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.