Elyana is 6 1/2!

Half birthdays are a big deal when you have a summer birthday and your half birthday is during winter break. We invited a friend of Elyana's over to play. Then we made, decorated, and ate cake pops. She had a blast. You will see in the photos below that the girls chef hats and fake mustache from the dentist are still a big hit.

Her friend, Phillip, had placed his stuffed lamby inside his chef hat for safe keeping. Look at Elyana looking on with big smiles.

Check out the chocolate beard on Elyana. Chocolate beards = happiness!

Art

I am gearing up to teach 4-8th grade home schooled children art in February. I have spent part of our winter break researching and trying out a few new projects.  Here is one that I've tried. It will be used in a lesson on printmaking and on visual perspective. It is supposed to be a reflection of a city in the water at sunset. I didn't quite have the right materials for the printmaking, but that's what experimenting is all about. Here is a website where I got the idea if you're curious: http://laughpaintcreate.blogspot.com/2011/08/city-prints.html

End of the Year Miscellaneous

I'm still enjoying making jewelry. The top necklace I made for me and the bottom necklace I made for my teaching assistant.

The girls got a fake mustache for a good dental checkup. We had a lot of fun trying it on.

Our good friends gave Mikayla this neat hanging chair from IKEA. She loves it and spends much time hanging out in it.

Christmas!

A few weeks ago, we celebrated Christmas with Nate's family. Each year we make our traditional Swiss Dooba rolls. The girls wanted to bring their chef hats to help out making them this year. We had a wonderful time. Our highlight with his family was Christmas caroling to the elderly and delivering cookies. Elyana really got into it.

 

Making doobas for the Jones Christmas celebration.

Elyana went into Mikayla's room to see if she was awake. They were both so excited they held hands and squealed!

I love the captured surprise look representative of Christmas morning!

Finding stocking surprises!

The girls received a table and chairs set. They had a tea party that my mom's dog, Chloe was invited to.

Chloe had plenty of doggie treats served to her at their tea party!

Here is our attempt at an upside down snowman.

More Baking Cakes

The girls have been busy this month finishing up their cake decorating badges for American Heritage Girls.  They both really enjoy cooking and baking and part of the badge work is to start their own recipe books.  I love that when they are ready to leave home some day, they will have their own recipe books and will have a great handle on how to cook!  Unfortunately though, since these cake badges have coincided with Halloween, I can't wait for the New Year to loose some weight!

I love that they both insist on wearing chef hats when we cook together! We could use some cute kid sized aprons now.

Separating the yolk.

They created a snake cake complete with home made chocolate candies!

Halloween 2012

Elyana was dressed as Snow White this year and Mikayla was dressed as a Winx Club fairy.  My mom was visiting this year so it was nice to be able to trick or treat as a family for the first time because we had someone to answer the door for our trick or treaters.  The girls had their annual costume parade at their school. Their principle leads the way and has the best costumes.  The teachers also dress up.  The 4th grade teachers were dressed as rock, paper, and scissors.  Because I had to work, my mom was thankfully there to take pictures and help students get into their costumes.  I'll post the photos she took as soon as I get them.

Introducing Chloe!

My mom just got a shih tzu (pardon my spelling) puppy. She is about 12 weeks old now and her name is Chloe.  She is almost be 3 pounds right now. The girls got to meet her for the first time this last week and had so much fun with her. Our favorite memory so far is when she discovered herself in the mirror and started to do some tricks.

The girls grabbed some doll clothes and dressed her up. She hated every minute of it.

Nate's Sister, Cyndi, Gets Married!

It was a beautiful outdoor evening wedding on 10-11-12!  The decorations were so pretty.  The family had worked really hard in pulling it all together.  Here are a few of my favorite photos from the evening.

Getting love from Daddy before we left for the ceremony.

My beautiful girls. We enjoyed going for a little hike in the woods before the ceremony.

Elyana with her cousins.

Cute photo with Grandma!

Posing with Grandpa!

Even little Alice stopped to pose with the girls.  She is so adorable! I miss that age!

October Is Flying By!

Nate and I took a Gondola boat ride with our friends, Greg and Kari Tatu for my birthday weekend on the St. Croix river.

Beautiful autumn view from our boat.

Annual picking our apples and pumpkins at Northwoods Orchard. I guess we should start decorating our pumpkins soon!

They had a huge chair the girls wanted to have their picture taken in!

Mikayla and Elyana are working on their cake decorating badges. They made me a birthday cake with home made frosting! It was so delicious!

Posing before school on picture day.  They both wanted their hair curled.

The girls couldn't wait to rake some leaves to play in.

Garage Makeover: Slat Board

If you want to organize your garage in an easy low cost way, check out slat board options at Menards. Another similar idea is at Home Depot and it's called FastTrack by Rubermaid.  We went with the Menards product since it was cheaper and because the store actually had the baskets available.  If you purchased the track system at Home Depot, you would have to order the baskets online.  I really admire how cleverly Nate hung the slat board to the wall.  He first used his level and drew a line where he wanted the bottom of the slat board to be.  Then, he placed screws along that line where there were studs.  Then, with my help, we sat the slat board on top of this row of screws to rest while he placed several more screws into the slat board itself.  Once the slat board was secure in place, he removed the row of screws it was sitting on. 

The next part is the fun part, place the various hooks, baskets, and shelves where you want them and watch your garage look sleek!  We are loving this.  We have a very small garage and now have more room to walk between the cars.  I'm already wanting to do this same thing on the other side of the garage to hang tools.  Overall, the project cost around $150.

2012-2013 School Year: First Day of School

1st grade and 4th grade.  My girls are now both full day students!  I've been missing them both tons today!  Here are some photos I took before school.  Yes, they still enjoy dressing alike...

I painted our front bench over Labor Day weekend.

Mikayla's 4th grade buddies!

Prayers for Elyana this year. She doesn't know any of the girls in her class...

American Heritage Girl Camp

I was nervous and excited for the girls to go to camp for the first time a few weeks ago.  Nervous because it was their first times ever camping. Also I was nervous because Nate was out of town for the week.  I had my mom come visit to help out.  We camped at the Boy Scout GameHaven Reservation Camp here in Rochester. Camp started early on a Monday morning with Elyana's unit. We worked on earning badges all day and ended the day with a fun campfire and delicious S mores sandwiched between fudge striped cookies.  Elyana was so excited to sleep in a tent as you can see in her picture below. Nate came to get Elyana the next morning after breakfast and dropped off Mikayla.  My mom stayed at home to watch Elyana and Nate left for his trip.  Mikayla worked on earning 3 badges Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.  I was so excited to see her try so many new things!  I learned a lot and tried tons of new things too.  I led all 40 something girls throughout the week with crafts.  Our favorite was the smashed leaf journals we created from gathering various flowers and leafs on our many nature walks.

The girls playing on one of the many obstacles of the obstacle course.

Mikayla and her buddy Hannah.

Mikayla about to canoe for the first time!

So excited to sleep in a tent!

Walking to breakfast, or lunch, or dinner...

Mikayla liked archery so much!

I really liked shooting BB Guns.

Outside of Mikayla's tent.

Some of our smash leaf journals.

I was so nervous letting her learn to use a Swiss army knife.

Throwing tomahawks!