Meet the Class of 2022

Thursday night we attended kindergarten orientation at Paradise Elementary School! I was feeling very emotional about the fact that my first baby is going to kindergraten next year, but after attending the meeting, I am now really excited! It's strange, because I've handed all these forms to parents numberous times and I know many of the staff members and have been to P.E.S. a ton, but it's all different sitting in the seat as a parent of an incoming student! James is registered and is #1 on the list of kindergartners for next year (there are a few perks to teaching in the district...). We are very hopeful that James & Charli will be in the same class, but we know they will at least be on the same schedule so I can take them to school together each morning and Kristin can pick them up after school. We are so excited to see James & Charli grow and learn as kindergratners at Paradise Elementary School!

Some Recent Art & More Block Buildings

Dr. Seuss was born March 2, 1904- happy almost-birthday! Kristin made these Cat-in-the-Hat feet with the kids at day care recently. James' foot is the big one shown first and Owen's is below

This dinosaur picture James drew is hanging in my craft room. Aren't these just the cutest dinos you've ever seen?It is a big, long picture, so I had to take two shots to get it all.

James has been drawing these bright, very detailed pictures lately. He calls them "A Wonderland" and each one has an elaborate story that goes with it. This is our family in our house with a deer (Elliot, from Open Season) outside and a gingerbreadman cloud in the sky.

Always the little architect, James has been a bit of an engineer lately too. His most recent block buildings have been pretty impressive as far as the planning he puts into them. Each building below took many tries before he could build the whole thing without it collapsing. We can't believe he comes up wtih these difficult designs and is able to make them stay up without falling!

Family Date Night: White-Trash Style

Bowling and McDonalds- a perfect family date night for a cold rainy night! Yeah, it's a little (ok, a lot) white trash, but we had a blast! Owen now has a new favorite sport. I have never seen someone get so excited about knocking one pin over. We're going to have to take this boy bowling more often!
Our little "kingpins"

Finishing the evening off with Happy Meals at McDonals was a treat for the boys. We rarely take them to fast food, but they loved every minute of it!

McNugget Love

The View From My Craft Spot

When we bought this house, one of the biggest selling-points for me were the window seats in the two smaller bedrooms. This was "way back" before we had kids, and even then I pictured scenes like this of our children sitting on and using the window seats. The seats are still one of my favorite features of our house, and this is why...
This morning Jason took the boys outside to play, so I thought I'd steal a few minutes to do some scrapbooking. I had my curtains open so I could watch the snow flying while I scrapped. When I looked out the window from my scrapbooking spot, this is what I saw:

I can't imagine a better view!

A Very Snowy Scene

I love the snow.

It's been raining and snowing off-and-on for three days now.

This morning it was a blizzard for a few hours

and I enjoyed every minute of it.

A Bag for my Friend

My friend DeAnna's birthday is this week. I saw some beautiful fabric on Jenni McCord's blog with a flower & dandilion pattern on it and it gave me the idea to make a tote for DeAnna. She is the owner & editor of Community Seeds and dandilions are kind of our "thing" so I couldn't resist. Every time DeAnna and I meet to work & visit, she is hauling tons of stuff- binders, notebooks, etc. I thought a binder-sized tote would be a great gift for her!

It was a good thought, but the project kind of went all wrong.

First, the fabric I wanted wasn't in stock, but they had something similar, so I got that. Then, I picked what I thought would be an easy pattern. It was mostly easy, but the handle didn't turn out like it was supposed to. Also, the interfacing I used wasn't stiff enough, so there's not enough structure to the bag.

Bummer!

I hate it when I work on a project for someone else and it doesn't turn out! If it's for me, no big deal, but I really wanted this to turn out nice!

I'm still going to give it to her because I think she'll like the fabric. She can use it as a beach tote or something.

I guess it's the thought that counts, right?

I also attempted to make a Klean Kanteen cozy for DeAnna to match her bag out of the scraps, failed project #2. I made the cozy too skinny and none of the scraps are big enough to make another. I didn't want to throw the cozy away, so I made it into a beer bottle cozy instead. It was the only thing skinny enough to fit in the falied cozy! Too bad DeAnna doesn't drink beer...

A Snowy At-Home Day

WARNING: this is a very picture-heavy post. We had such fun today, I had to take lots of pictures!

We had a school holiday today (4-days off for President's Day), and it was a good thing! We have had so much snow, we wouldn't have been able to get to school anyway today. I went to bed at midnight last night and it wasn't snowing at all. I woke up at 7:00 a.m. to no power and 8 inches of fresh snow!

We had cleaned the whole house last night, so we had the day to just hang out at home. Since we had no heat, we hung out by the "fire" (indoor heater) and read books while we ate lunch.

The power came back on around 11:00, so we decided to make Valentine's Day cupcakes and cards for our neighbors. We live on a wonderful street and enjoy bringing treats to our neighbors whenever we get the chance.

Crafting cards

Decorating / Tasting cupcakes

Owen did more tasting than decorating, and his face proves it....

James made this adorable little "Jaba-the-Hut" snowman all by himself on our back porch.
We took a snowy walk around the neighborhood to deliver the cupcakes.

Owen all bundled up.

James making a snow angel- and trying not to get snow in his eyes!

Owen tasting the snow falling down from the sky.

James snacking on a snowball.

Me & my blue-eyed boy on our snow walk.

Our neighbor, Breezy, is so sweet and likes to come play with the boys in the snow.

Our house, all covered in snow!

Brothers sledding together.

Owen went straight down for a nap and James snuggled in with hot cocoa and popcorn for a movie. A perfect way to end a perfectly snowy at-home day!

James' First Written Words

James has been writing his name, Owen's name and a few other words for a long time. He can also copy anything I write or tell him if I recite letter-by-letter. Every day when I pick the kids up from day care Kristin sends a pile of the crafts they've worked on or colored that day. When I get home I always go through them and ask James all about his work.

Yesterday, I studied James' paper airplane for a while. Letters were written on it, but I couldn't tell what he was trying to make with them, so I asked him about them. "Oh, those are the words I wrote today by sounding them out all by myself," he told me.

This is new, and exciting for me, since I know this is a pre-reading stage. I am so proud of James and watching him grow and learn new things is ao amazing.

Here are his first written (sounded-out) words:

"KRISTIN" (kris*den)

"MONSTER" (mons*der)

"CAT" (pretty good, just backwards!)
"KAREN" (cer*n) -This is the name of Charli's imaginary friend.
"CAR" (cor)