Catching up on non-trip happenings

Gah!  I got distracted and stopped blogging.  Again.  Let's see if I can do a photo dump and catch up a little.  

Presents for the grandkids from our road trip.  

The girls attended a week of Hand Camp again this summer.  

Such a blessing!  They had a great time, and it does my heart good to have them in an environment where limb differences are totally normal.  

They came home tired, of course.

Grumman, impersonating a normal cat.  He doesn't usually do boxes.  

Oh, those pinterest ideas.  Sigh.  

I thought I'd try one of those pretty melted crayon canvases.  I kept seeing them in my feed and thinking how easy it looked to get great results.  

It was set to be 106*, so I put it out before we went to church and left it alone all day.  

The result was... disappointing.  

Hannah designs weapons in her spare time.  Rolled paper and paper clips became nunchucks.  She was contemplating adding marbles inside the tubes to give them more weight.  

Grumman was fascinated.  

He's a pretty boy.  

I love my first bulletin board this school year.  We have lots of paper book covers, and it was fun to get to use them creatively.  

Fiona, hiding in the shelves.

First day of school!  

Is it a bad sign when you go in for an office "procedure" and they give you a stress ball to squeeze if you feel any "discomfort"?

Hannah needed a pet photo for the yearbook, and Grumman grudgingly obliged.  He really does like her.  They have a whole routine where they play after her bath, and he claws her wet hair.  

We're on a hard boiled egg kick here.  One batch, I forgot to crayon them while they were hot (when they crayon melts against the shell, leaving a vivid THIS IS HARD BOILED! warning to anyone reaching for eggs) and my later attempts were faint Asian character looking lines.  

Oh Fiona.  That's not your most flattering pose, sweetheart.  

I saw this bus while I was out, and it mentioned free student passes.  I looked it up, and it's a pretty cool program.  On demand, corner to corner (as opposed to door to door) service.  We got Hannah a free pass at the library.  I think it would be good for her to learn to navigate public transport, I just haven't figured out where to have her go yet.  

Katie fell.  I admire her toughness.  She's a trooper.  

Hey, look, we've hit September!  We're really rolling along now!  My 9/11 book display.  

I had my 4th grade class make book cats inspired by my bulletin board.  It was a fun project.  I left them up for a couple weeks as library decor before sending them home.  

Whew!  I'll break this here.  

Our Week With a New Addition

If I ever design a house, it will totally have stained glass book windows in the library.  Or literary theme stained glass windows.  Winnie the Pooh, Alice in Wonderland, Sandra Boynton's characters...  

We brought home so many books we had to use 2 cards.  

And make 2 piles.  

Hannah hasn't been able to wear regular pants in years.  I decided to try something.  I picked up a pair of clearance uniform pants, husky size, a couple sizes up from what she wears in other things, from the boys section at Target.  She tried them on and they fit around her prosthetic.  So we cinched up the elastic in the waist (a lot) and I marked where they'd need to be hemmed.  One side is noticeably shorter than the other, but they appear even when she wears them.  

See?  And there's her Year of the Rabbit shirt, too.  This opens up a whole new world for her, clothing wise, so I'm anticipating some more hemming in my future.  The downside is that Katie won't be able to wear her hand me downs.  Even if I removed the re-hemming, Katie's not at all "husky."

Me:  I'll just take a quick picture of the jammies I made for grandbaby Kasen...  

Grumman:  No.

Sigh.  

There we go.  Finished and mailed!  I have 3 more pairs cut out, but it may be a while before I finish those.  

Fortunately, Zach & Heather made a smaller version.  This is Nolan, who's brand new.  I don't like this business of being 2 time zones away from the grandkids.  

Some scrap-kins.  Napkins made from scraps.  Kitty calico reverses to gray flannel, floral reverses to purple flannel.  I have some more napkins cut out, too.  Bunnies, which will hopefully be done in time for Easter, and a Mulan print.  

Speaking of holidays, we've been enjoying Lunar New Year.  I'm never going to be the mom who whips up a traditional ethnic meal from scratch, but I can Trader Joe's like nobody's business.  

And I signed the school up for goodies from Panda Express.  Activity books, coupons, stickers.  This went over well with the kids.  

If you remember the paint project I showed the first half of last week, the finished project is the bunny lantern in the upper right corner.  I did this (over 2 weeks) with everybody from K-5th, and I think they turned out great.  All different, but pretty.  

The first week, the students painted with cosmetic sponges on the back side of the lantern printouts.  We let those dry, and then the next week, they cut the lanterns out, added a bunny for Year of the Rabbit, and used gold marker to write 2023, then added red yarn to hang them up.  

