How to make a snow angel

We had snow on Monday! We've had some flurries (even some rather heavy flurries) but this was the most snow we've had this winter. It didn't last long!



Doug's morning classes were canceled, and the kids in the complex were on a two-hour delay. (I guess the roads were slippery.) We got Kate all bundled up and went out to play in the snow. She got to use her cute pink boots that she got for her birthday.











The snow on the trees was so pretty!








Kate and Daddy made a snowman. Err... snow bunny.



Some of the neighbor kids (Oleg, Tram, and Carol) were out playing, too, and riding Oleg's disk sled down the hill by the Seventh-Day Adventist church right behind our complex. Kate got to ride on Oleg's sled, too.




The kids made snow angels in the (very empty) church parking lot. Kate was admiring the snow angels and wanted to make one too, so Doug helped her. I made this layout of the pictures:



(Credits here)

It was pretty sunny while we were out and the snow was starting to melt already. By the next day it was raining and the snow was all gone. It was fun while it lasted!

"More medicine!"

This is not a post about medicine. This is actually a post about cinnamon. We have recently discovered that Kate really likes cinnamon, but she keeps calling it medicine. I suppose "cinnamon" and "medicine" might sound kind of similar, if you're not too familiar with either word. We have been correcting her, figuring it's probably a good idea to understand what medicine is and is not, but it hasn't sunk in yet. Tonight she asked for "more applesauce and medicine."

In the meal where the cinnamon was first introduced, Kate was having applesauce and horchata (a Mexican rice drink), which both go well with cinnamon, but she was also having a bit of a lime drink that Doug shared with her, and she wanted cinnamon in that too. She still sometimes asks for "lime juice and medicine." We try to tell her that lime and cinnamon don't really go together, but as they say, there's no accounting for taste.

Elephant and Piggie

...or, more on the genius that is Mo Willems.

We have all become Mo Willems fans (creator of Knuffle Bunny and Kate's much-beloved pigeon). I had heard of his Elephant and Piggie books, but our library doesn't have any of them, so a few weeks ago I looked them up and requested a couple from another branch. There are currently four books in the series, with more on the way. The two we have checked out are Today I Will Fly! and My Friend is Sad. Since bringing them home we have read them over and over. These are written comic-book style, with no other text besides the dialog, and are great for early readers. A lot comes through in the characters' gestures and expressions.



Kate likes both of them but she especially loves My Friend is Sad (it has a robot in it) and has the whole thing memorized now. In fact last night I watched Doug and Kate act out the book, impromptu, on the bed. Kate was really getting into it, crying "THERE WAS MORE!" with great emotion, and saying "and my best friend was not there to see it with me" in her cute little voice. (And right after that she decided that the three of us were Diego, Alicia, and Baby Jaguar, so we played at rescuing her stuffed animals for a while.)



Recently I was looking at Mo Willems' blog and found this picture of a plush Elephant and Piggie. Kate came up behind me and saw the picture. I could see the wheels turning in her head for a minute, and then she said, "Play with them?" Unfortunately they aren't available quite yet.

Books are fun. We like them.

Oh, rats!

I haven't posted lately because I've been working on a few things. I'd been meaning to expand my Year of the Pig kit with the rest of the animals, but with the lunar new year quickly approaching it became clear that I wasn't going to be able to do all of them, so I just made a little Year of the Rat add-on.

I couldn't decide which rat pose I liked, so I just included both of them! He's a cute little guy.

The rat is the first animal in the Chinese zodiac cycle. There's a story about how this came to be. The Jade Emperor invited the animals to a party. Near the end of the journey, they animals had to cross a celestial river, and the rat tricked the ox into letting him ride on its head. When they were almost at their destination the rat jumped off the ox's head and arrived first. So the Year of the Rat comes first, and the Year of the Ox is second.

Last year I got a lot of hits from people looking for "papercut pig." I'll have to put my little rat over in the sidebar or something, for anybody looking for a papercut rat.

Stumpy the Dinosaur

Here's Kate's other crocheted friend, to go with her octopus. This one took rather longer. I got the body done in a couple of days and then got busy doing other things, and left the poor dinosaur with no feet for a while. (Kate kept picking it up and saying "It's not done yet!") I finally sat down and finished the feet while watching Stardust. Unlike the octopus, I couldn't do it all in one piece, so the feet had to be stitched on separately.

Doug named the dinosaur Stumpy, but Kate keeps calling him Bumpy. That works. Lumpy would also be appropriate.

More Elizabeth

Pictures here! That one of her crying is so expressive. Aww.

Elizabeth was a Monday baby, like Kate (I took pictures of Kate every Monday for the first two years). Monday's child is fair of face.

