A Special Something for my Special Girl

After Maggie was born, Mr. Rogers bought me a delightful handmade necklace from a favorite Etsy shop, Modern Bird.  It was a Mama Bird and her Little One necklace with Maggie's name stamped on the back.  Maggie has always been fond of it and is tickled when I remind her that it is my Maggie bird necklace.  For her birthday I wanted to get her an heirloom piece that was symbolic of our relationship.  Something handmade, something to be treasured by her for years to come, and something for her to pass down when she is older.  Thinking that all little girls strive to be like their mothers, Maggie was simply ecstatic when she realized that she had a bird bracelet of her own...dangling bird and all.

It's immeasurable what that sweet little girl brings to my life and to our family.  Her personality makes her shine and her personality dazzles us all, her grins and smiles, her ability to perform pure physical comedy, her hearty laugh, an excellent sport ready at a moment's notice to do any athletic task her brothers do and yet she balances it all with her own dainty walk, hands floating in the air.  One of the greatest gifts from God this one has been.
 

A heartfelt thank you to Laura, the metalsmith behind ModernBird, who designed this most treasured Personalized ID bracelet for Maggie with, of course, the dangling bird that Maggie is so fond of.  Thank you for sharing your talents, time and most importantly love.  That is why I buy handmade.  

Make It! Mini-Coloring Books!

Originally the plan was on making teeny tiny notepads for Maggie's party favors.  However, before starting I ran into a stack of copies I had made from Lincoln's Disney Ice Capades coloring book.  Hmmm, I suppose that was illegal for me to do but what was happening was Lincoln would color a page in his book and then be crazy irrational when his favorite characters were no longer available for coloring.  [side note: Maggie is also happy/sad/irrational at the exact same moments her brothers choose to be.  So considerate of her because the only thing better than one kid throwing a fit would be two or three!]   Can you blame a mom?  Out of NECESSITY I made like a dozen of the Mad Hatter and Alice sheets for him and Maggie, since she too had taken up Lincoln's cause,  but of course they lost interest shortly thereafter.   Stuck with these papers, and not wanting them to go to waste, it seemed necessary to revamp the mini-notebook plan and make mini-coloring books.  It took a while to figure out how to fold them since we were creating them on the fly.  Jack was also hard at work trying to perfect "his" mini-coloring book as well.  Once I created the best folding strategy, they were easy to crank out.  We made the girl's mini-coloring book opened to Alice and the boy's to the Mad Hatter. 

After Jack and I finished, both Maggie and Lincoln were still napping....really, what would you have done?   Is it totally weird that I made an extra one to color myself?  Errr, I used it as a lesson on how to shade with crayons for Jack!

Really, you could make these out of anything but I loved those mini parcel tags and had to justify my purchase at Knot&Bow somehow.  For the boys' Sherlock Holmes birthday party, I'm going to do the mini book using the library cards that I also purchased from Knot&Bow....can't wait!
 

Make It!

1. Supplies: Mini Parcel Tags, Baker's Twine, Glue and 8x8 paper.  2. fold all mini parcel tags in half and cut 16" twine for each tag.  3. Take one 8x8 sheet, image up.  4.  Fold image in half, folding upwards (mine had the Mad Hatter on the back, don't let it confuse you!).  5.  Again, fold in half going upwards.  6.  Unfold and prepare parcel tab at corner.  Paper should have 4 horizontal segments.  7.  Place glue on part of tag that you are going to attach to paper, leave a little space free of glue near folded edge.  8.  Secure tag to corner of paper, making sure that it is centered within first segment  9.  Fold paper upwards back into previous four segments from step 6.  The turn so that back side is facing up.  10.  Fold in half, upwards.  11.  Take the segment folding in step 9 and fold only that segment in half BUT this time fold back.  12.  flip booklet so tag is on table and fold last segment in  13.  Double knot baker's twine in mini-tab circle, leaving a 4" tail on the short end and the other 12" on the other end.  14. Wrap longer end around booklet twice.  15.  Meet back at original double knot and secure with a bow.  

1950 Studebaker Fire Truck ...pretty cool!

Lincoln has been pulling all-nighters studying transportation at the preschool!  We went on the culminating activity the other day - an Amtrak ride, the post office, and a ride in this beautiful 1950 Studebaker fire wagon.  Today Lincoln told me that riding in this fire truck was his favorite part of the day.  I can't believe the fire truck trumped the locally famed Superior Dairy Ice Cream AND his first train ride.  It could be because we had to wait at the train depot for two hours since our train hit a car on the way to our stop...yes, that's right!

The fire truck really enchanted me but not as much as that little boy with his standard funny face does!   Studebaker's are classic cars and you gotta love them for the name alone.   Note the speedometer in the truck - it goes up to a whooping 100mph!  Look out Speed Racer!

Seeing as I'm a history geek, I began reading up on Studebaker when I got home from the field trip.  Here is a little synopsis or go to Studebaker History  for fun (to nerds) pictures, ads, and timelines.  Studebaker was an Indiana family who began in the wheelbarrow business during the 1848 California Gold Rush.  Later they supplied wagons to the Union during the Civil War.  They apparently had developed a battery run automobile but switched to gas after partnering up with some oil companies, interesting.  The company had specialized in automobiles, wagons and in defense vehicles for Spanish-American War, WWI and WWII.  Manufacturing of these American cars ceased in the 1960's but apparently there is still quite an active Studebaker enthusiast community.  Neat.

