St Patrick's Day

What did you do before your 2nd cup of coffee yesterday?  I made a leprechaun hat for a stuffed animal. Parker has a Webkinz named Clover she got last year around this time, and she's been counting the days down to St. Patrick's day so she could dress him up and cart him around.   

And then she taped together a bunch of garbage to make him a house.  This house features a giant refrigerator, a card game and a hat holder.

 

Inside the fridge.  Lots of sweets.

St. Patty's outfit:  greens and blues. 

 

Ruby Red Lips

This is what woke me up this morning. A bossy chatty hand puppet that eats inanimate objects.

Sock hop pic

Dinner for Squinkies

Here's a "what Parker's into these days" post.  She loves her Squinkies.  They are these tiny little plastic animals and I really don't get what's so interesting about them, but they're very popular.  I'm pretty sure the markup on them is 10,000% and someone out there is laughing all the way to the bank.

Anyway, this should give you some idea of the size.

And this is what she does with them:  sets them up in these little vignettes all over the place. They take a lot of time to set up, and then NO ONE IS TO MOVE THEM.   Here they are at a restaurant.  I helped her make the tiny menus on the computer and she cut them all out.  The stuffed giraffe wearing the Post-it hat is the chef.  The little girl Squinkies in the front are the waitresses.  The Diet Coke can is there for scale.

              

Bird ID

What kind of bird is this? They've discovered the finch feeder recently. It seems very un-natural for them to perch on it....they've had to practice quite a bit to get used to it. From what I can tell, they're eating the niger seeds. I mixed in sunflower chips with the niger because I didn't think I'd have enough finches for a whole feeder's worth.  Oh, and the wind is blowing some of his feathers outward.....they're usually smooth.

Rest of the cookie pictures

Here are the rest of the pictures I promised.  If I don't post them now, I never will.  

It's times like this that I regret letting Parker wear a shirt that is too small, inside out, all day long and not brush her hair.  Oh well.

Cutting out cookies

A leftover ball of dough scraps that she played with off and on throughout the day.

Decorating the very special longhorn cookies for Bob.  He likes red hots on his Christmas cookies, so Parker was in charge of those.

I finally let her eat one.

Close up of the decorations.  I do the icing (my signature squiggle style), and Parker does the sprinkles.  You can't really tell but they have sparkly sugar on top in addition to the few bits of colored sprinkles that I allow.

Christmas eve in the kitchen

How to you fill the looooong day before Christmas?  Cooking and eating worked pretty well for me.  I started early this morning making cookie dough, then Parker and I cut them out and baked them.  She made it nearly all the say to the end before getting bored.  I have pictures of her helping...I'll put those in a different post.

After we iced cookies, it was time for a special fancy Christmas eve appetizer I've never tried to make before.  Shrimp Dumplings!  I had shrimp in the freezer, and the other ingredients on hand, so if these never got made, I was only out a couple bucks for the wonton wrappers.  They were great - just like at a restaurant.

Next it was time for pizza.  (I bought frozen dough). Parker had canadian bacon and onion and we had canadian bacon, onion, mushroom and pineapple mango salsa.

And now I'm going to SIT DOWN for the rest of the evening and help Parker track santa on the NORAD site.  

Christmas eve cookies

Parker is literally skipping in circles with excitement.

New Tradition - Elf on the shelf

In case you don't have little kids, or you live under a rock, there's a new thing sweeping the nation at Christmas time. Elf on a Shelf. I suppose this was a tradition in some families, and then some genius relized the opportunity for profit.  I knew about it last year and resisted, but this year I caved. Lots of Parker's friends were coming to school talking about where their elf was each morning.

It works like this:  This little elf sits up out of the way somewhere and reports back to Santa whether or not they've been good.  They aren't allowed to touch him or he loses his magic.  And somehow, magically, each night he changes locations.  Some elves in some homes are VERY creative and mischievous (waaaay to creative, in my opinion - just google "elf on the shelf ideas"...I guess some folks don't have enough to do during the holidays?!)....ours just basically hides, although one morning he tried to do a little fishing. 

So between this and her Playmobile advent calendar (pictures coming soon)....where she gets a little tiny toy that eventually makes a scene....she's super excited each morning and pops out of bed bright and early, instead of sleeping in.  Guess all that sort of backfired, but that's ok - at least she's waking up in a super cheerful mood and is semi-occupied for the first half hour of the morning.  

Now what someone needs to create is the summer vacation "advent" calendar.  A new toy each morning for 3 months.  Where do I sign up?  

Holy cow

A week ago, I suggested that Parker build a nativity out of her stuffed animals, and this is what she came up with.  

Polly the polar bear is Mary.  Bailey the waterdog is Joseph and DQ the cow is Baby Jesus.  

Also in attendance: Wylie the white cat: sheep.  Halloween cat: camel.  Pinky the lion and Rainbow the dog are shepherds.  Not sure if you can tell, but they have shepherds staffs made from pipe cleaners.  Foxy, Candy the bear from Canada and Melissa the bear: 3 Wise Men.

Duchess is the angel and also the narrator.  

Today's artwork: more ponies

Here's today's drawing....more ponies.  Full disclosure:  Twilight and Fluttershine are ponies that she sees on cartoons, they aren't made up, although decorating their hooves and adding horn might be.  So technically, I guess these are unicorns.

