Little Lanterns

There are a lot of days when I don't really pride myself on what I've done with my daughter between kindergarten pickup and 2nd grade pickup. If I'm lucky, she has a playdate. If I'm exceedingly lucky, it isn't here and I get a little extra time to do my own thing. But most days, she and I are just here.

I know what you're saying. "Oh, how lovely to have time to spend alone with your youngest." Well, kinda. I mean, it would be if I didn't often feel like web surfing is more important than another game of Candy Land. Because, you see, Mam likes to be entertained. She likes interaction. She'll play games with you until your mind is so numb, you can't possibly see straight to fix dinner. She's "fun" that way. And I'm usually too lame to take advantage of the time I have with her.

But one day last week, she asked before we got home if we could do an art project together. It's one thing not to come up with a fun activity to do with your kindergartner before her brother gets home. It's quite another to refuse a specific request for one.

Fortunately, Daddy and I do a lot of shopping at the Klutz fundraiser sale each year. Klutz is based nearby, so they just unload their warehouse of a bunch of their fun titles. They sell them at full price, but give the amount of your purchase to the school of your choice. It's not a bad deal, really.

So, we had some crafty little books stored away upstairs. I'd been looking forward to putting together some little paper room lanterns for Mam's room and this was the perfect opportunity. Unfortunately, they were fairly advanced for her, so I made the folds and had her squish them into creases. She loved it and she was happy and engaged the whole time, thinking up which lantern we should put together next.

In the end, she had a really cute little garland of lanterns that we strung on her headboard.She was thrilled with them and so excited to turn them on when she went to bed. So cute!

And when Smunch got home, the two of them made cupcakes. I had Mam do that mostly on her own with some help from me where she really needed it and help from Smunch when he felt so inclined. But she had to tell me what to do. I ended up using the mixer to just blend up the dry cake mix and a few other fun little asides, but in the end, they had cupcakes. Cupcakes with chocolate frosting and sprinkles.

(Of course, that means there were two dozen cupcakes lying around. After a few days, I had Daddy take them to work...leaving just enough for dessert that evening. That worked well.)

And, for a change, I felt like I'd done a few "good mom" things. Things I wish I did every day. The monotony of parenthood would be less if I put in this kind of effort every day. And the laundry would never get done, e-mails would never be written, appointments would never be made and the garden would languish. How is it that I can't even do it all when I don't have a job?

Nevermind. All those little lanterns sure make both Mam and me happy!

Stretching the Spooky

Have you noticed that celebrations for children seem to go on and on and on these days? Was it like that when we were kids? Don't get me wrong. It's really fun, but it also makes each event something to "get past" before anything else can happen. Know what I mean? In this instance, of course, I'm talking about Halloweeen.

Halloween in our house started a full week and a half before October 31st. One of the fabulous mommies from Mam's kindergarten class hosted a Halloween tea for all the little girls in the class. She has the perfect house for such things...huge, unmanicured yard and a rambling, non-upated house. Nothing to destroy. Absolutely perfect. And, of course, it was crazy cute.We had a fun couple of hours relaxing in the sunshine and it was a great way to kick of the excitement for Halloween.

A few days later, we made our annual trip to the pumpkin patch, to meet old friends and see everyone's costumes. And, of course, to take photos of the kids that actually include pumpkins. Sir Smunch was a wee bit baffled, apparently.Mam, on the other hand, was all about the posing with pumpkins, even though the bright sunlight wasn't exactly camera-friendly.My sister and I used to pose for these very same pictures in this very same pumpkin patch. Things were simpler then. It wasn't crowded. There was no $5 bounce house, no haunted house. No pony rides or petting zoo. No costumes either. I need to get hold of those photos, just for comparison. I suppose we still did plenty of wandering among the pumpkins, but we didn't look nearly this noble.And I don't recall the need to kick-test them, but maybe that's a boy thing. I'm quite sure there was plenty of this: And my mom probably even helped us pick that pumpkin up and purchase it...unlike me. I opted for the $3.99 pumpkins at CVS instead of paying $20 for this bad boy.

The pumpkin patch trip (followed by the annual pilgrammage to Jake's Pizza) was a whole week before the big event, giving us time to work up some eager anticipation for the Halloween parties and parades at school on Friday. As usual, I overvolunteered my time, not realizing that Smunch's Halloween party was at the very same time as the kindergarten parade and party. Fortunately, the front of his classroom is directly opposite the back door to Mam's kindergarten room and I managed to go back and forth and not miss much.