I HEART my family

I'm a real creature of habit.  Listening to the same CD in my car for 6 months straight, eating the same breakfast or lunch for weeks on end, or getting the exact same drink at Starbucks at the exact same time until I run out of money two-thirds of the way through the month.  These are all "norms" that I abide by.  Sometimes I get so into my routine and endless quest for efficiency that I cramp the style of the people I love the most.  Trying to keep structure but also listen to what the kids want has been something I've been trying to re-balance into my life this past month.  Not many items have been crossed off my list lately, a painful sight for people like me, but I've been doing A LOT of the following: shooting hoops, drawing pictures, building trains, playing Wii (Jack is amazed at my SuperMarioBros skills which I can attribute to being an only child and having lots of alone time, lol), and reading stories, among other things.  In general, the five of us spend a lot of time together but I need to be better about not letting my "to-do" list dictate the family schedule.  What did I "need" to do this past weekend? Work on any of the half dozen projects running amuck in my sewing room.  What did I actually do?  Impromptu road trip to San Luis Obispo.  Lincoln, the child who never requests anything, kept asking if we could go to the Coast and it is as if my list vaporized before my eyes!  I just can't say "no" to that cuteness!

...And how much does that cowl rock?  My dear friend Kara handmade it for my birthday, perfect gift!  Speaking of birthday gifts, I had a treasured $15 Banana Republic birthday card that I had been carefully savoring.  When we went to BR, Jack some how swindled me into buying him that hat with my birthday card...ah, it was so hard not to be selfish!

St. Patty's Day Rock Candy...A BUST!

-Maggie brought me those flowers while I was taking these pics!

What?!?!  Can't see the rock candy?  Oh, that's because our St. Patrick's Day rock candy has looked like Nightime Nyquil since the first night we made it - 7 days ago!  Look hard, no crystals...boo hoo! 

Despite our confectionery disappointment we still had a great day full of creative stories involving leprechauns, gold, and a green tea latte for me!  Hope you had a wonderful St. Patty's Day as well!

Etsy Finds: Mad for the Mad Hatter!

A while ago Maggie's birthday party theme hit me like a bolt of lightning.  Something that the kids love playing is "tea"!  Confession - In my heart I just wanted it to be a girls tea party but the boys would be shattered if they didn't get to be a part of Maggie's birthday party.  Mr. Rogers and myself concluded that a Mad Hatter's Tea Party would be something all three kids would be super into and so far the boys are totally geeked up!  The last few weeks have been spent searching Etsy trying to find things to build our little shindig around. 
   

Antique Red Queen of Hearts Hand Knit Ruffled Four Button Spats by VoKnits

Vintage Raw Brass Tea Cup Flower Charms by EpochBeads

High Tea for Alice Custom 3 Tiered Tea and Cupcake Stand by High Tea for Alice

Mad Hatter from Alice in Wonderland Sticker/Seals set of 10 by AnistaDesigns

12 Alice in Wonderland Inspired Things on a Stick by Joosycardco

Alice in Wonderland Tweedle Dee Tweedle Dum Treat Bags by TimeLess Things

CROQUET Party Fine Photography Art Print by SugarLily

After all that perusing, it seems slightly embarrassing that we haven't even seen Wonderland, my next click after this should be into Netflix, but at least I have read the original by Lewis Carroll.

Tweedle Dee Dee! What's Maggie's birthday theme to be?

Words Are Powerful...Why I blew $120 on books to teach the kids about their heritage.

Somewhere along the way I became a major nerd and I've never looked back.  Do you remember those teachers who were sickeningly in love with the subject they taught...that's me.  I try to pretend like I'm a normal person and not regurgitate copious amounts of historical information with flailing arms and a zealous excitement on those around me, but it's hard.  My love for understanding the people of the world, the countries they live in and the country I live in has inundated every part of my life. 

My last four days were spent in pure bliss at the California Council for the Social Sciences 50th Anniversary Conference in Sacramento...finally, people like me!  We promote history...we can't help it!  In addition to history, books are like kryptonite on my self-control.  So all it took was a niche publishing press and a nudge from my history peeps and I dropped $120 big ones at the East West Discovery Press booth...although I've hinted to Mr. Rogers that I spent a lot on books the full amount has yet to be disclosed. 

What got me? This press house focuses on children's books for the multi-racial American community with a ton of Asian-American children's books.  I'm a Asian?  No, but Jack, Maggie and Lincoln are!  A quarter Filipino as a matter of fact.  It is with that pretext that I bought a Tagalog/English book for each of the children.  If only I could have stopped there!  I picked up two more written by the two authors manning the booth and a beautiful Korean/English book for a friend who is a Korean adoptee and her three sweet daughter.   Hopefully these hardback books get lots of reading time, bring a sense of heritage to the children and are past down to the next generation.   

My Rollerskating Birthday!

This was my birthday wish: 1) to go rollerskating sans kids, 2) to skate hand in hand with Mr. Rogers in pure marital bliss to Journey, and 3) win a race and collect a free small soda card. 
Mr. Rogers snapped that pic after my race...pure jubilee on that face!  Is now the time to mention that I'm still rockin' my maternity clothes eventhough I had my last kid almost two years ago?!?!?  You know you do it too!

1) check, no kids  2) Wow, when Mr. Rogers told me he couldn't skate I thought he was just kidding BUT the man really can't skate!  After he fell the second time it was hard not to take pity on his rapidly bruising knees and excuse him from skating the rest of the night! and 3) Taking pride in my first place 1 for 1 racing record, in the 18+ bracket, I was slightly perturbed when the rollerblading nurse took first place and I came in second.  Should I take my defeat like a real woman or blame the crazy rollerblading man who almost made me eat rink around the next cone?  Regardless, I came in 2nd which still qualified me for that free Dr. Pepper! 

My Roller Derby Debut        The Last Ten Pregnancy Pounds