Zebra dress

Today's fashion pic: Lindsey the zebra wearing a sleeveless top, a skirt and a headband, all made from dryer sheets.

Slinkie Box hotel

The Slinkie boxes turned into a hotel, not apartments.  Here they are - in the back against the wall.  I'm a little concerned about the overhead at this hotel....there are 3 receptionists.

The horse that is stuffed into the barbie gown is the main receptionist.  The assistant is the little rabbit (?) with the laptop sitting on the overturned bowl.  You might have to click on the picture to see it close up, but notice that Parker has clipped a little barbie flip phone on it's ear so it can work the phones.

Break Begins.

Good think it's break time, because I'm worn out!  Today was the last 1/2 day before Christmas break and even though it's a 'non instructional day' (the principal says "why pretend?") , it was super busy.  We started off with an awards ceremony that I helped produce to recognize the students that participated in the PTA's art contest.

 Parker won a blue ribbon this year again for her artwork, and she'll be advancing to the district level of judging. (It was also pajama day). 

 After the ribbons, they did a "decorate a human tree" and selected 5th graders got to decorate the principals.  It was very cute and the kids loved it.

    Then the kids watched a movie in the classroom while the moms set up the class parties.  I made a Roll A Snowman game.  It was a big hit!  

Parker's teacher gave everyone Slinkies as a gift.  Parker collected all the boxes she could and brought them home to build an animal apartment house.  (you can see the slinkie cast aside next to the tape.

I can only hope that the gifts we have for her under the tree are as interesting as the boxes they are packed in.

Artwork

Just a quick post to share some drawing Parker did this morning. A horse, 2 uniforns and some penguins. Cute, huh?
EDIT:  Unicorns.  Not uniforns.  Thanks aunt Norma!

Finally!

Parker's front tooth FINALLY came out today at school.  It's been just barely hanging on for days and days, sticking out of her mouth, flapping around, and hurting.  It was painful if anyone (including her) tried to pull it, so we just waited.  It was extra thrilling for it to come out at school because she got to go see the nurse and get a special tooth box necklace to keep it in until she got home.

Recent sewing projects

Lucky for blog addicts, I'm on house arrest while our floors are being redone, so I'm getting some pictures posted.
I"m sure I've mentioned before that Parker is OBSESSED with stuffed animals, and all tiny animal figurines.  She builds them homes and dresses them up.  It's hard to find clothes for a tiny horse, especially when no one is interested in taking you horse clothes shopping.  Parker is finding ways to make her own....there's a puppy dog somewhere that has a tube dress made from the plastic bag that comes on the newspaper.  One saturday morning, she was struck with the need to actually SEW something.
So I found an old tshirt and had her trace out a pattern with a sharpie and cut it out.  I pinned and she sewed using my machine. 

Ta Daaaa.  The pattern needs some adjustment, but I'm told that the horse doesn't it mind it being non-form fitting because he just sleeps in it. She's been bugging me for a little sewing machine, but I'm thinking I'll just pass mine down, and ~I'll~ get a new one. 

Here's something I did.  Parker wants some "loungewear" made from  tshirt material, similar to some I have.  She's requested that I give them to her when I grow out of them, but since I'm hoping that won't happen, I found a youtube video tutorial that shows you how to make yoga pants out of an old tshirt. 

Notice that I salvaged the pocket.  It has a cool logo from an electrical company.

Ta daaa.  The finished product is just as sloppy looking and ill fitting as most of the home sewn stuff I see on the internet.  This pattern may need an adjustment as well.

Volleyball

Long time no blog (aside from the most recent one).  You can't believe how busy we are this year.  Not that much has changed, but it seems like I just run from one activity to an errand to another activity or meeting.  In fact, the only way I'm getting this blog post done, is to take my laptop with me while I'm waiting on Parker.

One thing that is eating up a few hour a week is VOLLEYBALL.  Parker is finally old enough to play in a rec volleyball league.  She tried soccer when she was 3 (?) but didn't care for being trampled.  She has always loved the game of throwing a ball or stuffed animal or ball of socks or balloon back and forth, and luckily she likes volleyball too. This would have been a long season had she not.

In 2nd grade, you serve overhand for your first try, and then you can serve it underhand.  Parker played her 5th game 2 weeks ago and she FINALLY got one over the net serving overhanded. Bob and I nearly lept off the bleachers.  She has a good strong underhand serve and she can bump a ball well when it comes to her...in fact the coach for the other team told her players "watch out - she's little but she hits big"...but the overhand serve has been really tough.  Hopefully now that she's had some success, she'll continue to do well.

She'll practice until dark if we let her.  Of course she needs one of us out there to watch, cheer, critique and feed her the ball.

All the other girls are wearing the traditional volleyball 'booty shorts' that look like short bike shorts.  Thankfully Parker prefers basketball shorts or running shorts.  I doubt I'd be able to find them small enough for her anyway.

BREAKING NEWS:  In saturday's game, Parker was AWESOME!  She had 2 or 3 overhanded serves that went over the net, one for a point at match point! (she didn't realize she was serving for the game winner until I told her in the car after the game)  She also hit nearly every ball that came to her back over the net too.  Her underhanded serve was solid as always.  They won the game, after being on a long loosing streak and they were all so thrilled!