Multi-cultural Night

The school had Multi-cultural night at school Thursday where each class celebrated a country. Here we have J, her friend La and their teacher in front of one of their Austalia projects.

J had come home from school on Wednesday with 'the plan'. She and La were going to run from room to room to check out everything and then report back. I informed her that I felt like the school had this night for an opportunity for families to spend time together and I thought she should stay with S and me.

Thursday J presented the new plan - we would all meet at the classroom and La and J would show us around together. We met at the classroom and took the pictures and J and La were off and out of sight. S and I wandered through Australia, on to places like Mexico, Egypt (awesome pasta/rice dish), Asia, Mexico, Europe, Africa...and the US by the kindergarteners. Didn't catch up with J and La. Along the way we would her of J sightings..."There were here, J got a fortune cookie" , "J is in the Gym" "J is watching a movie in the USA".

S was not convinced we would catch up with her but she was handling it well..."I guess if we don't find her we'll just go home and have one kid in the family".

All is well - two kids at home...

Photo 46 - Day 58

Bowl-ing

This is a picture of our friend L (closest to the camera) intently listening to the instructions for her elementary school Black History Bowl (note the buzzers). L was one of 6 first graders chosen to participate in the contest and we are SO proud of her. L’s favorite things to do are often quiet/private things like reading and her art (you remember the pink ballerina she made S), so to see her stretch herself like this and dive into a competitive front is all the more exciting.

One of my dear friends from several years ago, Sissi, used to do things all the time that she wasn’t comfortable doing (like when she did the TV spots for the Humane Society animals)...she thought it stretched her as a person. I loved doing those spots and on things I wasn’t as comfortable doing, I thought things like " I am a grown up and I don't have to do what I don't want." I SO admired that trait in Sissi. And I have seen it in L as well – holding giant snakes and enormous macaws when my kids wouldn’t venture a touch, and now I have seen a ‘not yearning for the spotlight’ child be a star in the history bowl! Yay L! This was an excellent opportunity for L to stretch and I am so proud of her!!

I showed J this pic last night. She was aware of L’s involvement with the Bowl and had been making a list of possible bowl questions. When she saw that picture, she got serious buzzer envy…A light bulb went on and she said, “I am going to write a persuasive letter to the principals and tell them we need a history bowl. "

So, at what was supposed to be bedtime – but how do you stop passion??? – J was busily writing a letter to the principal and the assistants about wanting a history bowl, how it should be done for ALL the grades K-5, how it would make kids really want to learn more history, and what school (L’s) already did a bowl so they could call and get help on how to set it up. I should have kept a copy of that note… Only thing left to wonder is whether she wants to be on a panel, be writing the questions, or be the moderator.

Photo 45 - Day 57....got some catching up to do....

Ohhhhh…I forgot

I was out enjoying a lunchtime car ride yesterday. I worked from home because of an appointment and took advantage of lunch time to celebrate Fat Tuesday at the quilt shop. Fat Quarters were at a bargain price!

From the backseat where the 5 yr old sits …”owwwww my neck, my neck…something's poking it” I am asking the normal questions and keep getting something cryptic that makes no sense to me. Finally I zero in on the problem...

Mom: Is it the Velcro from the pillow attaching to the car seat?
S: No – like the movie, you know when the girl puts it on her neck.
Mom: What movie?
S: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Mom (Uh-Oh…this can’t be good.): What did the girl put on her neck?
S: Her gum. ‘member, she put it behind her neck for later?
Mom: She put it behind her ear – Did you put your bubblegum behind your neck?
S: Ohhhhh…I forgot

Good thing I go to a full service quilt shop. Armed with Peanut Butter and ice from their breakroom, I had S with her head on a table in the classroom as I worked in the wad of gum and hair that was at the top of the back of her neck. We were quite successful, there was only a little hair lost and she did not need a reverse Mohawk haircut.

Here we have her, the gum chewing, going-for-the-record girl from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. S absorbed this fascinating process but never mentioned that she found it interesting. She has since learned that anywhere near hair is not a good place for gum.

Photo 44 - Day 56

Extreme Makeover - Home edition!