However, I was in charge of one of two crafts for the second graders. And all 80 second graders would be rotating through Smunch's classroom, so it wasn't a small job. The craft had to be explained three times and I'd failed to cut streamers to length, which turned out to be a fatal flaw in my plans. There were always at least two of us busily cutting streamers as fast as we could. The projects turned out cute though and the kids seemed to like them.I loved seeing all the kids' ghost wind socks together on the table. They're way cuter as a "flock" than they are flying solo. I wished I could've taken them all home myself!In mid-craft, I ran over to the kindergarten yard to watch Mam's parade. It was small and low-key, but obviously, it was important that I made it. She was already dressed when I got there. After the grand march, the kids were treated to Frankenstein hands (gloves filled with popcorn with candy corn "fingernails") and pudding with chocolate crumbs on top...in addition to cheese pizza. Spoiled any?I ended up having to drag Mam back to the second grade room, where she made her own ghost, we cleaned up and hightailed it home for lunch before going back to school to help Smunch get dressed for the whole-school parade.
The parade was fun, but very long and too hot for so many kids sitting out on the blacktop. Mam only begrudgingly participated in this second parade, even though most of her class had returned for the event. For Smunch, it was the main event. But he didn't see me in the sea of parents, so I didn't get much of a photo.His mask was always falling down, so his chin was pointing up towards the sky trying to keep it on.

After the parade, the second graders (and many younger siblings) headed to the multipurpose room for a 20-minute viewing of It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown, complete with their own Frankenstein hands (their other craft from the morning) for munching.Then all the little monsters and goblins went home for the weekend, completely hopped up on sugar and excitement...thinking the next 24 hours couldn't pass fast enough.

Crafty Overload

In all the spare time I had during the cake planning and decorating process, I needed to put together a class gift for Smunch's first grade teacher. If I was better about delegating this sort of stuff...and if I'd really understood the convergence of all the activities at the end of the year...I might have tried to give this job to someone else. But I'm a little clueless about this stuff. I started soliciting donations from other class parents early on in the process, but didn't have much idea what I was going to do other than buy a gift card from a garden store.

I didn't do it at the holidays, but I wanted to try and get the kids to make something for their teacher. It would be a lot more personal (and cheap) than the gift card. But I didn't want to do anything that was too big a deal. After all, what would she want with this item in 5 years or 10 years when she barely remembers who these kids are? Here's what I came up with:This is a plain ol' $5 terra cotta pot. I borrowed some acrylic paints from a neighbor, painted a grassy background and some lettering, then had each of the kids pick what kind of bug they wanted to create. They did the fingerprints. I did the details...antennas, legs, eyes, etc. and wrote the name of each kid next to their creation.It took me showing up during lunch two days in a row to get most of the kids. The last one was conveniently a neighbor who could drop by for a minute. I sprayed the whole thing with a clear acrylic glaze and then went shopping for plants to put in it.While I was doing fingerprinting, I also had all the kids sign a card and make a few ink print bugs for decorations. Too bad I didn't take a picture of the inside of the card. It was really priceless!*Phew*! It was a cute little project, but more work than I was really up for with an impending school-wide event to coordinate.

Although I had some trouble finding enough volunteers to help out in the classroom during the year, the class parents are monetarily generous. I was able to get that gardening certificate, a gift card for a nice Italian dinner, a manicure/pedicure card, and a gift card for Borders. Then, of course, it was up to me to find some kind of ridiculous crafty way to present these cards. Why I have a problem with handing someone a gift card or even a pile of gift cards, I'm not sure. I decided it needed to be a folding card with pockets. And this is what I came up with...It was kinda cute and garden-y. I stitched the pages together with yarn and then designed the whole thing to be a brochure of suggestions for summer activities. Cute. Maybe too cute.I got all these things together in barely enough time to be presented at the 1st grade picnic on Monday. Yeah. That Monday after the Spring Celebration on Friday. Ugh. The picnic was great, but that'll save for another post...

Crafty Holidays

Compared to many mommies I know, I'm hardly a crafty one, but I really went overboard for the holidays in 2008. I always drive myself crazy with projects at the end of the year and this year, was no exception. Instead I went exceptionally overboard. It's a wonder I made it to 2009 with any brains left at all.

