valentines 2010

eve's partially finished finger puppets

the making began on our snow day wednesday and finished up a few minutes after bedtime thursday night. not the fastest valentines but easy and funny.

eve and ruth drew the hearts, i got busy cutting those hearts out and attaching them to the finger tubes, while the girls got busy turning the hearts into faces. ruth's process was simple; separate puppets into two piles (one for boys, one for girls), draw eyelashes on the girls and draw regular eyes on the boys. adding a little lipstick here and there, she was done with her 20 faces in no time. eve, however, went custom.. the boy who likes sharks got a shark-faced heart, the boy who makes everyone laugh by pretending to be a pig got a pig face. the girl who loves being fancy got a crown.. and on and on until all 25 of hers were complete. we threw on a little of eve's pretty tape to fancy them up (from christmas- office supplies were her main gift), and they were done.

to make sure all the friends knew exactly what they were getting (motherly nightmarish images of eve and ruth staring on, horrified, as their friends tore the puppets to bits looking for candy), rough silhouettes of each girl's hand were printed on cardstock, the outline of the first finger cut with an x-acto knife, and puppets slid over mr. pointer. unmistakeable heart finger puppet spreading valentine cheer.

addressed by little hands and sent off to school, these were, by all reports from little friends, received very well. good news.. it feels a little bit like we're pushing our luck with these candy-less valentines.. but happily pre-k-ers and kindergarteners can appreciate a lot even if they aren't packed with sugar. like the bookmark that eve got from a friend "you know, mom, it's really cool. it's the kind of thing from back in the olden days, like the 80's or 90's. like back from when before you were 50.." (i'm 30).

hope everyone had a lovely valentine's day! and for those celebrating president's day tomorrow, do yourself a favor and make this log cabin cake in honor of honest abe. i push the cake every year, but i'm pretty sure you won't regret it.. we never do.

valentines past

i'm putting a hold on my attempts to get decent shots of the girls' journals until i can get myself home during the forty minute slot when it isn't dismally dark in our place.. winter..

instead, here's a little reminder of what we did to festivate (that's right) valentine's day last year:

felt headbands for the girls and felt bracelets for friends.

looks like i've got some headbands to find and some figuring to do. we're a last minute kind of crew around here, so even though we don't have anything in the works right now, i imagine by the time we run out the door friday morning we'll have something fun to give to the people we love (or at least like okay).. a big snowstorm is supposed to come in tonight. i'm already planning on having everyone home tomorrow to drink hot chocolate and hatch a scheme for our valentine's day fun. if nothing else, we'll draw some hearts, tape them to a big stack of starbursts and call it true love.

caroling

christmas music by the muppets is on heavy, heavy rotation in our home as we gear up for the big day. ruth's favorite? "the christmas queen" with miss piggie. royalty is mentioned- and ruth loves royalty- but miss piggie also says the forbidden "shut up" and ruthie, who loves being naughty, gets giddy each time she hears it (and then whispers it to herself about five times to see how it tastes). topping eve's charts (literally. charts. lists. visual aides of any kind. she's all about them):  "zat you, santa claus?"  by dr. teeth and the electric mayhem band. perfect for swaying hips through the house while snapping- her latest achievement.

as awesome as the muppets are, chip and i sourced the more traditional carols for our christmas decorating. a far cry from the simplicity and ease of last year, but we're now almost certain we love it just as much. and eve can sound out "wondrous" so, win win. chip, once again, deserves the high five with this decorating scheme. he concocted the plan, brought home the paper and didn't complain once when i stopped cutting after three lines.

..

four more days. amazing. and to start our celebratory week off in the most perfect way, a big snow storm came through town last night. with church cancelled we spent the day with friends, watching the girls make snow angels in the freezing wind, visiting the life of christ exhibit at the brooklyn museum, returning home to drink deliciously rich hot chocolate, listen to heavenly angels (and muppets) sing our favorite songs of the season while the snow melted off our boots. a pretty decent start to what will undoubtedly be one of the greatest and jouyfully busiest weeks of the year. merry christmas everyone!

..

