brown seaweed. It was interesting to observe a whole micro-environment and habitat it creates. The sargassum provides a protective living space for shrimps, crabs and fish. All these small animals are camouflaged to blend in with the seaweed and they do it indeed.

The kids had a blast collecting some of these tiny animals. Their beach buckets became mini-aquariums. Kaila and I found a palm-size sargassumfish and as soon as we placed it in the bucket the shrimp went crazy. They all literally jumped out of the water, running for dear life, back to the beach, away from the fish. I guess sargassumfish think of shrimp as a delicious meal...and the shrimp know it.

We were happy to release the fish back in the ocean after identifying it (with the help of a Padre Island National Seashore park ranger). The shrimp took care of themselves.

Dear Diary

And here's a glimpse into Kaila's world through her Kindergarten free-writing journal. It was nice to learn that it provided her a stress-free outlet to express her ideas.

"Writing book. I like my writing book because I am by myself and nobody is saying, 'No, that is not how you write that.'"

"Planting. You need to give them water, sunshine and love."

The Blues...

Blueberries any one? We picked close to 20lbs of blueberries this morning! The kids had a blast - and my bucket was always the least full. Kaila and Daniel picked berries from the bushes and from my bucket... They had a big laugh seeing Daddy eat straight off the high branches like a giraffe.

It reminded us of our trip to Alaska a couple of years ago. The best part of our hikes, scenery aside, was picking wild blueberries and salmonberries along the way. One big difference, 60's and 70's F in the AK summer versus 80's and 90's F here in TX.

Oh, and Kaila did not "allow" me to take too many pictures. It degraded productivity. "Mommy, you're not picking your blueberries! You're just taking pictures!!!"

I'll have to try making some blueberry jam, blueberry cobbler, blueberry pancake...courtesy of http://www.moorheadsblueberryfarm.com/. I'm glad they supplied us with some yummy sounding recipes.