Felting

I wish I had time to do all the little things that catch my eye here and there at the craft store. A few weeks ago, I spotted on a shelf Laurie Sharp's book "Wool Pets: Making 20 Figures with Wool Roving and a Barbed Needle" and had to page through it. She makes the cutest little felt animals. I hope to find a workshop in town where I can try felting, just for fun.

Click to look inside on Amazon - "Wool Pets".

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"...

Visiting the capital

We had a fun-packed weekend in Austin. Ate brunch at a great new restaurant La Condesa, went for a swim at Barton Springs Pool, took a "choo-choo" train ride around Zilker Park, visited the Texas State Capitol, took a day trip to Fredericksburg, bought a Tickle Monster book with mitts, had the most delicious peaches on a stand by the side of the road, tasted some good Texas wine at Becker Vineyards.

Half way home, we drove through a very severe front - a pretty loud thunderstorm and lots, lots of water coming down from the sky!

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."

Sweet Pears

Took some time away from the kids tonight to go to a painting class/BYO Wine party. Amazing how well most projects came out with only basic instructions.

We painted on canvas two "Sweet Pears" on a table top. I documented the 'evolution' of my painting, just for fun. The background for me was the most difficult, as you can see in the finished product... anyway, it was a fun Monday evening.

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.

Giggles

Just as Kaila was going to bed on Sunday she told me:
"Mommy, my favorite part of the day today was spending time with Eden. I like her and she likes me, too. I made her laugh :))
Just like Connor. He likes me a lot and I like him, too."

Both Eden and Connor are 1-year olds. Kaila just loves playing and spending time with the little ones. She loves to make them giggle!

NYC Public Library

Reading room and NYC & Hudson river valley map exhibit.

Desigual

I discovered Desigual this week in NYC. They had the most fun, colorful pieces. It was a treat to browse around a new clothing store.

Nigardsbreen

Norway is such a beautiful place. Arthur and Elizabeth from Poland just sent us their video from a walk in Nigardsbreen glacier in 2004! What a happy surprise. Thanks, guys!



Where the sun never sets...reindeer everywhere. Pretty neat!

Oil spill, still going...

For how much longer...

video of the spill by BP/AP

Tiger Swallowtail

A beautiful yellow tiger swallowtail greeted me this morning as I did a short warm up run before a yoga class today. This is only the second time I see one of these butterflies in my runs. I spotted on for the first time about 2 weeks ago - I was delighted to see the large yellow and black butterfly fluttering around. It was definitely a male since it did not have the blue on top of the wings, just a small patch on the underside.

The black swallowtails are quite common by the reservoir and sometimes I'll run by one that will follow along with me for a while. It always makes my day a bit brighter!

The black swallowtails are apparently very common in Ohio also.

Spill

Approximate oil locations from May 1, 2010 to May 5, 2010 including forecast for May 6 based on trajectories and overflight information. Produced May 5, 2010.

From NOAA's website - daily updates and forecast of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill:
http://deepwaterhorizon.noaa.gov

Hopefully the weather will hold steady and not hinder on-going cleanup efforts and efforts towards stopping the leak.