-added- how we do it: cut out letters- freehand in all different sizes make it especially charming, i think. get long strands of bakers twine (any thin string will do, i just have an absurd amount of bakers twine). using scotch tape, tape the letters to the string, folding each piece of tape from the front of letter, over the string and to the back of the letter. secure string of words to walls. done.

the ghosts of '09

just moments after pulling off their bat costumes last year, the girls decided that for the next halloween they wanted to be ghosts.. or witches.. or mermaids. when october rolled around there were several rounds of deliberation, but they finally, officially, decided on being ghosts. because in addition to being the one and only day of the year that the girls like the color black, it is also the one day they like to be "just a liiiittle tiny bit scary." i love their choices- so traditional, so simple, and so reminiscent of my own childhood. 

old sheets were pulled from the give-away pile, the edges cut and ripped, a hood made from excess sheeting was attached and a slit cut for the head to pop through. layer the hooded sheet over white shoes, white tights, white leotard, some sticky paint on their faces and we were ready to go. charlie's ghost costume was even simpler, taking no more than three minutes to put together. white leggings, white hooded sweatshirt, black circles around the eyes and a squarish piece of fabric with a hole cut out to put over his head.

watching the girls float among the brownstones, shouting a giddy "boo" at many fellow trick-or-treaters, and smiling in wonder as their buckets filled was wonderful. and watching charlie walk the streets with them, in his little ghost costume, getting ready to play peek-a-boo each time the girls tried to surprise with their shouts was insanely adorable. barely taller than people's knees, the little ghost smiled and laughed as he toddled alongside the adults and big kids. candy in hand and a dribble of chocolate running down his chin, he was so happy and so awesome.

after a few exciting blocks we made our way home, past the plaza, past the library, through the few drops of rain and into our little apartment where we washed faces, chose two (more) candies to eat, cozied together to watch a show and called it a good halloween night. 

the girls have been having some discussions about next year's costumes. a witch is the top of eve's list, but ruth is pulling hard for gingerbread (not a gingerbread man, or girl, just gingerbread..). they've got a year to hash it out. either way, i think we're starting in a good place.

++photos will (hopefully) be added/changed later today. after downloading all our pictures halloween night. i checked them, looked through them with the girls and went to sleep. next day i went to the computer and, poof! most of the pictures were gone forever. only a few remain that i downloaded. and, of course, since it seemed the download was successful, i wiped my memory card clean. bummer. here's hoping image recovery from the memory card works!

fodrz day

with father's day sunday and his birthday yesterday, it has been an eventful week for chip. the girls have made him no less than twenty cards (each) and several involving stacks of oversized cardstock stuck together with gluestick. pictured next to the (second of three) official father's day/ birthday gift are the official father's day cards. ruth drew a portrait of the whole family with charlie the size of a small parrot resting on her right shoulder. eve also drew a family portrait but went thematic; a circus family. complete with circus-y building, large spinning wheel, balloon-bearing clown and chip in plaid pants. penned along the top is an excellent example of eve's "sounding it out" skills. makes me want to cry i love these stages so much.

and what were the official father's day/birthday gifts? first: a jacket chip has been thinking about for months. chip never thinks about clothes for months, so we had to. second: a father's day classic that has been long overdue. ties.

his work uniform rarely involves more than jeans and a t-shirt but each sunday and one or two nights during the week chip puts on a suit and tie for church and related meetings. the girls helped me choose the fabric (although their first pick involved sparkly unicorns), i cut one inch off the pattern width (chip is a skinny tie kind of guy) and got to sewing and ironing. 

for the last few inches of the tie we used different fabric for a cool semi-secret surprise. i've gone back and forth about my feelings for the surprise, but now i really like it. chip does not feel the same way. he says he does, but he is a terrible liar. i can't blame him; it is a fact that, aside from the skinniness, he leans pretty conservative and subtle with his ties. however, he likes them and us enough to wear them very happily anyway. and that's part of what makes him our favorite.. that and the fact that in two weeks he will be used to the tiny bit of flash and will be telling the truth when he says he loves them. edit: one week! it took one week!

as for the third offical father's/birthday gift.. it hasn't arrived yet. but hopefully will within the next week or so. which works out well, because a birthday week is much better than just one day of celebrating, right?.. and when father's day is in the mix too, we might as well go double time and make it two solid weeks of gift giving.. (mom, you were a genius when you started the "birthday week" when we were little. it now serves as the perfect cover for my procrastination..).

get ready, chip, the third offical gift will be your favorite.. if for no other reason than you don't have to wear it.

