Our Meet the Grandbaby Week

First up, proof that I finished the silly bulletin board I showed unfinshed last week.  

I used Crikey to cut the ornaments, and then I glued on printed book covers of various Christmas books we have in the library.  

Since I only needed about 10" of the second garland, I hung the rest on the stair rail at home to add a little festive touch.  This morning, I found it taken down by the cats, and then I found sparkly metallic cat hork later, so I guess that was a bad idea.   

Josiah and Miss M on Thanksgiving.  

Thanksgiving was a low key affair, and this was the only picture I took, lol.  Turkey was had.  Combs and shaving were optional.  

But the weekend after Thanksgiving, we got a whirlwind visit from Zach & Heather & Brayden & Kasen.  Kasen was asleep when they arrived, and it took a lot of self control to wait to get my hands on him, after already waiting over 4 months.  

There he is!

I know it's required by the grandmother code of conduct to think your grandkid is the best, but Kasen really is a happy, sweet, good-natured baby.  

You can even ask grandpa.  

So we visited, and we had lunch...

...then we played Snake Oil, and when Kasen started to almost make fuss noises, 

I did the Nai Nai bouncy sway thing for a bit.  

And he crashed out on me for over an hour.  :swoon: 

Then we had some dinner,  

Gave the tree a little pat, 

and all too soon, it was time to say goodbye for who knows how long.  :sigh:  

Fired up Crikey again this week, to make a star topper for my militree.  "Your what?"  

My militree (military tree).  It's got Air Force and Marine Corps and red & blue ornaments on it.  I've decided I want a bigger one next year.  I'll probably go 4', since my strand of red/white/blue lights isn't terribly long.  

The morning after putting it up, 3 ornaments were down, but the cats have pretty much let it be since then.  I think I've put one more ornament back on it since then.  

The girls each made a craft from a library book during Thanksgiving break.  They're now on the front room tree, which we have yet to decorate, because Fiona likes to climb it.  I feel like we really should give it a try, though.  

Josiah's phone died, too, so he bought his very first iPhone.  

While I was in Crikey mode, I started some ornaments.  They're not done yet.  The vellum (music notes) reacted poorly to the glue I used, so that one is trash, but I'm going to use scraps to test a couple different adhesives and see if I can find one that works better.  Paul suggested "Hodge Podge," so Mod Podge will now be called that forever.  Hobby Lobby didn't have piano or music note paper, or I would not have purchased the vellum.  I was trying to make an ornament for Hannah's piano teacher at school.  

I've talked about the website Art Projects For Kids lots of times, and shown the drawings Hannah & Katie have made from their directions.  I sprang for one of the murals, and used it with my students this week.  

Our Week with a Birthday

How is it October already?  School *just* started!  

Jack helped me take the cats to the local pet store on vaccine clinic day.  

Grumman was Not Having It.  As little Jack Jack used to say, "It froke him out."  

They both did okay, though, and we got Miss Fiona microchipped while we were at it.  

She was being very photogenic one day, so I snapped some pictures.  

Other times she just sort of sprawls.  

Having taken a dozen or so shots of Fiona, I look over and see Grumman watching.  

"Okay, Grumman, I'll take pictures of you, too.  Look at me.  Grumman."  

"Hey, Grumman!"  :kissy noises:  Nope.  

Not going to look at you.  :sigh:  Turkey.  

I've started making coloring pages to go along with the books I read aloud to the preschool-2nd grade classes.  It gives the first ones that check out something to do while they wait for the rest of the class to check out their books.  And I'm hoping it will help the parents see what the kids are getting from the library.  

Fire Safety Week is this week, so I pulled all the fire related books and put them on display.  Yes, the kids are absolutely allowed to check out display books.  In fact, I often go around after a class leaves and pull more books to put on the easels because the kids usually take the books where they can *see* the whole cover instead of just the spine.    

The bulletin board over my desk got an autumn upgrade.  

My October Notable Events bookcase.  As these get checked out, I'll replace them with autumn/pumpkin theme books.  In fact, I ordered a box of October books last month, and they shipped on 9/17, but they aren't here yet.  Grr.  Not happy about that.  But I'm hoping they come today, since they made it to California a few days ago.  

Someone had a birthday!  

Paul made her cake from scratch.  It was quite tasty.

Still not happy about the way they keep growing up.  Katie's birthdays always hit me a little harder than the other kids' because she's the baby.  I've never had the baby be so old before.  Every year, it's a little more letting go of parenting children.  Now it's mostly adults, with a couple teens and a tween.  

Speaking of adults...  Heather took time off after Kasen was born, then when she had to go back to work, Zach took time off.  The package I sent arrived safely, there's Kasen in the bib I Crikey-ed.  Now it's time for Zach Zach to go back to work, and Kasen is off to daycare.  

I'm a little sad, wishing I was close enough to offer to watch him.  'Cuz he looks like a cool lil dude that I'd enjoy hanging out with.  

Ugh.  Fuel prices are crazy.  

Milestone for Matilda!  She hit 10,000 miles on this morning's school run.  Took over 17 months, so that's one upside to the pandemic.  She definitely still feels like a new car.  

