A. makes me a cup of my favorite coffee each morning before he goes to work.
I have the day off.
I’m volunteering in J’s class today.
I can go to the Y and sit in the hot tub after I’m done working out.
-30 with the wind chill January 29, 2008
I feel like I’m back in Minnesota with these numbers! I didn’t plan very well, and I needed to stop and fill up the car during the worst of it. It took me three tries before I could actually get the car door open to get out, and then when I climbed back in to wait, my leg was nearly crippled as the door slammed on it. All limbs survived. Jakki and her three kids left for Florida today…perfect timing!
We had to go back out to J’s mid-year conference. Next time you see him you ought to be able to notice his brain has grown from all the hard work! I’m pleased to say that he got all my math skills AND uncle Jay’s artistic ability! Tonight when Mrs. Jacobson asked J about his math strategies and goals for the rest of the year, he said, “Well, I don’t think I have any more math strategies. I’m using all I know!”
Last night, J’s best friend Jose joined the Tiger Cub Scout den. We were surprised when we arrived to see him and his mom. J got to introduce Jose. (“This is my best friend Jose. He lives down the block from me. He walks over to play.”) I learned a lot about Jose that night…he loves to yoyo. He drew two pictures involving yoyo’s – one with a large white and blue yoyo and one with him yoyo-ing in his house.
I’ve taken to listening to Pandora at work. It is very clever how this works, and it really gets it right! You select a song or an artist, and it searches its database for similar characteristics. You chose and save your “station”; it is possible to save several stations. I’ve got Cake, Blister in the Sun and Bob Dylan. If you still haven’t listened to Bob Dylan’s Modern Times yet, you must!
The first time I heard the Violent Femmes was at my cousin Julie’s 12th or 13th birthday party. It was a fun party! As I remember it, Julie always had fun birthday parties.
Here is a picture of J’s Halloween costume this year…a Viking. It was a big hit!
Am I Invisible? January 21, 2008
Yesterday morning was a tough morning for J Lots of things seemed to be going wrong. He couldn’t figure out how his transformer worked nor could he find the instructions. I was painting the bathroom, so I couldn’t help him as immediately as he thought I should. As a result, he was moping around saying things like, “What can I do?” This went on for a good 20 minutes.
Finally, he went downstairs where T was reading. From upstairs we heard T say to J, “Am I invisible to you or something? Do you think I can’t fix things?”
Violent Femmes Fan January 18, 2008
Since New Year’s Eve when we had music rotating on the Ipod, J has been humming and singing his very own version of Blister in the Sun. In his version, the words are “Let me go o-o-on, like a twister in the sky.”
Yesterday, I was greeted in the car when I picked him up from the after school program with the Twister in the Sky version. I told him the correct words, but those don’t make sense to him. Now, living in the Midwest, Twister in the Sky does make sense!
Pinewood Derby January 15, 2008
The men in this family take the Boy Scout derby seriously…very seriously…
On the way into the derby, J was walking in the parking lot directly in the way of a vehicle driving. I pulled him by the left arm to get him out of the way of the vehicle. J responded very exasperated, ” I HAVE to hold my car with two hands at ALL times!” The car was protected inside a customized furry sock to ward off any evil falls, mishaps or mother nuisances.
2:00 pm the weigh in begins. A has tools ready to cut the weight to exactly 5 oz. In each corner of the room, you hear drills, dremel tools and files. The weigh in line extends out the door as families are packing into the building. To A’s dismay, final weigh in by official scale is 4.99 oz. (I didn’t know that the heavier, the better. After having this explained to me why this is the case, it made perfect sense. And to think, I scored very high in engineering on my ASVAB!)
The derby car…a mix of 5 of J’s favorite Hot Wheels: flames (of course), copper exhaust pipes and a skull decal. J is now nearly a pro at spray painting! Clearly, A is a pro at making masking tape flames for painting!
Tiger cubs derby first and the excitement builds.
2.95 seconds later and we’ve experienced J’s first derby win!
J walks down to pick up his car at the end without trying to appear too excited. As a result, he barely moved his arms the whole walk down…T pointed this out very well later. J runs through 30 minutes of double elimination races and takes 2nd for all Tigers!
J and T try to guess who will win during the next hour’s races.
J’s little buddy L, on the right, took 1st place. L ended up taking 2nd place for the whole Pack and earned a great trophy! (The Pack is all the Boy Scouts of all ages.)
Bags & Purses January 13, 2008
Thanks to my mom and A I got a new Janome sewing machine for Christmas. What a treat it has been! We bought it from our local sewing machine/guitar shop…yes, that is right, a slash. The first time I went in with J, he was amazed at the combination. I think he thought there was something for everyone…sewing stuff for mom and guitars for him. At the time, he was wanting to work on the race car’s pit crew when he grew up. After I told him that when you own your own store, you can put any of your interests together. He then decided that he might want to own his own store instead of be on a pit crew. It would be safer he suggested.
