Things I have learned in daycare

1.  Boogers happen, runny noses, coughs, sneezes, heck even lice, foot and mouth and whatever cringe-worthy bugs come through...these things fall under the "that which does not kill us" category (much like school meals).
2.  When in doubt, call someone a friend.
3.  Greet people with "Hello Friends!" "Bye Friends" "Thank you Friend" I now have the affliction of calling any unknown group of people our friends... our bus friends, our store friends, our library friends.
4.  Hold hands (this has backfired, since they aren't supposed to hold hands in Kindergarten, but I don't care... hold hands)
5.  Clean-up Clean-up Everybody do your share.
6.  Wash your hands often.
7.  Daycare teachers are miracle workers as evidenced by simultaneous and consistent nap-times for 10 kids, daily.  Respect y'all.
8.  Cutie pie little chairs, little tables and little potties are just tooo much.
9.  In spite of how my kids act at home, they really do know how to share, how to play independently, how to eat, how to clean up, how to sleep.
10.  There are a lot of personalities, learning styles, backgrounds, diets, but we can all hold hands, walk together, play together, those things make the class and make our lives more entertaining and fun!

Tee hee, can I add something that I learned in the coffee shop, from eavesdropping on the cute young hipster neighbors:  "I have never had coffee cake AND coffee together before... Oh My GOD!  People were so right, this is so good together!  The flavors all totally complement each other, they are so good!" (general affirmation of this observation confirmed among all four friends).

flowery ear warmers

 Made loopy felt flowers in homage to the beautiful Chrysanthemum we have in honor of Chinese New Year!  Yes that's a pommelo wearing a headband, deal with it.   Stopped by Jo-Anns for some t-shirts to screen print Brian's Dragon drawing onto and saw the ear-warmers. 

 Grabbed three and stitched the flowers onto them and voila!

  fun gifties for the little girl cutie patooties.  

The shirts are drying, but he did a nice job, more soon!

and how great are these?

From Santa... who serged the edges and stamped the kids initials on the corners, a set, of a lot... a dozen maybe for each kiddo, we use them daily.  I am so a hankerchief person, and my kids are getting there too. To answer myself... these are very great.

mmmmmmm

 mmmmm for Momofuku's bo ssam.  We don't have a lot of days where we just hang out for six or more hours at home, but with the long weekend, the cold, drizzly weather, we took advantage of our dull, quiet weekend to toss a hunk of pork in the oven and roast the dickens out of it.  Oh my.  Oh my.  oh my..... so very very good.

We (as advised by the recipe) had some nice butter lettuce,ginger scallion sauce (good on everything I think), ssam jam sauce,  fresh pickles (we did beets, cucumbers and apples, the apples with the pork were my fav), our friends came with their homemade kimchee (seriously, perfect for the topping, and can't say that I like kimchee, until now) and some korean beers. We omitted the oysters, mostly out of laziness, I am sure they are good, but I'm not sure how much better this could get.   I really don't know what to say, it was very pleasant.  We have the cookbook, but it is also printed in the NYtimes and elsewhere.

NOT difficult, just requires a chilly cool afternoon at home, some friends who will bring their appetites, the perfect accouterments and awesome and fun company because you WILL need friends to share it with, even if you are crazy hungry,...that's a lot of (tasty, tender, perfectly done falling apart) meat.

Made-it!

Many handmades this Christmas.  I was a good elf and got going on these a bit at a time... a wee bit over the summer, but really slug through a lot of them during stolen moments through the fall.  Its tough to really see when I did it.  I haven’t been staying up late, I guess just more effective use of the weekend evenings, and easier projects (hullo pillowcases! Silk-screens!).  It was a little embarrassing that so many of my gifties were stored on pinterest, therefore not a surprise to one follower at least (I don’t have that many who I really know).  On the other hand, I am pretty pleased that I actually did so many of the things I had planned on doing... can’t say that always happens (without too much craziness).  We decorated a handful (ha) of mugs this year. 

This one for G'ma. 

 

With Owen and Grace's hands cradling the cup. 

  Owen also did one for his teacher that he was so pleased with.  

Lets see... girlfriends.  These dears always bear the brunt of my crafting attempts, but this year was decorated mugs, hex bracelet, t-shirt cowl, and some sculpty dishes and a little embroidered heart.

Brian got a YUDU and printed a bunch of awesomeness this year. 

 Starting with his cheap beer label from his homebrewing (That’s the Two Bit Bomber by black-box brewing).  Some great veggie (artichoke and asparagus) tea-towels for Auntie Gigi (his draw this year), and cute dinos designed by Owen for local kids.

 

 Actually the dino was a self portrait:  “Well, I looked in the mirror and just drew what I saw”, I guess he saw awesomeness.

Did I mention the pillowcases?

 Lots of pillow cases for cousins and some friends.  

