Lego sets

"It's just what I wanted!"
Jamie was thrilled to receive two Star Wars Lego sets, and even more thrilled to have Daddy help him put them together this morning. Jim wisely warned us to get a picture of them then, because they wouldn't last long in their original, intended form. And he was right - they now cover the computer room floor as they get changed into another "ship."
Here you can see Jamie playing with them at the end of the "photo shoot." Check out the cheek action as he does his own sound effects!

Christmas at home

It's not fair to your kids if you open your presents and then order them to leave them at home as you go on vacation. And it's not good to take all those presents with you - invariably they will lose pieces, and they'll be getting more presents anyway...
So, we opened our presents last night. The kids were happy with their loot, and were very happy to be able to play with it all today. Even Norah had fun...








Merry Christmas!

The plate 2008

Every year I put together a plate of Christmas treats for a certain number of people. Here is the result of this year's work:








date pinwheels, molasses cookies, lemon-iced cranberry oat cutouts, frosted sugar cookies, fudge snowtops, oreo balls, buckeyes, and strawberry candies








Those of you from Calvary, do you remember these strawberry candies? I found that the recipe was in the older church cookbook, and they seem to add a nice dash of color to the plate. They are incredibly sweet, though! I remember loving them as a kid - I guess my taste buds have changed some.

O Christmas tree

Years ago we strove for an elegant Christmas tree; that was before we had kids. Kids bring home hand made ornaments. Bright, multi-colored ornaments. Now we have a bright multi-colored Christmas tree so all those kids' ornaments match. It works - we actually like the overall look of the tree. It's fun! It's kitchy! It's green - we have upgraded to LED lights set on timers. The kids *like* to help decorate the tree - they pick out their favorite ornaments: the ones they made, the ones with their pictures in them, the ones that are their favorite characters (robots, unite!).

Family movie night

Prince Caspian came out on dvd this week. Redbox had a copy, thankfully, and we quickly snatched it up. After dinner we all got our chores done and our pj's on - the movie is a long one, and we wanted the kids ready for bed when it was done. We turned off the lights, piled on the couch, and started it up. Nearly 2 1/2 hours later we had a hard time getting ready for bed - the movie was so exciting!
We thoroughly enjoyed the movie. They did a very good job on it. Even Jamie stayed to watch the whole thing! We can't wait for the next one (which isn't supposed to come out until 2010!).

New PJ's

Today Jamie helped me to cut out a pair of pajamas. The fabric has been in my stash for a while, I just never got around to using it. A very excited boy looked over the patterns with me, and picked out a vintage kids' pajama pattern. He told me that he wanted it all, even the hat.
Yes, the hat. An old-fashioned elf-style hat, complete with pom-pom. And he's thrilled to wear it.

Gym Class

This year we tried to come up with a gym class for both kids that didn't take up too much of our time. Many little league sports not only demand your weekly practice, but also every Saturday (or Sunday!) afternoon, along with a fundraiser on top of your regular fee. We weren't interested in that sort of organized sport, and truthfully, neither kid was either.
Our local park and rec department offers many classes, and one interested Dot. Both kids would be in the same beginner Aikido class, and the fee was economical. I signed them both up for one month to try it out. Jamie decided that there was not enough running and talking for him, but Dot really took to it. For the first month or so she was the only student in the class. The teacher brought in his girls to help out, and now Dot regularly practices with/against them. Dot really enjoys the class, but comes home sore from all the falls they have to take!

Winter visitor

We have an old house. Old houses often have problems with winter visitors such as mice, bugs and spiders. Our cat Norah delights in taking care of mice and bugs. She doesn't seem to notice the spiders much. This year, however, we have a different kind of visitor - one we have had before, and don't mind too much - a snake! (Last time the snake stayed near the sump pump, but this year it seems to be enjoying the laundry area. In the picture it is on the hem of a dress.) We investigated, and found that the snake is a Northern Brown Snake, or DeKay's snake. It is small, and will remain so, as adults grow to 13 inches long. It is not venomous, but we will not be playing with it. We are happy to let it deal with any bugs in the basement. I'm not sure how Norah will deal with it if she ever sees it, though!

National Arboretum, 2008

Everyone has a place they go to enjoy the fall colors, it seems. For us, it is the National Arboretum in DC. Last year we hit it at the peak of color; this year we were ahead of the change a bit. It was still beautiful, and we walked forever! Dorothy's friend Tashy came along with us for the day. See more photos in my album.

Planning ahead

Call me crazy, but I've already been planning for the holiday season. Yes, Christmas will be upon us soon, in the mere blink of an eye! Don't miss out on the most important event of the season, the most memorable, the most fun and family friendly! Yes, I'm talking about Merry Tuba Christmas!
Make sure to check out your state's offerings HERE.
As for me and my family, we will be downtown at the Inner Harbor on December 6th. We are already looking forward to the music and the biker Santas. (What better way to hammer home the *truth* of Santa than to show your child more than 50 Santas in one location, many in odd themed Santa outfits... "Gas-mask Santa", anyone?)