Today's picture is not one that I took - it is compliments of Tallahassee.com. Here we have an old friend from my pre-kids days walking away from her home for the last time.

The Extreme Team is in Tallahassee and has selected a family from my first DTC group! DTC is Dossier (adoption paperwork) to China, and the groups were Yahoo! e-groups that formed during the wait, to share the waiting and make new friends.

It’s hard to explain why it happens but often there are lasting friendships made just through the keyboard. I have met up with some e-friends in China, in North Carolina and even at Disney World…more than once.

Barbara Kadzis is one of my fond memories from March 2001 DTC. She was using the same adoption agency as I was, so there was a chance that we would end up traveling together. I was hoping we would – she was bright, lively, upbeat and ‘fun’.

During the then 13 month wait Barb and (husband) George opted to go with the Special Needs program and adopted a cleft affected child, Phoenix. That would mean her schedule would be different than ours and we would not be going to China together. Since then they have also adopted Celeste, Julia, Aileen, Melody and Martin (all from China). They also have a bio son Chris still at home. Their (at home) kids' range from about 6-16. I was so very excited to hear they were selected as a makeover recipient in Extreme’s Everyday Heroes theme.

Good for them, also, as their home had sustained some hurricane damage. Unfortunately, the hurricane damage is not the only challenge at home. George has an aggressive brain cancer and was admitted to the hospital last Thursday-Friday morning the knock came to the family's door that they had been selected for the home makeover. What a rollercoaster of emotions for this family.

I look forward to watching one of 'our' families on the show and was happy to see Chinese dragons and lions dancing for the demolition scene-apparently fireworks too, from what I read at the Tallahassee website.You can see a short interview with Barbara here - please keep George in your prayers... and I’ll be posting about it again when airtime
comes.

http://www.tallahassee.com/article/20090220/BREAKINGNEWS/90219016&referrer=FRONTPAGECAROUSEL

Photo 43 - Day 54

Baby Gift re-visited

When S joined our family she was one day short of 14 months old. A co-worker had knitted her a beautiful orange, lavender and pinky poncho. She was such a slight thing it barely would stay on her shoulders but she wore it a couple of times. Here it is now...and she was very excited to see it...the color, the fringe the softness. One of those gifts that keeps on giving...




Photo 42 - Day 53

Doodling...

Today's picture is J's choice. She spent quite a bit of time today writing books and here is one of her illustrations.


Pic 41 - Day 52

Inventions

Typically, J is my ‘inventing’ child. She loves to save reject parts or broken pieces so she can use them in an invention. Right now she is poring over the blueprints she and her friend La (not to be confused with friend L) designed. If I interpreted them correctly they are working on building their karate sensei a workout center. J brought home the blue prints to work on along with the letter for sensei and La was charged with getting sandbags (actually, she was charged with getting sand and bags, I made the leap on what they would end up as).

Not to be outdone, S has been working on an invention of her own the last couple of days - her first. It’s a book holder. The book is secured at the end of a 'handle' and the user shakes the handle to make the pages turn. The handle - a paper towel holder - has a tissue secured by a lime green hairbow at the opposite end from the book. I asked her what that was there for, and it is in case you need little things like snacks with you, you can put them in and they won't fall out. Of course, it was cute when she presented it…but once she added the S flair…well, words don’t do justice.


Photo 40 - Day 51

Yummy dinner...

...for two out of three of us anyway.

Today's picture is of the ever yummy sloppy joe bake-recipe from Michele...and maybe the Pillsbury bake-off people.

First, you may notice that the top crust is a little 'scrappy' looking, that comes from my never ending knack for grabbing the wrong tube of crescent rolls...better than what I did for the savory chicken squares the last time, though...that time a grabbed the giant sheet of crescent roll dough.