Elizabeth is Karen's middle name, as well as Kate's middle name, and Betsey's first name. We have a lot of Elizabeths in the family. I wonder if Barb feels left out.

Baby News

Our niece is here! Elizabeth Anne, born at 12:47, 8 pounds 10.4 ounces, 19 1/2 inches long. Her hair is red! And her eyelashes are very light, which the nurse said is a good sign of a redhead. Peter called and gave me the details this afternoon. They should have pictures soon. Hooray!

Quote of the Day

"There's a fine line between Lunch and Disaster. And I think I crossed it."
--Doug

Playing tag

I have been tagged by Katy!

1. Name your 2 favorite scrapbooking topics:
a. Kate (the subject of a large majority of the pictures I take)
b. ummm.... I'm going to say "places," looking at my overall body of scrapping.

2. What are the 2 best places you've been to?
broadly speaking,
a. Korea and
b. Newfoundland

3. Name 2 things you do every day:
a. make oatmeal
b. spend too long in the shower

4. Tell us 2 things that pretty much everyone knows about you.
a. I draw and stuff
b. I can't figure out what to do with my hair.

5. 2 places you wish to visit:
a. the Summer Palace in Beijing
b. Angkor Wat

6. 2 things you may not know about me are:
a. I played the flute briefly in elementary school
b. I sometimes give names to inanimate objects

7. 2 nicknames you've had at some time in your life:
a. Nayna
b. Lainie
(not sure on the spelling on either of those)

8. Name 2 of your favorite drinks:
a. orange juice
b. more orange juice

9. What are 2 interesting (in a good or bad way) jobs you have had in your life?
a. BYU pruning crew (loved it--we got to go all over campus and do lots of different things)
b. Cashier at the Dominion grocery in St. John's, Newfoundland. It wasn't that the job itself was so interesting, but I got to talk to all sorts of people (some of whom I could barely understand), and the job also led to other things happening.

10. What are your top 2 fun things to do after work?
Well, I don't really have an "after work," but I'll say
a. Go out to eat
b. Read in bed

11. What are 2 things you would like to learn:
a. stained glass
b. guitar (I play just a little)

12. What are the last 2 songs you downloaded or last 2 CD's you bought?
a. The Barra MacNeils' second Christmas album (didn't like it as well as the first)
b. and... ummm... Great Big Sea's "The Hard and the Easy"? (that was quite a while ago, but I can't remember anything else in between).

13. Name 2 movies you could watch or you have watched 100 times in your life and still watch again, no problem:
a. The Princess Bride
b. The Little Mermaid (I don't know about a hundred times, but certainly a whole lot of times)

14. What 2 songs will you always listen to in their entirety because they truly speak to you?
Golly, this is a hard one. There are songs that I really enjoy for their harmonies or whatever, or songs with clever lyrics that I like to listen to... Ah ha! I have thought of something:
a. There's a filk song by Kathy Mar called "When Giants Walked" that I remember being quite moved by the first time I heard it (Bob Kanefsky's version is brilliant and hillarious, as well).
b. and Erci Bogle's "The Green Fields of France" (also known as "No Man's Land"), which I originally came to through ... ummm... a filk song about a dead cat (also by Bob Kanefsky, as it happens). We don't have the song, but if I were ever out somewhere and heard it I would stop and listen.

I guess I'm supposed to add my own question here, but I can't think of anything and this is probably long enough as it is. I'm going to tag Cami and Amy, if they want to do it.

Settlers of Not-Catan

Doug found this site at games.asobrain.com with a game that is remarkable like a certain other game that we like to play. There are a few cosmetic differences, but the interface is not hard to figure out. You can play with other people or with bots. The bots are all named after "Friends" characters. It's rather embarrassing to lose to a bot named Chandler or Phoebe, but it's fun to play. There are lots of different maps to try.



There are a couple of other games on the site as well. The Settlers game is called Xplorers. Unfortunately Rebecca wasn't able to get it to work on her Mac, so we couldn't play together.

The latest scrapping stuff

I've been working on this set of Breakthrough Templates for days and days... I don't even know how long, but they're finally done. Whew! Doug took Kate out this afternoon and they walked around a lake and threw rocks in the water while I finished up the directions and the packaging and everything. It all takes a long time. I made this layout with one of the templates. I just love these pictures.

My Journal-Ons are being spotlighted this week at DiSc Talk Radio (for all of about one minute--but it's kind of fun, anyway!)



I also made this suede lacing template for this month's mega kit, "Tied Together." (It'll be available separately later.) I just love using the fall colors, and the leaf stamps. I guess I'm stuck in fall. (Yeah, yeah, I know it's January... )

It's January the eighth!

What are you doing today?