These were so much fun, such a great way to appreciate the cutie fabric that I see but don’t have a good plan for.... my  plan is now... pillowcases!  I must have made 10 or more.  Grace picked out her fabric right away and carried it around the store for a long time herself (shoot can't find the picture now, but its with mushrooms and polka dots... cute).

Whales for a few cute little boys.

What has become a traditional gift of Jam pulled together from summer harvests and kitchen efforts.  I am still into soap making too and added soap to the jam give aways for the second year now.  I forgot to give away much of the solid lotion bars (but I love them and will use them myself, hopefully Ry likes it too).  Let me think... that’s probably the bulk of it.  It was so much fun... much more fun than mall shopping and done at my own pace and time. 

Made a few cute felt flower headbands for Grace, she actually, kinda keeps them on... amazing 

We also had our first big crab dinner just before leaving for Fresno.  

YUM, chili crab a la Auntie Gigi.

Finally, I made myself another skirt.  I'm not sure this turned out the best.  Its wearable... I used the one-yard wonders skirt pattern again... good.  I loved the fabric, but in reality its a little light-weight for a skirt, but I just really liked the fabric.  I also in lieu of an elastic waist band went with the yoga band out of a t-shirt... it stays up just fine, but gets a little stretched out.  Not snug enough.  

In other news... Owen has started loosing teeth, so I put together this little tooth pillow with a pocket in the lower jaw.  He loves it! 

the world changes

I mean, I know that right?  The only constant is change....  Well preping for sustainability class is always a big lump to swallow.  I remain hopeful, at least I try, but when reports of us exceeding our greenhouse gas emissions by more than was even predicted by the worst case scenario a few years ago, THEN chalking it up to an indicator of economic rebound just makes me ill (literally).  What do people think got us into an economic downturn in the first place... people spending money they didn't have.... so how is increased consumer spending (therefore increased ghg emissions) a sign of rebound?  Sounds to me like we just keep digging the same ditch and are cheerful about it to boot... we need to restructure our priorities, increased investment in our future, our communities, our education and services anyone?

I start surfing furiously for some hope, a beautiful vision of the future, but am coming up shy of satisfactory.  Of course as I am scrambling to update lecture and reading material, I get sucked into this rabbit hole of information and the soul sinks... further and further.  I read the comments on the AP article  and man, some people just stink... there are days that I have hope, days where I believe that more and more people are getting on board, but the incredibly ignorant and comments that support climate change (??) blow me away..I want to scream "What planet do you think you live on???".  I mean our planet is resilient, seriously so and it will go on with or without us, but how much do you think WE can take without paying the price?  Do we want to find out?  To lighten the mood I check a few of my favorite blogs and the subject of bucket lists comes up and discussion of  things that I have known that my children will never see and I start to think... a world for them without family members we have lost  (and even those just far away who we miss so much), where travel is environmentally prohibitive, without glaciers, without coffee, without chocolate (EEK!), without cloud forests, where our charismatic (and otherwise) species become increasingly threatened or extinct... a world without polar bears? These fears aren't even just for my kids' lifetime, but my lifetime, those predictions for far off times like 2012 or 2050 aren't really that far away.  Damn.  Maybe I need to take more to heart what I say in my classroom... that we MUST be hopeful because despair doesn't instigate change, there is no other choice.  It may seem dire, but politics and corporations and all of those ungainly, massive, nearly otherworldly concepts are really people, and we're people, my students, my children, are people that are entering that world, so we should be able to make those changes; we must make those changes.  I hope for, what I am sure many hope for, that my kids will see is a future they will want to live in, a future that we want for them, one at least as happy and at least as beautiful as ours has been, don't let our generation have the golden age of humanity, let it be theirs.  I want to see technologies and infrastructure in place that allow for the most efficient and the most responsible use of our limited resources, but more so I want to see an attitude shift, a human, a cultural change that values (emotionally and financially) our resources, our clean water, clean air, healthy oceans, atmosphere, our food supply, our education, our services, our communities, our selves and our future over consumption.  Don't those things seem infinitely more valuable than the newest gizmo or fashions?   Can I put that on my bucket list?

whale

 Whale ... right?

 

How could I not once Robyn pointed it out to me.  I enlarged the picture of the pattern pieces on powerpoint  to use, the instructions in pictures were great, I'm having a hard time sharing it with Owen.


Two more babies.  One with a matching dress for Grace,  The dress is the same pattern from that Japanese book I made Kaylee's from.

 the other for Lilly on her birthday.

I have to work on this though,

I keep bursting seams by over stuffing them, but I like them firm!
  I wanted a picture of G. with her baby and matching dress, but she was always a blurr, finally caught them after she crashed.



I am also sooo proud of Owen who selected the fabric then sewed them all himself, seriously! 
 I mean, I was hovering a lot, but the work was his own.  Gooooo Owen!

  The red one was for G's birthday, the green one for his own bed.