Sloppy Joe Bake

2 tubes of Pillsbury 8 count crescent rolls (I bought the 6 giant rolls size)

1 pound ground beef

1 can sloppy joe stuff

shredded cheddar cheese

Open one can of the rolls and press into a single bottom layer on a cookie sheet (here is where the roll of crescent dough would have worked well). Bake at 375 degrees for about 12 minutes until they are golden and pretty. Brown the ground beef and then add the can of sloppy joe stuff...simmer until thickened. Pour the sloppy joe mixture over the baked crescents stopping short of the edges, sprinkle the shredded cheese on top. Open the second roll of crescent rolls (whatever variety you happened to have grabbed) and make the top. Press along the edges and any seams to keep the glop in while it is baking. Bake anywhere from 5-12 minutes until golden and pretty.

Photo 39 - Day 50

Check out the closet find!

I thought I had found a bag of fabric scraps that I had stashed in the hallway closet and then I realized what I had. The Halloween candy (yes, from 2008)! Not just reject candy either - there are Dove chocolates, milky way, baby ruth...stuff that shouldn't be so available to me.

My two kids have very different views of the Halloween candy. J can take it or leave it and S can polish it off in one sitting...S is the reason it was stashed away.

Photo 38 - Day 49

Hair fashion

S has been doing her own hair for a couple of months. Sometimes a faux bun or a small ponytail on the top of her head with hair hanging down...Monday afternoon was the old Chrissy Snow 'do' with a ponytail coming out one side of her head. Today started the same way and then she decided the other side should have a ponytail too...size and placement did not need to be even.


Photo 37 - Day 48

Kitchen Help

As mom to the world’s pickiest eater, dinnertime is always a challenge. In J’s defense she suffered terribly from food allergies/sensitivities at a very early age, and there was a period of time just after diagnosis at 2 when her whole diet was baked chicken, potato chips, fritos and grapes.

Happily that time has passed and now at 7 she can eat pretty much normally with only a couple of ‘no’ foods remaining. What hasn’t passed is her reluctance to try new foods or her acceptance of them when she does try.

After a few years of my not being able to just fix something and have everyone eat it, J was very accustomed to being cooked around. I told her recently that time had come to an end and I will cook one meal that everyone eats. (Even on this I am flexible…with bad memories of nasty foods like liver and brussel sprouts from my childhood I do allow them to decide what they like…I just want them to try things.)

While that is a great theory, old habits die hard…S is a great eater and is pretty open to trying anything, but J’s untrained palate remains quite persnickety. So – after her trying but still turning her nose up at a Italian sausage lasagna, I turned to plan B and took her into the kitchen and taught her how to make a sandwich for herself. She was thrilled-thinks this is the beginning of learning to cook!

She was then anxious to make her sister a sandwich (S had already finished a big helping of lasagna), and make herself another…and then make herself a different kind…then teach her 5 yr old sister to make sandwiches…

I don’t remember the last time we actually finished a loaf of bread before we had to toss it, but the loaf we bought Saturday afternoon was gone before Sunday dinner..

Oh, yes – on that whole brussel sprouts and liver thing…as kids we had to eat what was served for dinner, but many years later at my sister’s baby shower my mother REFUSED to even try the spinach dip I made…so much for respecting her own rules of eating everything that is served!


Photo 36 - Day 47

Picture a day - progress

I started this taking a picture a day thing for two reasons - one to get me used to using the blog and the other to make sure I had a few pictures of the kids' childhood taken as I seemed to have photo albums of Christmas and vacations...and having missed vacations for 2 1/2 years, I was painfully thin in that area.

What I have found is that it is actually fun looking at the normal everyday stuff and making it worthy of a photograph...or making the effort to DO something so you can photograph it.

Try it - if you don't want to do a public blog, make a private one...you can make it permission only and then start telling people only when (and if) you are ready. In the meantime you have something that records your life and times for posterity.

Today the girls made Valentines for Grandmommy's house as J was headed there this afternoon. True to form they looked very different. J's were sketch and word heavy with "Have a Karate Kickin Valentine's Day" and "Cupid Rules and Rocks!". S had feathers, glitter glue, be-jeweling, beads and foam stickers.


Photo 35 - Day 46

Snapshot Saturday

J's trip to the kid's workshop at Lowe's

A FINISHED quilt top!!

The kids with donations of their fat quarters for quilts to go to victims of the Australian fires.

Photos 32-34 Day 45

The perfect Valentine...