Humming "The Battle of New Orleans"?

Dancing to Elvis?

Watching Labyrinth with David Bowie?

I'm wishing my friend Julie a very happy birthday!

The Littlest Sunbeam

Because of when Kate's birthday falls, she gets to go into Primary when she's just barely turned three. The way they do it at church is that kids are in the nursery from eighteen months to three years old, but they move up at the beginning of the new year. So if a child is born in January, they stay in nursery till they're almost four. We've been wondering how Kate would handle being in with the bigger kids.

The 3-4 year old class in Primary is called Sunbeams (after the "Jesus wants me for a sunbeam" song). Here's our little Sunbeam on her first day. I hear she had a good time. She likes singing, and stories, and she has some good teachers. (The "staying in your seat" concept will take a bit longer, I think.) When I asked her later if she liked Primary, she said, "Yes!"

Twelfth Night

Here we are in 2008. I've only had to write the date twice, so far, but I remembered both times. Yay, me.

I've seen blog posts where people are picking a word to be their theme or focus for the year, or describing their goals or whatever. I don't really have anything concrete. We are looking forward to the birth of Peter and Karen's baby, any day now (her official due date is the 10th). We're planning to go to Ohio this summer and hope that all or most of the family will be able to be there too. I think I've got a better idea on what I want to focus on in designing, and I'm trying to come up with some organizational solutions for our apartment, though much of it has me largely baffled. (When you've got two computer desks in the living room, it kind of limits your options.)

Doug started a new quarter on Wednesday, and we're getting back into the swing of things. I think I'll like this schedule.

Today is the twelfth day of Christmas. I suppose the tree will have to come down now. Kate is going to be sad. She always reminds us to turn the tree on when she gets up in the morning. I've been wishing that we could really celebrate the twelve days of Christmas properly, but it's hard to feel Christmasy once we get past the big day and the presents and everything. (I can't decide whether that should be "Christmasy" or "Christmassy." Neither one really looks good.) Beyond keeping the decorations up, I guess we could keep playing Christmas music, and maybe have a little treat of some kind to look forward to at the end of the twelve days. I'll have to think about this for the future.

Of course, we can always listen to Kate singing again to celebrate.

Christmas food

This is one of the things that I got for Doug for Christmas. Salt! Not just any salt--Danish Viking-Smoked Sea Salt. We don't know if this means it's smoked by Vikings, or perhaps on Vikings. Doug thinks it's pretty cool. We've been enjoying trying it on things. A little goes a long way. We liked it in our bacon lentil soup, and on salmon.



I ordered some Wallace and Gromit Wensleydale for Barb and Kyle (completely forgetting that they were going to Ohio for Christmas, but it worked out okay. It was delivered the day before they left). Doug also brought home some for us, from Tacoma Boys. It's expensive, but hey, it's Christmas. We have gotten it once before and liked it. It has kind of a grainy texture and a nice flavor, and it's really good with pear.

We got Ratatouille for Christmas (from Betsey!) and were disappointed to discover that there's no commentary on the DVD. Bummer! I was looking forward to hearing Brad Bird. We also borrowed Stardust from Scott this past weekend. I enjoyed it a lot. I thought it was very nicely self-contained and well realized. But it doesn't have a commentary either. What's up with that?

Tonight we are going to go over to Rebecca's and play Settlers, and snack. Sounds like fun. Happy New Year!

Three!

Yes, it's true, we have a three year old. We are still rather stunned by this fact, but I'm sure it'll sink in eventually.

Kate has been learning about birthday parties, and blowing out candles and things, from Blues Clues and other sources. She's also been fascinated by candles ever since we put one in her jack o' lantern. So we knew we would have to have candles. Not being much into cake, though, we just cut a slab of panettone and stuck the candles in that. (Which was fine--Kate likes panettone.)



Kate watches Daddy light the candles. ("Candles! And little fire!" she said.) She couldn't quite figure out the blowing-out part, so Daddy helped with that.




Kate and the swag. She's finally getting the hang of unwrapping, but still needs a little help. (We've been trying to discourage paper tearing, in general.)




Aww, big smile! "It's Thomas!"



I found these cute boots for Kate (yeah, I forgot to take the price tag off. Oops). We've had a little snow this year (including some on Christmas day, which was lovely), but nothing that stuck. But hey, it could happen. Kate wore her boots when we went out later, and we were singing the Laurie Berkner song, with some adaptation: "In my pink boots! In my pink boots! I stomp around in my pink boots!"



More dinosaur stuff from Scott. Where on earth we're going to put it all, we have no idea.

We went out to the Indian buffet in Lakewood for lunch. Kate ate quite a bit, but finished before we did, of course, and then we had to try to keep her contained while we ate. That was a bit tricky.



