kirstencan

A Day in the Life

I mentioned before that I had lost the adaptor for my weird, fiddly lens.  Well, I was 10 seconds away from buying a new one, when I wondered if I'd left it ON THE LENS.  Yep.  Then I laughed and felt dumb.  It's a great place to keep it, I just forgot.

I got it out Thursday and made myself take a lot of shots, really practicing with it in manual mode.  All those shots all day turned into a 'Day in the life' type deal.  Which is kinda fun.   So here's Thursday, January 26th:  a gloomy, cold and rainy day.  But also Aaron's birthday.  All shots are SOOC (no editing).

Early: checking email + blogs

Breakfast

Thomas showing his sister his Sea Monster book - again

Hot chocolate for one who woke up coughing

Wet hair + grammar on the couch

Math

Erasing

Chemistry = Khan Academy video

The girl's been writing our to-do's on the whiteboard for us lately

Thomas finished book 2 and is starting book 3

I have two kids who insist on sitting like this

The girl making Aaron's birthday cake

My date with nordic track + hulu

Playfoam on the chess board

Building bionicles

Wrapping Aaron's presents (where is the clear tape?)

Toes + playing geosafari

Playmobil

Laundry

Leftovers for lunch

Lego

Practicing piano

Computer time

History = game about buying supplies with Spanish cobb

Art = painting something inspired by another work of art

Speech = waiting in the school library - Monkey chose to come with today

Driving to dance

Supporting our team (final score was 41-14 -woo!)

Dinner = black bean soup + bread

Rearview mirrow

Picking up the girl

Happy Birthday, Aaron!  The girl's german chocolate cake turned out delish.

Making myself use that lens all day helped me get the hang of it more, which is good.  I think I'll be keeping it on for a while.  Plus, it's kinda fun to have all these small details from one day.  I should do this again.

Year of the Dragon

I really like celebrating Chinese New Year - holidays are just fun, and traditions are good.  Also, I really wanted to celebrate our New Year's Eve and it didn't happen. I thought that this would finally be the year when everyone could stay up, and we could do crackers and bang pots and have fun.  But it just wasn't in the cards this year, so Chinese New Year it is.  Plus, it's the year of the Dragon!  That's my year!  And my daughter's!

Anyway, I picked up a couple of fun new decorations (which was good, since I ended up not having red paper to make lanterns like last time). I don't go all out like for the girl's 8th birthday party, though (I still like that one).

The kids had New Year themed mazes and coloring pages in their boxes for school, along with 'find China on the map/globe' challenges.

They wanted to watch a movie about China, and picked Mulan (Monkey voted for Kung Fu Panda, though).  Our library doesn't have Big Bird in China anymore!  Boo.

We put together a surprise to send to their Boise cousins (don't look, Christy!), including our favorite almond cookie recipe, which Monkey illustrated with ideas of what else they could eat for a feast.  I kinda love it.

Oh, and Panda Express sent me a New Year's education pack, so we sent them coupons, too. :)  It also had a dvd, so we watched a semi-educational commercial. heh.

I was really happy with how the dinner came out.  Chinese is usually Aaron's cooking domain and he's really good at it.  But I tried a new wonton soup recipe (from this book) that turned out super yummy and the baby bok choy made it really pretty.  Spicy soba recipe from this book.  Spring rolls from Costco. ;)  I made too much food, though - so we had leftovers - woo!

I'm glad I finally got those soup spoons, I've been wanting them forever and they make me happy.  Also, the kiddos all got these chopsticks in their stocking.  They love chopsticks and this makes it a tad easier.

Hope the Year of the Dragon is a sweet year for you!

Really Easy Chinese New Year Banner

We are celebrating Chinese New Year today, and I just wanted to show you this quick banner I made this morning.

I used a couple of packs of Lai See envelopes, some baker's twine and a glue stick (you can use tape).

Then I sealed the envelopes over the twine and hung it up.

I know, this is almost too easy to talk about, but I think it turned out cute.

Chinese New Year goes on for fifteen days, so you still have time to celebrate!  And if you didn't know how to decorate... well now you do!

Back soon with the rest of our celebration!  Now I'm off to bake almond cookies - yum!

Kinda Random

Monkey was sick last week.  Oh, yeah, I told you. 

Well, it wasn't a 12 or 24 hr bug as I had expected.  In fact it took a whole week to kick this weird virus.  Not fun.  My little monkey usually doesn't sit still much, but he spent most of the week on his Couch Bed, and feverish:

Poor buddy.  Thank goodness for:

                    Convenient dr's offices.

                    Downloading free demos for the PS3.

                    Netflix.

                    Awesome Nana-made quilts to snuggle in.

It was a long week.  And I'm afraid he got used to the excellent service (begging him to eat ice cream for lunch and as many video games as he could handle) and this week he wasn't in the mood to be back to normal.  As in, he'd write  'No Skool' on our whiteboard. 

He doesn't see the irony.