Look at this lovely ballet dancer. She was a gift from our friend L (age 7) to S. Each hand has 5 fingers, the ballet slippers have ties, a beautiful pink tu-tu in S's favorite color and lipstick just like S loves. A lot of thought went into this.

As you can tell by the penny, this is a small figurine. L made this out of Crayola Fusion and S and I love it! S loves it from afar asI am concerned she may be a little too rough with it and I don't want it harmed. So what started as a gift to a 5 yr old is now a shared gift with mom getting custody.

What a treasure!

Photo 31 - Day 44

Comfort Food...

Just reading the title I can picture the roast beef, mashed potatoes and gravy, cooked carrots and macaroni & cheese. Mmmmm…good.

That’s the phrase ‘comfort food’ to me but deep down inside my comfort food is not the warm stuff…it’s the cold stuff. Ice cream. Ice cream is my sore throat remedy, my cure for the common cold, my first in food after an upset stomach. I love ice cream…my latest favorite is Breyer’s Brownie Mud Pie… Chocolate frozen dairy dessert with brownies, chocolatey coated almonds and a caramel swirl.

I don’t think kids really have a comfort food…you can ask them what food makes them feel good and the answer is generally a favorite food. Pizza for J and hmmm…mmmm…let me think….ok, well nothing then for S. Perhaps they need more life experiences to be able to identify what is a true comfort food – no, that isn’t it, is it?

The comfort food for any kid is not yet a food at all. It’s still an item. What do they carry everywhere, what do they not want to sleep without. Their comfort foods are soul foods or rather foods for the soul in the very strictest sense of the description. Grownups can’t pull that off, so somewhere in the ‘growing up’ process we learn to substitute a food. Considering the obesity rate, perhaps adults would have been better off had they continued to tote around their old blankies and dolls.

What are the other 'comfort foods' in my home? With J it has always been a plush creature that keeps her warm and fuzzy deep inside and mostly it has been a favorite teddy bear that was purchased for $5 in Gatlinburg on Mother’s Day Weekend when she was about 18 months old.

With S, well – it’s a ratty, old, very lightweight, oversized Tshirt-y pajama top of mine. ‘Shirtie’ came into existence the first week we were home from China. The baby girl would suck on my shoulder and I cared not for it. I gave her the pajama shirt she loved so much and it is still her good friend.

Shirtie is a girl and she has a voice…and though in my head that is very odd, I am perfectly accepting that Teddy is a boy and he tells J some very wise things. I guess the difference is Teddy comes with a face. The only talking my ice cream ever does is when it calls to me from the freezer...

So here they are, the 'comfort foods’ at our house.

Photo 30 - Day 43

Submit your photo!

This is from gymnastics tonight. I thought it would be fun for anyone reading this to try it and submit your photos! Please warm up appropriately first so as not to injure yourself. In case you can't see it, both feet are against your head. They should be your own feet.

Yes, she painted her own toenails and she has sparkly S earrings in.

Photo 29 - Day 42

more is better...

...when it comes to tattoos. S found a sheet of butterflies and put the whole flock on her arm. Scrubbing in the shower last night did not really help them fly away (but I am not sure she tried very hard). When I mentioned this morning that they hadn't come off she said, "mom, people love how my tattoos look." I guess they'll be loving them for a while.





Photo 28 - Day 41

Westminster

J picked what the picture for today would be, and she picked the dog show. So far, almost every one has been her favorite - her best picture was this one of the Irish Wolfhound - the largest breed in dogdom.

Photo 27 - Day 40

Say what???

All kids have them, and some families continue to use them...those words that aren't quite right but add to the vocabulary of the family. Over the years I've heard 'busghetti', 'mazageen' and 'ell-yo' (the last one is a color).

With J it's 'tomonnow' - she has always used that word for the day that follows today...the distinctive 'n' sound in the middle. I keep waiting for it to disappear and start hearing tomorrow but so far it's holding on. I'll miss it.

With S it's 'ash-leyes', those are one of the ways to identify a female anything. Minnie Mouse has ash-leyes and Mickey Mouse does not. Here is one of S's art projects. I love it because it has fabric in it. It's a girl snowman - "which you can tell is a girl because of its ash-leyes."