It all started with the chocolates...I've made truffles every year for the past few years. They look really impressive, despite being pretty easy and they make great gifts for the teachers. Some cute little boxes from Michaels and a little menu of all the goodies inside, all tied with a festive bow. I don't know if the product really measures up to its appearance. I try not to eat many out of self preservation. But they sure look nice!Then came the cookies. I always make a whole bunch of cookies and have fun letting the kids decorate them with me. This year, I offered to take cookies to the staff appreciation luncheon at Smunch's school, so that put a little more pressure on. Still, I made far fewer cookies than I've made any other year. I just had too much other stuff going on. Just sugar cookies, gingerbread, white chocolate raspberry bars and something my family calls Graham Sensations.

I found a really fantastic gingerbread recipe this year and it got all kinds of raves. Too bad it was such a pain in the rear to deal with! And I didn't like how the cookies held up, despite having lots of flavor and remaining moist and chewy. Still, they were cute when they were all dressed up.I brought this platter of cookies to the luncheon, leaving precious few for my neighbors, who probably expect cookies from us by now.As happy as I was with my little tray of cookies, I felt really bad when the other mom who brought cookies indicated that she thought hers just looked too ugly next to mine. I bet they were just as tasty and she didn't spend her whole evening decorating. In some ways, her cookies were almost certainly the superior product.

Then came the class gift. In a moment of supreme volunteerism, I signed up to be the head room mom for Smunch's classroom. I like it. I feel like I'm "in the know". But it's a lot of work. I won't be doing it next year, I'm pretty sure, but then I've got another opportunity with an incoming kindergartner in Mam. I really like Smunch's teacher, so this isn't the biggest chore I've ever had. I'm just not super at delegating. Anyway, I digress. As room mom, I'm responsible for the class gift for the holidays and at the end of the year. I made things super easy for myself by sending the teacher a questionnaire at the beginning of the year, asking her about all of her favorite things...stores, restaurants, hobbies, etc. So I collected the money and set out to buy her a few gift cards for her favorite places. Naturally, I couldn't let this get by me in an uncrafty sort of way. I got a cute little rosemary bush at OSH, dark chocolates, gift cards to Macy's, Starbucks, iTunes, Target and her favorite Mediterranean restaurant. I added a bow. It turned out like this:It was a blast putting this together and seeing it turn out pretty well, but as you'd imagine, my head was swimming in "Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens..." and I couldn't let that little opportunity pass me by. Seriously. How could I not find a way to put this creation in a brown paper package tied up with string?? Am I the only one who would see this as an imperative?To cap that whole little theme off, it turns out The Sound of Music is actually another one of Smunch's teacher's favorite things...but I didn't know that until after the gift presentation.

Last, but not least, I had this brilliant idea that I could get more moms to volunteer to help out at the annual classroom gingerbread house-making activity if I could make the younger siblings feel welcome. So, I offered to put together a few extra houses for the little kids (including Mam) to decorate. Because, you know, I was already making all the icing for the classroom anyway. What's a few extra houses, right?Turns out, it's really not that hard to make little gingerbread houses when you're not trying to do it with a bunch of first graders. I put together four tidy little extras in no time. But wait...at the last minute the teacher also told me she wanted all the candy I'd solicited from other parents to be sorted into one bag per student. Ack! Good thing it wasn't like the holidays were coming or anything!Fortunately, the big kids had a great time decorating the houses they'd made that morning...and the little kids were thrilled to join in. Even the one little sibling who showed up unannounced had his own house to decorate. It was sugary and messy, but such a success!

A hobby just isn't a hobby without Michael's

Seriously. If you haven't spent at least $50 at Michael's for it, can you really call it a hobby...or at least a crafty hobby? (I know I can spend far more than that at REI, for instance.)

During our last letterboxing trip, I ran across a comment from a person by the trail name Wascally Wabbit. The comment sounded seriously dismayed that there weren't more hand-carved stamps in the log book. His/hers is naturally hand carved and pretty cool. It always sounded like a lot of trouble to me. I can buy something way cooler than I could possibly carve. But have you priced rubber stamps lately? Yikes! If you're going to hide letterboxes...especially those likely to disappear, like our second one...I'm thinking a cheaper alternative is a must!

So, yesterday's trip to Michael's was in search of things I could use to carve an eraser into a cool rubber stamp. Eraser? Check. Exact-o knife? Check. Uh, that's really it. I don't know how my bill got so big. Must've been all that other crap in my basket.

Last night, I searched for some clipart and other things I could use as a template for a stamp. I wanted to carve a heron because I've got plans to put a letterbox where we often see a great blue heron hanging out. So, here goes...
Hey, not bad, if I do say so myself! So I tried an easier one. This time it was the all-seeing "Eye of Horus". Wow. This is so easy, I should probably never go to Michael's again...except to buy erasers and replacement knife blades!