Almost finished

We are finished for this year, at least. I think we did pretty well for our first real stucco job. While Jim and I did most of the work, even the kids had a hand in the finished product!

bounty

This year was hard for my garden. While we did enjoy eating fresh produce, there wasn't the usual over abundance. We had trouble with a fungus or mildew attacking many of our plants. I thought that potato bugs had eaten the blue potato plants - we didn't have any of them left in the garden. Oh well.
I dug up many sweet potatoes and looked to see if there were, perchance, any blue potatoes at all. There were! Yay! While it's not enough to get us through the winter if we have another great depression, we will enjoy quite a few good dinners from that harvest.








So far we have eaten blue mashed potatoes, baked sweet potatoes, and a medley of roasted potatoes. Our favorite so far? Baked sweet potato chips! They are easy to make and delicious to boot.











Last night I scrubbed the largest sweet potato (it was a monster!), cut off the pointy end, and used this dangerous old tool to slice it up. (Do you remember the one Mom used? I have one made by the same company. Lots cheaper than buying a new, good quality mandolin!)











After tossing the slices with a little oil I put them in a single layer on the baking sheet. A little salt and pepper went on before they were popped into the oven while I fried up some tilapia.








And here they are, the finished product, just begging to be eaten. Well, they don't have to beg - they get eaten quickly at our house!

It's done!

Oh, did you think I meant the stucco? Or the basement? No, we still have miles to go on those... it's Jamie's quilt that is finally done. I had finished piecing the top wa-a-a-y back in February, and worked on hand-quilting it together all summer. I was able to put the binding on this week. After a quick turn in the washer and dryer it was happily received and put to immediate use.
Did you know that you are supposed to label your quilt once you have finished it? Giving it a name is also highly recommended... this one is "Yellow Katamari" (check out the Namco Katamari website if you need help to understand why!).

As to the basement - the carpet is gone. The painted floor is peeling, which means we must remove and repaint. That means we cannot put the sewing room back to normal yet. Which leads to me not knowing what to do with myself!

Ah, but the stucco job is nearing it's end. We have figured all the surfaces covered with at least one coat, some just need their texture coat. We did figure out how to do that, after much head-scratching and experimental applications. Hopefully we can get that done before the frosts come!

update on the Christmas lists

To add to the kids' wish lists:

Playstation 2 "Beautiful Katamari" or "We love Katamari"
David Macaulay's books: Mill Mosque Ship

Work Progress

We got up the first coat of stucco last week. The recipe for stucco is simple, but it still took us awhile to get it to the right consistency. Jim and I worked for a couple hours, finishing up in the dark. Sometime later this week we will put up the second coat, and possibly the top coat. It all depends on the weather - and our schedule.








This past weekend we used our Smithsonian Museum day card to visit the Calvert Marine Museum. It is an enjoyable museum. The kids really liked the ray tank and the hands-on play room.











After the museum we stopped by the Ensminger's house for a few hours. Our kids love to play with their kids. They hit it right off last time, and were so excited to see them again. They never want to leave!











But leave we did, because it's good to get home early on a Saturday, especially when you have to teach Sunday School the next morning.
So, back to the weather. We had such a rainy weekend! We awoke on Saturday to a downpour. When we left at 8:30 there was standing water in our yard, and a small rushing stream alongside our house. It tapered off throughout the morning, but continued to shower occasionally.
Okay, now back to coming home "early" on Saturday. As we were driving back into our neighborhood I thought, "How nice! It's only 6pm. I'll be able to clean up the house, get dinner ready for tomorrow, and maybe we'll be able to have someone over after church!" That was a nice thought. Too bad that the basement was soggy. All that rain had caused a bit of a flood in our basement - the bathroom was soaked, along with half of the the sewing room and laundry room. Most of our stuff was up off the floor, and was salvageable, but we still threw lots of stuff away. I have a pile of laundry to do yet - rugs, etc. Jim and I quickly grabbed dinner and went to work cleaning up the mess. Thankfully we have a steam cleaner - it pulled up the water from the carpet, and put down a nice bleach/detergent solution to combat any potential mold/mildew. By 9pm we were exhausted and disgusted with ourselves. After turning on a fan we jumped into the shower to wash off. The kids went right to bed without a fight, and we followed shortly thereafter.
So, how was your weekend?

Less damaging than my sister

Jim let me know that this was my year... and that I will not be of as much importance as my younger sister was a while ago. I'm only subtropical, while Katrina made history as a hurricane. Oh well.

Christmas list addition

I clicked on this link, showed it to Jamie, and he promptly declared, "I want that set!"