Photo 26 - Day 39

Snapshot Saturday

Pretty Coco at Grandmommy's.


J gets some protective karate gear from friends.


S digs out the Hannah Montana makeup


Enjoying the park on a springlike day



Photos 22-25 Day 38

On Quilt Guilds

Since I frequent my local quilt shop and visit others when the chance presents itself, I know a lot of people in quilt guilds-I have even spoken at a couple about books that I co-authored. A guild is basically a group of quilters that get together, participate in fabric challenges, learn new quilty things, support favorite charitable efforts and show off their accomplishments – motivating them to actually finish some of their projects.

I can’t be in a guild – my tight schedule, commute time, young children, cost of sitters…but I have found the next best thing. I call it my online guild.

The RedThreadQuilters came into being as a group of quilting friendships that developed in another group working on One Hundred Good Wishes Quilts for our Chinese born daughters and granddaughters. Once we had amassed enough fabric to make a 517+ Good Wishes Quilt, Melinda was astute enough to realize that some of us just weren’t going to leave and we should go ahead and commit to being quilters in a spin-off ‘guild-like’ group.

We each support our own Charitable efforts and have worked together to donate quilts to homeless in Arizona, orphanages in China, and the Love Without Boundaries fund raising auction.

We do block exchanges, play online bingo for fabric wins, challenges, secret friend packages, birthday Fat Quarter bundles…and now we are starting our first mystery quilt authored by Melinda. Mystery Quilts are where you have general fabric purchasing guidelines but don’t know what your quilt will look like until you start putting it together.

Here it is, my step one results of that inaugural mystery quilt…


Photo 20 – Day 37

And just to keep the kids in the loop – here they each are showing off their kid size quilts – both made in ‘live’ mystery classes at the local quilt shop. J is carefully balancing her mustache...not really sure why...

Photo 21 – Day 37

Atten-hut!

Today’s pics highlight J. It was boot camp day at school today and that style is her style. The shirts are available in blue (her favorite color) and pink but she went camo as she thought it looked more like real boot camp. The dog tag is a previous award for perfect attendance.

In her elementary school boot camp refers to a prep program they do to get ready for the standardized testing in April. Teaching to the test…hmmm…I remember getting an old prior-year philosophy test in college. Rumor was the test didn’t change much so we could study from it. My friend and I both got As but our copy had been so dead-on, it felt like we had done something we shouldn’t have. Apparently we are off the guilt hook on that one, as teaching to the test seems to be an approved method.

Photo 18 –Day 36

Below we have one of J’s prized possessions. It’s her foam finger. She really, really wanted one for her birthday last fall – she got one. It is a fond memory – “Remember, when I got my foam finger? That was a great day.” I'm not sure why it is wearing the mandarin jacket – it usually does not get dressed. Just wanted to build it into a display, I guess.
Photo 19 – Day 36

Puttin on the Fritz...

Taking a step back here, today’s pictures are from a fine restaurant experience in Kansas City at Thanksgiving time. We had lunch at Fritz’s at Crown Center. A delightful train themed restaurant – the kids get engineer’s caps, you phone in the order and the food is brought to you by a train.

First off – the barely 7 yr old probably should not be placing the order. Even though we wrote it on a napkin for her to read, she ad-libbed – or something - because not only did a human walk out from the kitchen to verify, but we didn’t end up with all the food we intended to order, ah well…

Notice I referred to this as a fine restaurant experience and not a fine dining experience. Honestly – it was a fine diner quality burger and fries…well, the fry I tasted was good...there was only one since the grown-up’s fry order was part of what was lost in translation.

So, above we have J placing the order, below - after the train whistle sounded signalling a delivery - a train bringing the tray and the tray itself lowering to the table.

Photo 16 - Day 35

And tonight at gymnastics S passed Level 1 on Balance Beam and Vault. Vault was hard to get a picture of and beam she posed for after class (with two of her classmates spotting her). S at her gynastic finest...

