Faux Gingerbread Structures & More

I can't really say "Our Week" these days, as it's been 10 days since my last post.  Everything feels out of routine lately.  Also, no pinnable image, as I decided it was more important to just get it posted than to have to do One More Thing.  

Remember last post's strange frozen experiment?  

That turned into racing the ice forms across the kitchen floor.  I didn't realize that she'd drawn skaters on the sticks before freezing them.  

And if you remember the costume in progress last week, here's the finished version, complete with crown and scroll.  I should have gotten a better picture of the scroll.  It's an 11x17" sheet of parchment colored construction paper from our people colors pack, with dowels taped on each end.  Katie wrote Psalm 100 on it.  

 

Last month, I went to Bath & Body Works to get Heather a birthday present, and I picked up a couple Christmas presents, as well.  Josiah had told me Miss M would be Christmas-ing with us, so I thought a little bag of smelly things would be a good gift for her.  Only later, he mentioned she hates B&BW, so maybe not.  This was my next attempt.  She still lives with her parents, but the two of them have been talking about moving in together.  It's a canister filled with kitchen towels, an oven mitt, can opener, flatware, measuring cups & spoons, and more.  

Seriously, Fee?  

She's stopped climbing the tree as much, so we threw a few more ornaments on it, but no one really cares enough to make much of an effort this year.  

The girls have put up a few hand made ones.  The chain thing was made by Hannah this week.  I think I showed the reindeer before, that's by Katie.  

Speaking of Katie, I walked her through making pizzas on naan.  

They were delicious!

There was a Christmas party for the kids on the last day of school before winter break.  I know this because it required an extra trip to the store for a beverage and a dessert, and I found myself wrapping small gifts for them to exchange at 11 pm the night before.  It was worth it however, because they hopped in the car afterwards, all sugared up and smiling, offering bouquets of Red Vines in their grubby little paws.  "They were getting rid of these, so we brought you some!"  

Jack played Jacob Marley in A Christmas Carol.  Generally, I'm not a fan of school productions, but this one was not horrible.  (Just to be clear, it wasn't great, either.)  

Katie played Grave Digger Two.  I'm reminded of the line in the movie Love Actually, "There was more than one lobster at the birth of Christ?"  Also, Grave Digger is the name of a monster truck we saw at the fair when the big kids were little, so that made for an interesting mental picture when she hopped in the car after school and said, "I'm going to be a Grave Digger in the play!"  

A few of the students offered impromptu entertainment after the show.  Hannah was one of them.  She's pretty good.  I'm very disappointed she has decided to give up lessons.  Her last lesson is Monday.  I'm hoping to make her teacher a card by then, but we'll see how it goes.  We gave her teacher a lovely bag of smelly things from B&BW for Christmas, but I think a goodbye card would be nice, too.  

Posed picture after the show, since my shots of the stage weren't great.  

Once upon a time, Jack (when he still went by Furby) asked me, "Mom?  How many mythical creatures can you name?"  I started off, "Unicorn, gryphon, children who listen, pegas--" and he interrupted me with, "Gryphons aren't mythical!"  It was a hilarious little moment, which I was reminded of when Josiah got his gryphon tattoo.  So when I saw these cookies, I thought to myself, "They need a Children Who Listen cookie in that assortment."

I was "on the ball" this year, and ordered a magical spinning singing happy birthday candle for Katie's September birthday in August.  And I put it Somewhere Safe.  When I ran across it while wrapping Christmas presents, I decided Paul would get to appreciate it for his December birthday.  Okay, so he's not impressed with it, but the kids were.  I don't have it all together.  I just sort of stagger from one crisis to the next some days.  Fortunately, it was a 3 pack, so I can forget about them for Jack's birthday and be unable to find them for Hannah's in April.  (Someone remind me, they're in the secret passage cupboards now.)  

Ran across a quote at the library that had me nodding.  

Although Grumman tried to claim this garland as his, I did take it to school, and over the course of the month, the students helped me with decorations for it.  

On a related note, we have a garland up at home (left over from the ones I framed the bulletin board with) and I found sparkling garland bits in a pile of cat gack.  :sigh:  

Isn't this a lovely Rainbow Fish craft??  After I crickey-ed up an ocean of fish heads and bodies and starfish... it totally didn't happen.  Between play practice and closing school early because the power went out, and other schedule hiccups, I'll have to stuff the pieces in my desk and hope I remember to pull them out next year.  Why can't we just do the craft in January?  Because the only Rainbow Fish book we have (that I was planning to read before doing the craft) is Merry Christmas Rainbow Fish.  :another sigh:  

The serger is working again!  Whew!  Since the girls' bathtub is out of commission right now, they've been bathing in my tub.  This has... provided us with some teachable moments, and a review of proper hygiene.  Along those lines, I made the girls some new washcloths, with flannel on one side and terry on the other.  

More evidence of forced crafting.  

Billy the box truck, by Katie.

This one... was kind of cheating.  One of the books we got was Sharpie Art.  One of the projects was to draw on a flowerpot.  Katie dredged up a flowerpot she painted at school a few years ago, added a little sharpie to the top border and called it a day.  