When I told Paul, "I Crikey-ed 50 bunnies this morning," he said I should have just Crikey-ed 2 and waited.  

Speaking of making things, I searched and searched for book theme conversation hearts online, but didn't really find what I wanted, so I made these on PicMonkey.  I laminated them so I can re-use them in the future.  

Sometimes when I have an extra bit of laminating pouch, I stick in a piece of scrapbook paper, or a chunk of map to make bookmarks.  This time, it was a piece of a destroyed copy of Are You My Mother? that I laminated for a bookmark.  I find it so amusing I have it taped to the book return crate for the time being.  The white pieces are blank laminated bits that were left over after cutting out my conversation hearts.  I think I'm going to let the 6th graders decorate them with Sharpies.  

Milestone visit for Hannah.  She gets to change to annual visits with the doctor at Shriners, instead of every 6 months.  

We're going through a lot of books these days.  I'm 22 books into the new year already.  I've noticed I read a lot more in winter than I do in warmer months.  

I'm currently 33% through this one.  Young Winston Churchill has just escaped from captivity and found himself alone in a hostile country.  I'm thinking this is a book I should have read before seeing the Churchill War Rooms in London.  His toy soldiers and other bits of memorabilia would have had more meaning for me with the back story.  

 

Pictures from Churchill War Rooms last summer

Oh Grumman.  

So... a while back, Grumman would occasionally bring me a sock.  Then he started bringing me the occasional kitchen towel.  One recent morning, I woke up to find he'd hauled ELEVEN bits & bobs up the stairs to my bedroom door.  Methinks he really wanted in.  

I can carry scissors for a whole class with one hand.  The talents I am gaining amaze me.  

February is Dental Health Month.  We got toothbrushes & paste from Colgate, and I added a printable book from Twinkl and made up little gift bags.  I wanted to put stickers in them, but I restrained myself for budgetary reasons.  

My not quite finished February bulletin board.  I'll be making the koalas with my 3rd graders next week.  I feel like this one will only be done for a couple weeks before I switch it out to St. Patrick's Day.  

Fortunately, it seems like time is moving faster now that we're back in schools and hitting all the crafty holidays.  I feel like CNY, Valentine's, St. Pat's, and Easter will see us through to Spring Break.  And, I heard that both Annaliese and Brianna plan to visit home (at different times) this year, so that gives me another something to look forward to.  

Our Getting Stuff Done Week

You know how you add stuff to an online cart, and then you don't actually complete the purchase?  

This skirt, along with several other things, was in my Amazon cart when the Queen died.  I decided I needed to order it.  I wore it to school the day I put out England & monarchy books.  

City library run

I opened another one of the boxes in the library and found Sunday school teacher materials from before I was born.  

Miss Hannah got her new leg!  Glad to be done with visits to Shriners for a little bit.  Each leg takes a minimum of 3 trips.  

See the sign?  The green & white one?  

When I was a kid, my dad would point out random buildings and say, "You see that restaurant?  I put trusses on that building."  My husband says things like, "I went on a medical aid there," or "I went to a room & contents fire there."  Well, it's finally happened.  The next generation.  Jack and I were out, and he said, "You see that sign?"  He's been working for a sign company ever since June, and he worked on that sign.  

Speaking of Jack, we did a bit of adulting this week.  He passed his online permit test, so we took in his documents (for Real ID) and got his actual permit.  

Unfortunately, the catalytic converter in Paul/Josiah's car was stolen in front of our house this week, so he doesn't get his first driving lesson until we pick that up from the shop, hopefully later today.  

As I was driving him to work and the girls to school this morning, he told me a joke he'd heard from his boss:  There's 3 kinds of drivers:  people who drive like me; idiots who drive too slow; and morons who drive too fast.  I laughed, but it really struck a nerve in me.  We talked about how we tend to see ourselves as the "normal" and anything outside our behavior as aberrant.  Maybe from our desire to reassure ourselves that we're okay.  Just my deep thoughts for the day.  Poor Jack just wanted to share a moment's amusement and got Philosophical Mom.  

We've been talking about monarchy around here, and coats of arms came up in conversation, so I traced a blank wooden shield (leftover from the old days) and had the girls design their own.  

Fiona recognizes a fellow feline, I guess.  

Old art projects that never made it into a post.  Hannah's fireworks, 

and Katie's ladybug drawing.

Katie's coat of arms is more what I had in mind.

In fact, in trying to explain my idea to them, I found myself thinking of what symbols I would put on my own coat of arms.  I might need to do this in the library.  I can think of two classes that might really get into it.  

I'll leave you with this amusing truth I ran across in the library.  It's hard to read, but the title is, "You Can't Sneeze With Your Eyes Open."