King of the Hill!

Finally warm enough to spend some time outside! I made a walking labyrinth in the backyard, which Mateo found boring (but humored me anyway) and Lucy found impractical. Ah, fresh air - cannot wait until spring!

Muffins with Mom!

Snow day! A time for muffin-baking and vacation scrapbooking. These muffins were SO GOOD - blueberry ginger spelt muffins from Vegan Brunch.

Better with Cheddar

Mexican for lunch with Gabby Karen today, but FIRST a tour through the excellent food-related Smithsonian exhibit in the library gallery. Did you know that fortune cookies were invented in America?

Gotta Love Juggling

After a fondue dinner, we three headed to the library for The Big Fun Show - comedy, juggling, general nonsense - where Mateo laughed himself silly over a roll of masking tape. And other people laughed themselves silly over Mateo's laughter. I think he had too much candy at school.

Great.

Great's funeral was today. One of the most common memories people shared of her was how she could make something out of nothing much at all. She had a wonderful creative intelligence.
Some of my Great-est memories:
Lemon drop candies
The smell of eastern European soup. What is that? Kasha? Barley?
Trouble – the board game
Making things with chicken bones and google eyes
Her light blue trailer
Crocheted (or knit?) slippers
Soap operas on the tv
Her dog, Cubby
Kleenex rolled up in her sleeve
She passed away on February 8th at the age of 100. What a long time to live. Mateo and I waved at her among the stars on a candlelight hike tonight.

Deck the Halls with...

...recycled CDs, magazines, and fake snow! I changed out the fall decor at the library for winter -- upcycled style. I purchased silver Christmas bulbs, silver icicles, and a bag of fake snow from a local thrift store and coated the bulbs and some scratched CDs with spray adhesive, then rolled them in fake snow (shredded wax paper or plastic grocery bags - I can't tell which). These were hung (along with the icicles) from the ceiling with filament. I also folded some magazines into "trees", spray painted them silver, added a little fake snow and glitter with spray adhesive and voila!

Christmas Countdown update

The Christmas countdown is going well - we're halfway done and Mateo still enjoys it. Sometimes we do "big" activities and sometimes we do "small" activities, and sometimes Mateo likes the "small" activities as much or more than the "big" activities. For example, he took a pass on going to see Santa when he was in town. He said he just wanted Santa to pick something out for him. It was a surprise to us, but we respected his decision. Of course, a few days later we ran into Santa out of uniform in the grocery store and he told Mateo that he was on the nice list (even though he doesn't always listen). It was a much more magical experience than going to see him along with everyone else. Other things on the countdown have included a special day with Gabby and Papa, a playdate with Jadin, baking muffins, decorating the tree and a Christmas campout.