fortune cookie wisdom

Remember how I mentioned I was working on a new class and new album related to fortune cookie wisdom? I took some time to put it together and create what I think will be a really fun album... here is a sample of how it will look so far...

Above is the title page and below is the start with letter A... 

The fortune reads: you are admired for your adventurous ways. 

Dennis suggested I consider changing the font for admired and adventurous in that they may be difficult to read... any thoughts? or preferences?

More sleep overs...

Every night, before I go to bed, I give the kids a kiss goodnight so I am always intrigued when I find myself stepping around or over something I don't recall being there earlier in the evening. As it turns out, she decided that she was having a sleep over with her babies and Sasha dolls. Everyone had to be dressed in pajamas and tucked into her sleeping bag. You can't see it in the photo partially because I took the photo in the dark but also because they are sort of tucked in around the babies but each dollie has a cookie to eat in the middle of the night?!

My other favorite thing that happened this morning ( I forgot to take a photo) was while Alyssa was getting dressed in her yellow sundress and yellow bike shorts, I handed her a pair of pink socks and she told me "No, I need yellow socks. I am a banana today!" I kept chuckling to myself as she was dressed in yellow riding her pink bike to school... a very cute banana indeed!

non-favorite to obsessed?

An odd post you may say or think... and it's not meant to be an advertisement of any sort but it's true... the family loves chinese food and a favorite restaurant is Pei Wei... well, the family being Dennis and the kids. Chinese is not my favorite and typically my very, very last choice but today, it was my first choice so with camera in tow, we went out for lunch after Sunday school to ...

Pei Wei!

While waiting for food, I warmed up the camera and found a few interesting kids playing with their chopsticks and drinks...

... or maybe it was just the straw that someone was playing with pretending it was chopsticks on a nose...

... and then I realized as we were eating, my kids actually have learned how to use chopsticks (I am not exactly sure when that happened)... even if it means dangling noodles high above your mouth...

... or using the chopstick to get the noodles to the edge of the plate so you can slurp them up ... but slurping is good ... someone once told me it was a compliment to the chef to slurp...

... but what I really wanted was a photo of all those fortune cookies that await you at the end of your meal because I have been inspired to create a small photo book on fortune cookie wisdom (which I will be sharing with you as I create it)! I signed up for another digital class (I can't seem to get enough, can I? You'd think I was out to photoshop the world) called ABC Inspiration. It is an amazing class but I can't seem to be inspired by ABCs ... maybe it's because we do a lot of A is Allie Alligator, B is Buh Buh Bear, C is Catina Cat... you get the point. Inspiration came when I thought about my families obsession for Chinese and I think it really boils down to the fortune cookie. I thought how perfect to correspond the ABCs with bits of that fortune cookie wisdom. So at least for now, chinese food will be an obsession for me! 

175014

Jaiden's big 1st grade accomplishments have included memorizing his lunch number (hence the 175014) and now he can add tying his own shoes to his growing list!

He doesn't always wear laces to school, a lot of times it has been his Keen sandals except for gym days and eventually when the weather gets cooler. In the meantime, we have been working on learning how to tie our own shoes and today, he did it again all by himself!



Check out that concentration and determination on his face... I love watching these two cuties learn and accomplish things like this... although I realized it's just another step to independence for them as they keep growing and learning how to do it all by themselves!

veggie pick up

Today was a unique day for here. The clouds hovered over the mountains for the morning but by mid-afternoon they had edged their way over us leaving a drizzling rain. Today was also our day to visit the farm for our bi-weekly vegetable pickup and as I walked to pick the kids up from school, I thought they aren't going to enjoy themselves in the rain... oh how wrong I was!

We drove out to the farm in the rain and were greeted by our good friends. Pumpkins are in the field and we get to come back to pick a few in October! They looked so beautiful in the wet field.

The rain definitely did not stop the kids from finding all sorts of entertainment. This was some sort of counting and balancing game. I love Jaiden's face here!

There is always the lure of the cattails at the nearby pond. Alyssa quite happy with her two finds! Oh, that just reminded me I think they are still in the car!

While Annie and Jaiden prefer to cattail sword fight with theirs!

A lone cattail before it was attacked by evil cattail villains.

Christopher and Alyssa also caught a toad and set up a beautiful habitat for it in a galvanized tub. I ran to get the camera and the poor little guy hopped from the second floor of the barn to escape! I found him on the ground but he quickly hopped away... not surprising given that Christopher and Alyssa looked as if they were squeezing him too tight!

Aaaah, the fun adventures at the farm are coming to an end as Fall arrives. It's a wonderful way to spend an afternoon and we are going to miss all the yummy fresh vegetables this winter. Oh and Happy Equinox!

the latest trend...

Have you heard or seen the latest trend with kids these days?

I read about it on a blog somewhere else and can't remember where but I do remember thinking "phew, we seem to be immune to this trend" and then much to my dismay, who came home asking about Silly Bandz?

His latest craze... silly bandz and mighty beans! Neither of which seem all that interesting to me but to the kids... it's the hottest item to hit the town. Jaiden is enjoying his budding collection acquired from poke prizes, winnings at the school fair and trading with his friends during recess only, of course!

csa farm

Summer is coming to an end and so is our bountiful harvest from the CSA farm we joined this year. In celebration of Fall, they hosted a family potluck at the farm. It was purely delightful, relaxing, intriguing and messy!

Daddy and Alyssa checking out some of the remaining vegetables, I believe it was winter squash that we should be receiving this week in our share! Yum, I love winter squash.