But then, Hannah sharpied on a rock, so...

I believe that's an ejection seat from an F-15.  But more importantly, it's the first picture I've seen of Bubba in months.  

Gingerbread housing occurred.

Jack's design motif seems to be "put as much candy as possible on a plate."

Miss M joined us this year.  She and Josiah have matching frosting on their cheeks.  They set out to make a Subway sandwich shop. 

My plate.  The tall tree is an ice cream cone covered in frosting and green sprinkles, with baby M&Ms as ornaments and a peanut M&M "star."  The bears in the back are sitting on Tootsie Roll "logs" listening to the bears on the path sing carols.  

There was an unfortunate axe murder at the front door of the cabin, but we managed to cover up most of the evidence.

Katie's house

This was really impressive.  M even sliced Mike & Ikes in half to make "sandwiches" on the counter.  

Josiah picked the yellow and green Nerds out of rainbow Nerds to make the roof sign.  

And I'm going to stop there.  Because this is getting really picture heavy!  Merry Christmas to all, and to all a quiet, "It's almost over and we can go back to normal soon."  

Goodbyes and More Goodbyes

I'm finding it difficult to make time to blog these days, but I do have things to share, so here goes.  

Remember last time I showed a splotchy watercolor page?  That turned into this:  

Super easy, yet beautiful, bookmarks.  

Liquid watercolor, pipettes, Crikey, and laminator.   I thought to myself, "Self, you could do this project with the second graders, it's so easy!"  Self should have laughed at me, knowing that I have them for only 30 minutes, and also planned to go over rules, book care, introductions, etc, *and* do checkout.  In 30 minutes.  So that was kind of a disaster.  But now I know.  Honestly, one of my favorite parts of teaching is how much I learn.  

I split the kids into two groups, thinking one group painting, one group selecting books and checking out, and then they'd switch.  Erm.  I underestimated how long things would take.  

(side note:  the paper towels under the pages were pretty when they dried and I couldn't bear to just toss them, so I'm using them when I clean Tuzi's cage, and they make me smile.)

But most of the students got to paint, and everyone eventually got a book, and all's well that ends well, right?  Their bookmarks turned out beautiful, and I was able to Crikey cut 2 bookmarks from most pages, so everyone will be getting a finished bookmark.  I'm going to try this project again this week with another class, and more realistic expectations for what else we can accomplish.  

Mid road trip potty stop.  

We went to Nevada for a funeral.  

It was nice having most of the family together, even though it was for a sucky reason.  Bri tried to make it, but their flight was cancelled.  Zach's got a new baby, so they elected not to travel.  But 7 out of 9 is really impressive for my crew, so I enjoyed that.  

Even just seeing them interact with each other warms my heart.  

Later, at the hotel, swimming happened.

And lounging.

And socializing.  

My Dad and step mom, beautiful examples of what I'd like to be more of.  

Katie got pretty brave in the pool with Jack and Eli.  Hannah wasn't having it, so she got out.  

Relatively new on the scene is Josiah's lady friend, Miss M.  I'm glad she was there to comfort him, as he was the closest to the deceased from our nuclear family.  

We drove through horrible smoke both ways.  This is daytime.  

As we started getting further from the fires and closer to home, you can see it got much brighter out.  

Sam was home with us for a few days before heading off on his next adventure, so he and the girls started watching Lord of the Rings together.  

Eli's visit came to an end.  Miss Adorable's family loves him, and they all went to Tahoe together and had other fun adventures.  I'm glad they had a nice time.  It's good to see him happy.  

Eli left on a Tuesday, 

and Sam left on Sunday, so my heart is a bit achy, and the house seems quiet and empty without my boys.  (Yes, even with 4 kids still at home.)

Warning light, eh, tire looks fine.  Next day, still on.  Paul put some air in it for me.  Next day, light was back on.  Meh, looks okay.  Next day...

Reading a book at Honda for over an hour, waiting for Matilda to get a new tire.  

Box of new books for the library.

Speaking of which, here it is again.  This arrangement seems to be working for the moment.  It's still very much a work in progress, of course, but we made it through week one okay.  I'm going to need more bookcases eventually.  

My classes have different numbers of students, but between table chairs, ottomans (ottomen? lol), the rug, and chairs requisitioned from the class next door, we make it work.  I do some rearranging between classes to accommodate various group sizes.  

I'm rocking my new Hello Kitty lunch bag.  Because I can.  The older kids would have rolled their eyes at me.  These last few stragglers seem to accept Mom's just a lil weird.  

I was having a rest when I heard a noise and opened my eyes to this.  Yikes!  Oh Grumman.  

Heading back to Shriners this week.  I wish the girls didn't have to miss school already, but Hannah needs to get that new leg going, and it's quite a process.  Katie's looking forward to a less conspicuous ankle.  

Sorry the formatting is a bit off this week.  Blogger put my photos in reverse order, which was a pain to semi-straighten out.  I figured posted but imperfect was better than not posting at all.