I made a bunch of presents for family and friends for Christmas with the new machine. My stepmom got an apron which I forgot to photo before I wrapped it and sent it to her. I made a special banner for A’s nephew who adores dogs. My inspiration was an idea from stitch.rip.repeat which I stumbled upon.
I was happy with how it turned out. (Ignore the mess in the background as I finished it 12/23 and was a sewing mad woman at this point.) I bought a pair of pinking shears to make it, then recently realized that I could have gotten the rotary kind for cheaper. It also would have been a lot easier to cut the triangles out with the rotary.
For my sister’s birthday in November (I got the sewing machine a bit early!), I made her this purse which was my first attempt at anything beyond an apron. I stumbled upon a great tutorial by mama’s pocketbook.
I made one for myself as well, but didn’t like it as much. The success of my sister’s purse led me to create a new pattern based on a purse I had in my closet. I wanted a special gift for two little girls, A’s niece and my goddaughter. It did take a while to get it right, and lots of ripping, but I knocked out four of these for presents! Though all the front pockets were slightly crooked despite my best efforts, this one looks deceptively crooked. It is only because the bottom is slightly pushed down on the left side.
Then, I made this purse from a Simplicity pattern for my *bff* for Christmas. As soon as I saw the fabric, I knew it was her! I see now that I took the picture on the wrong side of the bag…the other side of the red fabric had a cool Chinese man in a bamboo hat. I found bamboo handles to match. I also made the same purse for my mother-in-law for her January birthday.
One of my favorite things to do now is dig through the clearance racks of JoAnn Fabrics. I rarely buy anything but seriously discounted fabric. The banner fabric and one little girl purse were full price purchases. A’s niece loves her sock monkey Clark. He goes everywhere! So, I found this and this at a local quilting shop and had to make her the purse with it. I can’t believe I didn’t take a picture but I think I actually finished it on 12/23 as well.
So, today, I made two purses to donate to a mentoring program at work. The mentors (female college students) and mentees (6th & 7th grade girls) earned “raffle tickets” for different activities. We are adding these to the raffle. They were very easy, and I really liked the pattern. I will definitely be making more despite the fact that I literally cut off the top of my left pointer finger with my rotary cutter when I started the project…never look away! The tutorial for these shoulder bags was done by tiny happy and were stumbled upon (big surprise).
The exterior fabrics were home dec and the flower pattern I passed once then couldn’t pass it up again at $2/yard (54 inch width). I used a great old sheet from Pottery Barn for the lining that was headed for the garage sale pile…we are moving and I cannot move all this stuff AGAIN!! It matched really well!
I also made travel shoe bags for presents as well, but didn’t get a picture of those either because my friends were heading to Australia for the holidays, and I had to get them in the mail. Now, I wished I’d taken a picture. I have a picture of a work in progress one later…it is currently holding five or six pairs of my summer shoes! Trial and error, right!
Birthdays & Cakes January 12, 2008
In my family, we bake the birthday cakes. When I lived near my family, we used to always get together at someone’s house for a birthday. The birthday girl or boy always chose the meal and the host (usually my dad and stepmom) cooked and someone else brought the requested cake. Never anything fancy; what mattered is that someone made it with love. For my sister’s 19 or 20th birthday, she ended up having to make her own cake because of everyone’s schedule, but it was still perfectly fine!
My mom is a cake decorator by hobby as well. She can make wedding cakes, birthday cakes, shower cakes…any kind of cake and it is usually painstakingly decorated. I let my mom make J’s first birthday cake (a giant Jack-in-the-box), his fifth & sixth were Batman cakes . Against my better judgment, I bought J an Incredible’s birthday cake from the grocery store for #4 and he hated the frosting. It was way too sweet and to this day, he’d rather pick off frosting than eat it unless it is cream cheese or something make with a shortening base that isn’t too sweet. After taking one bite of the cake, he sat there looking COMPLETELY miserable and sick from the frosting. We still laugh about it.
So, now I’ve given mom the backseat and this year Jack and I brainstormed for a new cake theme. We used Magnetix for the city behind and he created the Lego scene on the street. We think it turned out really well. I am always surprised at how much work even the simplest cakes take. This year’s birthday party involved Lunar Mini-Golf which is golfing in a blacklight. It was fun…only one person got hit with a club.
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Last year, T wanted a Star War’s cake for #9 . Both these boys are into Lego’s and T has all the Star Wars ones. He helped me decorate it. We turned a sugar cone into the volcano and used crushed Oreo’s to the dirt.
This year for #10, we did a Harry Potter cake. Even though book 7 had come out earlier in the summer, T was brushing up on books 5 & 6 first. Since he was reading book 5 before his birthday, I did a potions book. We made up the potion recipe and customized it on what I thought I could come up with. It was so much work to write all of this and it really didn’t seem like that much!
I’m finally here! January 11, 2008
When Mike & Lu sent a blog link, I knew I had to do it. Then, Julie & Dan did it too! Like them, I’m hoping this will be a good way to provide updates on the Wolfe pack! I’m hoping to get started with some Pinewood Derby pic’s up along with Lunar mini-golf pic’s.