Christmas lists

Jamie thinks that Christmas will never come - it's so far off! So many days! Adults know better... it's time to get to work on buying gifts so we don't have to fight last minute traffic at the mall.
Here are some ideas for us:

Jim
money
shawl-collar cardigan (in blue, grey, or tan/brown)
please email for his book list (it is much too long to post here!)


Laura
King Arthur Cookie Companion cookbook
Rolled hem foot for my sewing machine
Masterpiece Theatre Sense & Sensiblity dvd
any vintage sewing patterns (pre-70's, dresses and tops preferred)
Bible story pictures: Jesus miracles and parables and Early church
(these can be found on Amazon much cheaper)


Jamie
Hammer & Nails set
r2d2 keyring
(He'd be happy with just plain R2D2 as well. Toss in C3PO and he'll be ecstatic!)
StarWars legos, especially the people!
(specifically, Darth Vader and Droids)
*Anything* star wars
Webkinz stuffed animal (Lil' bluejay, dalmation, seal, charcoal cat)


Dorothy
Webkinz stuffed animal (chocolate lab, black lab, seal, black poodle)
a blanket/quilt (twin size) - blue, green or purple preferred
books
money

Nordine Baby Quilt

Congratulations to the Nordines on their new baby!
Now that it is on its way to its new owner, I can safely post a photo of the latest baby quilt I made.








Jim thinks this is the best one yet. I took my time in working out the pattern - this site has a series of coloring pages for the most common quilt blocks, so you can actually see what your quilt will look like. I used the Antique tile block, with blue, 2 shades of green, and a froggy green fabric. I colored the pattern four different ways, hung them on the wall for the afternoon, and asked for opinions at dinner. Amazingly, the same block and the same fabrics can work out into very different quilts. Unfortunately, I threw away the "losers," so you won't be able to see just how much better this option was!

Labor Day 08

Jim and I really overdid the labor part of Labor day. We started out by doing yard work, then took the kids to a park for a nice hike. We planned for it to be short, less than an mile. If you have heard our history of hiking, you will not be surprised to hear that we went the wrong way and ended up hiking for a lot longer than we had planned. It was a nice hike, though, and not too strenuous, so we didn't mind too much. (see more photos here - the same ones are on facebook)








After lunch we let the kids have the rest of the day off while we did more work. The trim boards along the side of the house were rotting off, literally. We had prepped some new boards, so we headed out to do the work of replacing them. Again, it turned out to be more work than we had planned. The underlayer also needed to be replaced! Some of our stucco will also need to be replaced, but that is a job for another day. For now, the prepped boards are the underlayer. Eventually we'll put up another run of trim boards and repair the stucco.
On top of all that, we didn't have a working refrigerator, so dinner was a little tricky. It was also trash night. So, the moral of the story? Plan less.

Dangerous activity

Dot plus a new bike equals?
You'll never figure it out completely...









How did she fall and hurt her face? Yeah, most people fall on their hands and/or knees... but not Dot. A kind empty-nest couple in our church gave away their daughters' old bikes. Dot was very happy to receive one (especially since her bike was stolen earlier this summer). Jim took her out for her first ride on the "new" bike Saturday morning... she came back in after just a few minutes. Yup, riding a street bike is different than riding a mountain bike. Now she knows.

I hate to suggest it, but...

McDonalds. You may or may not know my feelings on McDonalds. You may share my feelings -it would seem as though most adults do. I still have yet to find someone grown-up that would pick McD's over just about any other fast food restaurant. (caveat: they do have good french fries, if you can get them while they are still hot and salty.)
However... for those of you who will be giving my younger child a gift this Christmas, and you have to eat out somewhere, I suggest eating a happy meal and saving the toy for him. At this point in time they are offering Star Wars The Clone Wars figures, and we all know how much Jamie loves Star Wars. If he knew that McD's had these, we wouldn't get any rest from the incessant begging he would be doing. It's up to you, then. Bon appetit.

Did you know...

that Lego has a special page for purchasing individual pieces? We just got our package in the mail, full of body parts. Lego people are hard to come by, unless you buy large sets. And, when your child has an affinity for taking them apart, you quickly lose legs, heads, etc. What good is a newly built ship if there is no one to man it? Enter Lego Factory Pick a Brick, with individual parts that are fairly inexpensive. It's fun to be able to build your own people! Let your imagination run wild and your inner child rejoice!

County Fair

Living in the city makes one desire some "country" every now and again. This week I took the kids to a nearby county fair. We spent about two hours checking out the animals, eating fair food (Yummm, funnel cakes!), and looking over the 4-H displays. I timed our trip so I would have a very convenient excuse when the kids would inevitably ask to go on a ride - "oh, the rides don't open until after noon. Sorry."
Anyway, here's some shots from our rural experience, including a few for Andy ( a little older than his usual cars, but interesting just the same).