Starting to Feel Like Autumn

We had our first day where the high temp was less than 80*.  I pulled down one of Hannah's new autumn outfits, and snapped a couple pictures.  

As Hannah has gotten bigger, I've been struggling with what she can wear.  

See, she has kind of a jumble of bones where most people have a thigh bone that points down.  This causes her prosthetic to be really bulgy at the top.  She can wear stretchy leggings, but she can't wear regular pants at all.  (I used to have her wear jeans from the boys department, and now even those aren't loose enough to accommodate her needs.)  

Now she's in that awkward stage where kid sizes are too small and adult sizes are too big.  It's been a challenge.  I was really sad when she outgrew a couple of my favorite brands.  But then I discovered some of them do adult sizes.  Like mother-daughter matching type stuff.  So, this gorgeous sunflower tunic that's close to perfect for Hannah is actually an XS adult top.  Having discovered a good fit for her, I'll be snagging some more of these the next time they pop up on Zulily.  

Up to more craziness in the school room.   

Those are toilet paper tubes, cut in half, and painted with tempera paint.

And a very stealthy proof of life photo of Jack, who hasn't been seen much on the blog recently.  

In-progress pictures

One of my classes has been learning about insect with their teacher, so I thought we'd do a bug craft in the library.  I put out the painted tubes, googley eyes, sticker eyes, pipe cleaners, scissors, black washi tape, black paint daubers, coffee filters, white glue, glue sticks, and tissue paper.  

I showed the kids 3 examples of bugs I'd made.  (There's a purple tube body under those coffee filter wings, even though you can't see it.)

But I told them they could do whatever they wanted.  They were actually super creative, and I feel like the craft was a success.  

Especially if the mess they left behind is any indication.  

Here's one of the K/1 class, student-completed puppy & bus pictures.  I like the idea of tying the book and craft together--although we don't have time to read the story, do the craft, and have checkout, all in the same visit.  

So it was story & checkout one visit; checkout & paint puppies one visit; and finally, cut out bus and glue puppy & bus to larger paper the third visit.  We reviewed the story at visits 2 & 3.  I'm hoping they can use the picture to tell their grown ups what happened in the story.  

The day I handed back their completed (and dry!) bus projects, we read a lion book.  

I've been cutting yarn during my TV time.  We'll be making lions next week, if all goes well.

I was outside and turned around to find Fiona watching me.  

We've dwindled down to a single library book being picked up from the city library.  Hannah needed this one for school.  Jack's class is currently reading Fahrenheit 451, and Katie's class is reading The Hobbit.  

This was a craft book project that Katie completed a couple weeks ago.  

"Mom?  Can you take a picture of this so I can throw it away?"  Okay then.  

Josiah was house sitting recently, and I think Fiona missed him.  He's her favorite.  

 She's a pretty little cat.  

The library white board is magnetic.  I took the Magnatiles to school and let the high schoolers play with them as one of the "stations" I did this week.  There were also a couple games, origami book & paper, and... 

The Thumbprint Drawing Book, which I set out with a stamp pad and some paper.  Some students produced drawings like this, similar to the ideas in the book, or even followed the book's tutorials to create exact copies of the examples shown.  

And one student went a bit further.  This was completely created from inkpad, fingerprints, and a black marker.  Obviously I'll be needing to provide more time for artsy expression.  

I had to fire up Crikey to cut out a bazillion yellow circles for lion faces, so I pulled out a few baby things I had socked away for Kasen.  

I Crikey-ed up a couple bibs and an orange sleeper.  

The color on this is horrible, that's red on royal blue.  I used a heart for the period.  

And this is where I struggled.  The longest word is 2.6".  Weeding this was a challenge to my eyesight.  Pulling off everything *except* the words from the fronting (like backing, only on the front) when my Crikey's knife is getting dull...  Tiny green on green not quite cut madness.  I'm really happy it turned out well, and I'm making a mental note not to attempt anything that little again.  

Snagged during a recent FaceTime.  Lil guy is adorable, and the big guy is smitten, which I think is adorable, too.  

I put out bookmarks for the students to take during checkout for all the classes from 3rd grade up.  Which means we go through a lot of bookmarks.  So I've been scouring the 'net for free ones.  Sometimes government websites have them in the teaching resources.  I also put out a request in a Facebook group for authors, publishers, and book reviewers, and that's where this pile came from.  NASA has some great printable ones, but my new printer is lousy, and printed them with stripes that shouldn't be there.  

Oh, the sacrifices my kids have made for this library!  Kellogg's is doing a promotion giving away free books with the purchase of specially marked packages.  So my kids are eating Froot Loops and other random Kellogg's products to do their part.  

Miss Fiona climbed right into my lap one day.  

I thought I had killed the plant Sam gave me for Mother's Day.  I'm terrible about killing plants.  But I started watering it regularly, and it came back.  I'm so happy to see it blooming again!  

Jack Jack participated in a charity shoot yesterday.  He had a great time, which made me happy for him.  

I zapped Zach some Amazon money for his birthday, and he sent me a picture of the hat he used it on.  With a little Kasen love thrown in on the side.  

Whew!  That's all for this week.  We're heading back to Shriners next week, hoping for big progress on Hannah's new leg, and maybe an ankle cover for Katie.