Photo 17 - Day 35

Jelly Rolls and Bali-Pops

Jelly rolls in the baking world are wonderful things. In the quilting world, I find them a strange phenomenon. Moda fabrics make jelly rolls which are 2 /12” strips (WOF is about 42”) of 40 fabrics from a collection. I have never really bought into the concept. A collection of fabrics has a sameness about it …a good quilt needs contrast….so how can this work out? And even when there are some light and some dark, the split is not usually 50-50, so jelly roll quilts can often look like they have washed out spots or black holes.

I look at patterns for jelly rolls and while I have seen some I like, all collections of 40 2.5” strips won’t work in them…and the way jelly rolls are packaged, you really can’t even see what the fabrics are going to look like. You see an outside strip that seems like you'll like the fabrics and the top edge looks attractive. Then you unroll it and find what you are really stuck with. So how can you know if your quilt will look right?

Ah, yes, famous last words…Then I saw a Hoffman BaliPops (the Hoffman ‘jelly roll) and, of course, ‘needed’ one. Can’t see a 50/50 contrast mix in these can you? I selected each one of them during the shopping process and ended up with Strawberry Fields. I also needed a reason to pick up one of these collections. I selected the pattern Garden Beauty for it and it clearly says Jelly roll pattern.

Since the cover said it was a jelly roll quilt, I was determined I would not go outside my ‘pop’ in making all of these blocks. I don’t really see that I have enough contrast to make it through the whole quilt….I don’t really think I have enough greens…so I started with the ‘flower’ blocks and the rest will fall out however they fall out.

My first photo for the day…a couple of blocks from the in-progress BaliPop quilt.

My second photo for the day - Hannah the cat, coming up on her 17th birthday.

Photo 14 & 15 Day 34

A trip to the grocery...

The grocery store is always an adventure, and not in a good way...tonight came with a couple of new insights.

Fame...Last week at J's school program she gave one of the speeches...the only 1st grader to speak. She talked about being "part Chinese, part Georgian, part big sister and all J!" Tonight at the grocery a man came up to to us and said "Are you the buddha baby?" (her speech mentioned someone called her that as a baby). He was one of the several hundred at the auditorium last week and recognized her. She (and I, for that matter) was quite surprised. So write it down - Age 7y 2m is Js fifteen minutes.

Time...An important fact for the next story is that my younger daughter, S, is s-l-o-w moving. She has been painting her own nails since she was three because so painfully slow that she truly is meticulous...she does well on the balance beam because she enjoys the slower precision but the cartwheels elude her as you cannot do a slow cartwheel (try it, though, as the results are amusing). Well, tonight I got insight into her...I was trying to push the children along in the grocery store as they seemed to want to examine every product on the shelves and it's a school night.

Mom: Hurry up - I don't have all the time in the world...

S: I do in my world.

Today's photo - one of S's preK art projects.

Photo 13 - Day 33

Business Ethics....

I think that people should take an oath for their job...something about the level of ethics and responsibility they owe their clients. Most especially on my mind right now are the people who make and sell paint. Why do they make colors that have no business being in your rooms at home? And why doesn't the person mixing politely say - no one would like this color on walls, ma'am, perhaps you should come back when you are sober?



Instead, because of these lacking ethics, we have one ORANGE bathroom. Not orange, like I wanted, that would gently compliment the giant poppy shower curtain. I have ORANGE that LOVES giant poppies...it's screaming to be a GIANT POPPY.


7 yr old J wants to paint her room to have blue walls with red and yellow flames and black and purple robots but the ORANGE bathroom is too much for her.


New plan to tone it down, so in a few weeks you may see ORANGE and orange unplugged but for today you see the first of the painters to crash after a long hard day of painting.


Photo 12 - Day 32

A child's eye view...

I was at the local quilt store today - matching a fourth fabric to the three I had selected for an e-group mystery quilt. While these are not the most exciting outings for the girls they try and make the best of them. J was granted use of the camera while I shopped and here are the results...well, not all the results as she managed to take 71 pictures - thank goodness for the digital camera.

Here is a picture of one of the shop's fuzzy dogs with my original fabrics on the left and the yellow I am adding on the right.

And this one is a favorite from the quilt shop toy box - pizza!

Photos 10 & 11 - Day 31