After lunch we went over to the nearby Barnes and Noble and hung out there for quite a while. Kate thinks of bookstores as places that have toys. Oh yeah, and books, too. We found some cool pop-ups.



We also got Kate the Scholastic Knuffle Bunny video. Here she is watching it with her daddy (and her pigeon, and her Thomas), and following along in the book. Kate loves the Knuffle Bunny video. I think we've watched it like fifteen times already. (It's short.)

The video has some very cute framing stuff with Mo Willems and his daughter Trixie. (You can see quite a bit of it on amazon.) Oh, and apparently Knuffle Bunny is a girl. Who knew?

In the book, Mo Willems thanks the 358 6th Avenue Laundromat, the site of Knuffle Bunny's misadventure. I wonder if the laundromat has anything celebrating their literary fame. Is there a signed Mo Willems doodle on the wall? Do Knuffle Bunny fans make pilgrimages to the laundromat, and vie for the opportunity to put quarters into the "M" machine?

Kate just came in and saw what I was doing, and wanted to watch Knuffle Bunny again. These scholastic videos are pretty cool. We should get some more.



Our little girl is getting so big! (I know I've said that before, but she keeps getting bigger!) She's talking so much these days, and we are all enjoying the wonders of communication. We can tell each other things! Yes! She still has some pronoun confusion--when she's having trouble with something, she hollers, "Can I help you?" and when she wants to hand us something she holds it out and says, "Give it to me?" She's also become very interested in the smoke alarm, which she calls the "smokel arm." It's too cute. I know we'll miss these baby things as she gets older.

Happy birthday, Kate! I think three will be fun.

Christmas pigeon (and dinosaurs!)

I was hoping to get the Christmas pictures posted before Kate's birthday, but things have been a little crazy around here.

Christmas morning Kate slept late. Doug went in and asked her, "Do you want to get up and open presents?" and she said, "No, want to stay here." Doug said to me, "I'm sure that's the last time we'll ever hear that!"



The first thing we opened was Kate's Fergus pajamas (from the David Shannon book). I found them online a few months ago and showed them to Kate, and asked her if she liked them and if she would rather have the blue ones or the purple ones. I guess she remembered, because as soon as she saw them in the package, she said, "Fergus pajamas!" She wanted to put them on right away, so present opening was interrupted for a couple of minutes.



This is a plush Mo Willems pigeon that says "Let me drive the bus!" when you squeeze it. The pigeon was a big hit. Kate held onto it while she opened her other presents.




Aunt Karen sent this cute little dragon costume. It's a hooded cape with spikes and a tail. Kate does like it, but she's been wanting us to wear it. (Doug says, "If she wears it, then she can't see it." Makes sense.)

This apartment doesn't have the best lighting for taking pictures. Our last place was definitely better, the way the light came in the window.



We went over to Scott's house for Christmas dinner. Scott and his daughter Kira gave Kate a bunch of dinosaurs that Kira used to play with when she was little. Dinosaurs are very exciting. Scott also gave us a nativity set. Kate has been playing with them all together. Witness this scene of carnage:



Kate also got some fun things from the grandparents (for which we are still charging batteries), and from Rebecca. Thanks so much for helping our little girl have such a fun and memorable Christmas!

A little Christmas music

I wanted to share this sample of the Barra MacNeils singing "O Come Divine Messiah." It's not the whole song, but long enough to enjoy. The Barra MacNeils are a family from Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, and their Christmas album is one of our favorites. (The first Christmas album, that is--they just came out with another one that we didn't like quite as much.) When we were in Newfoundland, Doug went to see the Barra MacNeils at one of the pubs downtown, and sat right next to Great Big Sea's Allan Doyle. Oooh.

Last night we went over to the Tracys' for their annual dinner, and I took along my musical pipes. "Carol of the Bells" proved to be too difficult (possible, with practice, I'm sure), but "Silent Night" with harmony was lovely.

Merry Christmas everybody!

The Twelve Days of Christmas (Kate sings!)

This is a card that my parents sent us last year. Kate found it a few months ago (back in October-ish, I think). She thought the pictures were neat, so I sang the song for her. (Not the whole song, just the last verse.) She asked for it again, and again, and again, and after the fifth or sixth time she started singing along with me. We've been singing it a lot this season. (Recently she was singing it rather loudly in the middle of I Love Bento.)

We finally managed to get a recording. Click here to hear Kate! (This isn't her best singing, but it's the best recording we got.)

And if you haven't seen it yet, this performance by the a capella group Straight No Chaser is not to be missed.

Future Focus

A hastily captured snapshot, low light, bad focus. I think I can see what Kate will look like years from now.