...

edit: fabrics used for ties (all 100% cotton):

tie one: brown and cream stripe (pictures make it look black. it's brown.) by yuwa. brown dots on cream also by yuwa but i couldn't find it available in my hasty search just now.

tie two: both the brownish and pink tiny dot are part of the "30s collection" by atsuko matsuyama. they were bought at purl's soho shop and again, i can't find them online.. (if someone knows a source online, let me know!)

easter dresses '09

 

church, new dresses, singing, family, cherry blossoms, food, egg hunts, baby brothers, sunshine and wind. easter was wonderful. and with eve now teaching ruth how to dance the merengue, our spring break is off to a hilarious start.

three days

as the girls wait impatiently for the first easter egg hunt of the weekend i'm realizing that i have only three more days to scramble in hopes of being mostly prepared for our easter celebration. 

the onion skins have been collected and the turmeric on hand. a trip to the market for eggs and red cabbage and i'll be ready for our annual egg dyeing.

a few possible prototypes for the dresses have been made and scrapped for another time. a little too complicated for now. the simpler versions (only the tiniest bit more complicated than last year's ) need to be cut and assembled and the girls convinced that the color i have chosen for each of them is just right (this might be impossible).

the books are ready to give, including creature which is enormous, but so beautiful. the girls will eat it up. with a full week of vacation ahead of us the "baskets" (which, i'll be honest will probably end up being paper sacks) will be filled with materials for projects: shrinky dinks, unpainted wood people and dowels for fairies and wands, origami paper for mini airplanes, ribbons for eve to keep practicing her braiding, plaster of paris, crayons, coloring books, and, if i can find some really colorful kinds; wigs. a little bit creepy? yes, but i think it's time. 

i'm kicking myself for forgetting to get a lamb cake mold yet again. next year. for this weekend, a regular cake it is. with some embellishments; the girls are calling for edible bird's nests, gummy worms and a chocolate animal or two. it's going to be something. 

now, if i can get the girls to play nicely, stop obsessing about death and "bad guys in our world" we just might be able to have all the easter fun that i have planned in my head.  

april first

until this morning april 1st meant only the start of a new month to the little girls. but now. now a new world has opened up. a world of little jokes and happy pranks.  

of course, it took some explaining for eve to get that the noisy balloons flying all over as she first walked out of her room were a silly joke, something to laugh at. but by the time her milk magically turned purple as it was poured onto the cereal (thank you food coloring hidden under the cereal, please be as safe as you say you are) she was giddy with the april fool's fun. cries for "more! more april fools tricks! i wonder what's gonna be the next trick!" rang out as we shuffled her off to school. 

this is what's coming next: when eve returns home she and ruth will be greeted with a refreshing glass of undrinkable "apple juice" (lemon jell-o). i think she'll be entertained. and if she greets it with a scowl (even a five-year-old forgets over the course of a day) i know i can count on little ruth to get the joke and laugh enough for everyone until eve joins in.

happy april fool's day everyone. it has been a long time since i celebrated, and never has it been more fun than today with these little girls. i can already see the wheels turning in their little heads... for now i've got to get busy figuring out a way to make something that looks like mac n' cheese, but isn't. that would blow their minds...

arrows and (more) hearts

let's face it, valentines without candy aren't much use to kids. but, we're giving it a go anyway. with a little felt and a lot of help from eve, bracelets were made for the classmates. will they be passed by as the greedy little hands search for more pink laffy taffy? probably. but i remain hopeful that these little bracelets will find a home on the little four-year-old wrists at some point. the arrows should lure in the danger seeking boys while bright pink hearts are like a siren's song to this group of little girls.  

for the girls

for the boys

eve was busy cutting out hearts and addressing the cards while i trimmed her edges, rounded corners, and sewed pink and red buttons for the bracelet closure. we both "threaded" the hearts/arrows on the bands and eve took particular care assigning each friend a specific bracelet. she amazed me over and over again with remembering the assignments perfectly (i tried to trick her). . .  a quick project that should complement the kit kat (oh, i hope there are kit kats) and m&m hands. 

happy valentine's day to everyone! and to those celebrating president's day, enjoy the long weekend! we'll be making our log cabin cake in honor of mr. lincoln and enjoying some long overdue time together. 

hearts in their hair

because they are little girls who love to talk in high voices and wear high shoes. and because no matter how foul the mood brewing between their little eyebrows, when given a heart- any heart- their world becomes warm and bright and magical again. ponies, unicorns and princesses return and they are back to the work of rescuing us all from the ever present danger of hot lava.

and because if you're going to wear a garland of bright pink felt circles and hearts in your hair, this is the week to do it, right?

++

i took pictures of the girls after writing the above. turns out hearts on the head are not the cure for everything, especially for a mom who won't stop taking pictures of girls who have better things to do. . .