Crazy Hair Day

When Crazy Hair is announced at school my kids think that the heavens have opened and the angels are singing. They L*O*V*E dressing up and craziness. Here are this year's hairstyles. Bubba chickened out at the last minute and wouldn't mo-hawk this year...I was bummed. H had a reprise of the Troll hair. The picture was in the parking lot at school, because after last year I won't have colored spray in my van!!!

How do YOUR kids play with their food?

Tonight's after AWANA snack/dinner progressed into carrot characters. When my kids dip their carrots into Ranch dressing they think the carrots look like people. Here are tonight's characters....


Aunt Laura...altho we haven't seen her latest haircut.









Uncle Mark...










We love you Uncle Mark!

Snow Pictures

Here are a few pictures of the snow (courtesy of H) we had last week...

Nothing new

Sorry. Nothing new to report. We had a great long weekend with David...followed by a nice surprise of a Tuesday and a Wednesday snow day. One day of work a week, not a bad schedule.

We played outside in the snow, then came in and watched the swearing in and Pres. O's speech together. The kids sat and watched as intently as I did. It was wonderful.

We are going on 3 weeks w/o Daddy and doing okay. Yesterday, when asked, the kids decided that they would rather just move and start over right away, than sit here and wait for the house to sell. I was a bit bummed and started second guessing my part of the decision, then David called and without prompting said he was doing great and the separation wasn't as bad as he had expected. Maybe it was just the snow day talking, but I was ready to give in yesterday.

Right now I have promised the kids that we would make a trip to see Daddy next weekend and try and visit some schools while we are there. The school issue is really the only thing stopping us from up and moving at this juncture. I refuse to pull my kids out of their current school until decisions are made where they will attend in OH.

Please pray for my sister and her son. They are struggling with some soap opera-esc issues and need some good news, peace and prayers for O's safety and future. Thank you for your thoughts and prayers.

Here it is...

This is my knitting. I have folded it so you can't see the holes, but here it is...

Hackson Pollack and Tree Boy

H is trying to finish her Science Fair project, or should I say it is due on Thursday and I am "making her" work on it this weekend. She decided that she would like to Jackson Pollack splatter paint the background to give the white tri-fold a bit of punch. So I go outside to see what she is up to and see tree boy in the woods behind our house about 25 feet up in a tree. The tree is probably 6 inches in diameter. (The tree he is actually in is hidden behind the seemly fat one in the picture). Rather than tell him to get down, what do I do? Go get the camera of coarse!

Artsy

My sister bought me this GORGEOUS journal (I think it was from an artsy shop in Olympia). It is a crafting/project journal by an artist named Nikki McClure, and it has beautiful cut paper designs throughout. From a blurb in the back: Using an x-acto knife, a single sheet of paper, and the inspiration that surrounds her Olympia, Washington home, Nikki McClure lovingly creates her intricate and beautiful paper cuts....

The book is broken down into sections: plan. wish. dream. build. explore. learn. make. grow. give. and find. I can't wait to start jotting.

Check out better pictures of her work and drool here.

Latest Book Read...

Three Cups of Tea, see it here at Amazon. It is non-fiction, so if you don't want to learn something don't read it. Frankly it is one of those OMG I am a looser and haven't accomplished A*N*Y*T*H*I*N*G books, OR it is very inspirational. In a nut shell it is about a man who builds schools for children, specifically girls, in rural areas and hostile areas. His passions are these schools and the book is about how he decided to build schools, the sacrifices he made, remarkable people he met, and hoops he had to jump thru along the way.

It is very good, and I would highly recommend reading it. I read it on the plane home from the Left Coast, along with my new hobby...wait for it....wait for it...

KNITTING. My Mom gave me a knitting project and taught me how to knit for Christmas. It is something I have always wanted to do, and really stink at currently (holes! curse them), but I am getting better with each row of the enormous afghan I am working on. Maybe each blog reader will get a new knit scarf by next Christmas! Our (my family) theme for Christmas this year was 'favorites.' We each had to draw a name and give our recipient something that is a favorite of ours. Bubba gave my nephew a copy of his favorite book "The Encyclopedia of Immaturity" and a case of Kraft Mac and Cheese. H gave her cousin a soccer ball and earrings and bracelet from Claire's. D gave my Bro-in-law a bag of his fav coffee (3 cups) and his fav book, etc. Some gifts were restaurant gift cards, some knitting and lessons (mine). It was a lot of fun. AND it was something that everyone participated in easily without the Mom's having a conniption over finishing or buying before the big day.

BTW, we were Gone...

I just read a comment from JH and wanted to make it known that we were actually gone for Christmas (on the Left Coast) and I wasn't ignoring or disrespecting her request to call her. Below see the wonder that is my daughter, middle, and her (girl) cousins taking 2 days of snowboarding lessons. They rocked! More later.

Idiot!

Here I gave you all (two of you) the big work up for O's Christmas present and then I forgot to take stinking pictures of it! The only thing that I remembered was the beard. Duh. It all started with this blog I Made You A Beard via the Angry Chicken blog. Angry Chicken was going to make her daughter a Tom Ten costume and referenced this beard on the blog. Well, I loved it and copied it (see the picture). Then the gift grew to include a sword, shield, Batman chest insignia and mask, Robin insignia and mask, a cape, a crown and a "Super O" costume including a chest plate, arm cuffs and mask, all in a fabric bag with his name on the front. BTW, our family picked the superhero name Super O after much discussion of the pros and cons of "Wonder O Man" (sounds too much like Wonder Woman), "O Man" (sounds like Omen), and the like.

Man, I wish I would have taken pictures, because it turned out super cute and I L*O*V*E*D making the pieces and was in the sewing zone. Why is it that I love making costumes? Maybe it is because it is the felt...so forgiving and no hems, or maybe because it was for O. I will hopefully have my sister take pictures and post them.

She's baaaaack....

After a long absence I am finally back to the world of blogging. I have much to say...and it may come in spurts because I need to be doing some chores to get caught up!

First, let me say that on my blogger dashboard I got this snip of a blog to go and check out, and boy was it...depressing? inspiring? disheartening? overwhelming? If you have a minute go to the Long Thread and check out today's tutorial. The blog lists a bunch of crafty tutorials for the new year. Oi! Like I said, it is additive and will drive you crazy all the cute stuff. Then after I click one of the links I get all caught up in the other more recent stuff on these other blogs and sooner or later an hour has passed and I have nothing to show for the time. There should be a word for that. Bloggeria? Blogidiction? Anyway, enjoy your crafty self and start planning projects for the year!