And then to the kids' delight was a donut eating contest. Jaiden having lots of fun trying. He didn't win but he did finally get it!

Alyssa needed some extra help and Emily was right there. Emily is the oldest girl in the family who Alyssa adores... idolizes and follows everywhere. Emily is the sweetest young girl and so patient. It's really adorable to watch.

And then I tried to get a sunflower shot with a sun flare but I nearly missed the shot as I was having a hard time focusing so I had to switch to a manual focus... unfortunately, the aperture isn't closed down enough and instead I got this nice dreamy haze. These are sunflowers on the farm, not ours which are hanging nicely in the garage drying out.

family fair

The family fair is an annual fundraiser at our school and it is a lot of fun. We went last year and the kids had a blast so this year we bought more tickets and stayed until 7:30 pm!

Here are just a few photos of the kids doing the various table games. The fishing game (far left) is hilarious. There is a kid behind the black sea curtain putting little prizes into the cup for them to lift up. A traditional bean bag toss and a lollipop tree were just a few more table games they played.

harvesting sunflowers

Remember this post? Well, those little seedling were looking good but didn't survive in the garden so we planted more sunflowers. These are just a few of the big sunflowers and Jaiden asked if we could harvest them. So we cut them and they are now drying wrapped in cheesecloth in the garage. I don't know how long it will take but Jaiden is excited.

Just before I wrapped and hung them up, they looked so beautiful on my counter, I had to try out some angles on them. The lighting was interesting how it was absorbed in the dark seeds and then highlighting the leaves. A bit tricky to get it right but in the end, I think it's a lovely reminder that Fall is here even if it is still in the upper 80s in the day!

dogs don't wear sneakers... or do they?

Yesterday morning, I was outside talking to our neighbor and when I came inside, I found this...

Jaiden reading to Alyssa.

Let me just say that it was completely unbelievable and so utterly precious. He - so serious and working very hard to get through his new book while doing his finger train under the words and she - so intent, listening in awe that her big brother could read her a story, I can only imagine she was also thinking he could read her My Little Pony or her Pinkalicious books! But not this morning, he was sharing his new book Dogs Don't Wear Sneakers by Laura Numeroff and Joe Mathieu.

So to answer the question or do they?

This photo is him reading but it is also near the end of the book where you learn that closing your eyes, drawing in your mind, you may be surprised what you will find.

 But for me, it was opening my eyes and seeing how he did an awesome job reading all by himself without me or Dennis helping!

water slide park

Maybe it's the end of summer nearing, the outdoor pools closing and the weather still feels warm enough that has my kids in the mood for anything related to water but the following is a series of photos of the lego water slide park that has been set up in our family room for the past week...

This is only a partial look at the entire water park but I thought it was the most detailed of the series and of course, hilarious given he was careful enough to set up lifeguards and line his lego people up before heading off to school yesterday.

The mini panda is a lifeguard at the top of the slides...

The mini hippo at the top of the bucket is another lifeguard...

And the funny mini orange mouse is the lifeguard while all the lego people are lined up ready to go!

Quite the imagination - Jaiden set it all up but both love to play with it. It's quite entertaining to watch and listen to them and I love that they are completely occupied so I can make dinner!

boat races...

The smoke finally had cleared this morning so when Alyssa and I got home from dropping off Jaiden, I filled up the froggy pool for her. While I quickly took care of a few things, I returned to find her in the middle of the pool, popsicle in hand and toys in the pool. I asked "what are you doing Alyssa?"

Her reply "they are having a boat race!"

And sure enough when I looked a little closer, she had all of her Polly pockets in the boats... so I guess you could say we had a mini Seafair right in our own backyard!

nostalgic

Bring back any memories, anyone?

In spring of 2009, Dennis treated me to a marvelous gift... a USB recordplayer. What that does mean? It's a recordplayer that I can hook up through my computer and record or play old records. In this case, it is my beloved read a-long story books from when I was kid. I love this thing, and so do the kids! Alyssa enjoyed nearly two hours of listening and looking through the books this morning. It even has that wonderful nostalgic scratchy click of records playing... perfect entertainment!

digital diva...

Can I do that? Call myself a digital diva?

I have spent a few late nights playing on the computer and learning some more photoshop tricks through my all time favorite: JessicaSprague.com classes. These are the last two layout of the class: Up and Running.

I was going to post a before/after like I did on the quick page a few days ago. However, with both of these pages I started with a blank white 12x12 digital piece of paper so if I posted that - it would be nothing but a white blank space!

This is a layout about our recent camping trip we did a few weekends ago. Earlier in the day, we had gone on a hike and entered the magical land of fairies. Later, the kids were totally enamored with explorng the woods and collecting pinecones. The journaling says:

"Each year we go camping with our close friends, the Beckett's.

The campsite and surrounding area is an open playground for the kids

and with a dash of imagination, they transform the world into something

enchanting and delightful. To keep them busy, we suggested collecting pinecones...

which led them on a magical journey into the mystical land of the woodland fairies."

And this layout was about learning how to do a grid in photoshop. I am not crazy about the paper but you really can't complain when it's free. I will probably change this one up a bit once I finish the class and definitely before I print it but I do like the general idea of the layout. The journaling on this one says:

"Today was filled with excitement

and anticipation as you

got ready for your first day of

first grade. I can hardly believe

you are entering first grade and

couldn't be prouder of you."

Yeah, I will probably change the journaling a bit too. I was trying to wing it but I think I would like to put more thought in writing about the first day of first grade!