 

In other news, this cool girl posted about camelcamelcamel, and I tried it out this week.  It's a price checker on Amazon.   Good stuff if you shop ahead/shop amazon frequently, both of which I do.  Just today I got an email saying that this thing I was looking at ($70 usually) was down to $50 today.   I also looked up this snap circuit set I was thinking of getting someone for their birthday, and by checking the camel site, I found that it is at a rock bottom price right now.  Excellent.  This is a great resource.

 

I designed my...13th? Shutterfly photo book.  When they give me a free book deal or a great coupon code, I take it.  So far I've done 6 photo 'yearbooks' which we give to the grandparents for Christmas.  I've been trying to order extra copies of those when they go on sale, so that someday the kids will all have their own set.  I've done a cousin book, two books for Monkey, one Legoland one for Thomas, a mini beach book and now 3 big beach books.  I think that's 14, actually.  I love those books and my kids go through them all the time.

 

Hopefully we actually get some snow this weekend - it's been a ridiculously mild winter.  Unfortunately it's the weekend that Aaron has to take some scouts on a Klondike campout.  Well, they'll Be Prepared.  I just worry about the roads.

Have a great weekend!

 

Don't get cocky.

So I was reading a blog post by a friend of mine about a Less Than Ideal awful trip to the grocery store with her four young kids in tow.  Aw, poor Lindsay, that sounds not fun at all.  I counted my blessings.  Going to the store used to be THE WORST THING for us.  Awful.  Taking both boys anywhere was horrible when they were younger.  Poor Thomas would have sensory issues + motion sickness from the cart.  Let him out of the cart and he'd run away or lay down and not get up.  In the cart again, he'd hit his brother.  Plus grab anything he could reach.  Not. Fun.

Either Aaron or I did the grocery shopping solo for years.

Anyway, back to counting my blessings.   I don't have to take the kids to the store anymore!  It has changed my life to have a responsible babysitter in our family.   Often, I ask if anyone wants to come to the store with me to keep me company because they're FUN at the store now.   Monkey usually wants to come because he thinks there'll be samples, like the free cookies at the bakery.  He LOVES Costco. ;)  I can even take all of them if we're out and about and they STAY WITH ME.  And are perfect angels compared to a few years ago.

I'm glad that we're done with that outing=craziness part of our life.

So, after reading Lindsay's post, I headed to the store (mind you, the same store) to pick up a prescription from the pharmacy and do some grocery shopping.  Monkey came with and got his cookie.  I had most of the shopping done.

And then he threw up.  All over the floor.  And then into his coat, because I had to try and catch it in something.  It was the really smelly kind.  ICK.  AND he had insisted on wearing his crocs instead of his sneakers and so he slipped in it and got his pants all messy.  EW.

Poor buddy.  It was embarassing and smelly and messy and he felt miserable.  But I had TWO things left on my list and that prescription to pick up and we were right near all of that so (after notifying an employee) I hurried through it (I'm not mean, it took five minutes, I swear).

Now he's in a steamy shower and his coat is in the washer and I'm chuckling to myself.

Don't get cocky.  Kids are completely unpredictable no matter what age they are.  Apparently I needed to be taken down a notch or two.

No photos this post.  I'm sure you're grateful.

On Photography

You all know I love taking photos, right?  Whether you like mine or not (and whether I've been putting effort into the photos on here lately or not) I hope that's been made clear. ;)

So, I don't talk about it a ton here, in part because of face/privacy issues, and I have yet to set up a photography blog or portfolio, but I've been doing some portraits for people.  Just some, here and there, like senior photos, babies, (ballet posters), a few families and most recently engagements.

And bridals.

And a wedding.

Whaaa?  Yeah (this is where my daughter would say "I know, right?!").  I did the engagements and bridals as a gift/trade for a really sweet neighbor.  And it turned out that they were in great need of a photographer for the wedding day.    I tried to say no, but that didn't work, so I just had to give it my best shot.  Literally.

Actually, I was still trying to say no when another sweet neighbor offered to come and shoot with me.  That made all the difference!

I think we pulled it off nicely.

Shooting with a friend was awesome.  First off, she rode with me, so I had someone to chat with on the way up.  And that calmed my nerves.  Because, oh yeah, I was nervous.   Also, just practical stuff worked well,  like we shot from different angles, with different cameras and lenses, so we got a lot of different stuff at the same time.  Which was kind of awesome and didn't take as long.  Also, if the bride's bouquet was blocking her face in my shot, it wasn't in my friends, so that rocked. 

Having people actually want to use me as a photographer has been interesting.  If I had to pick a career (besides homeschooling mom, which I love), I'd definitely pick photographer (or art teacher...).  I have SO much to learn, I don't feel like a pro, but it's fun 'playing' pro.  If I were to make a go at really being a photographer, I'd have to be better about what I charge people.  And that's hard, especially when most of my 'clients' have been neighbors.  And I love my neighbors.  But it takes a lot of time to shoot and edit photos.  And time is what I don't have a ton of.  I think I could maybe try and grow a small business at this point, but I really don't have the time to.  And that's okay, my time needs to be with my family right now.  So what do I do about that?    Okay, I'll take your photos, just don't tell anyone who did them?  Because I can't say no all the time. 

Also, photography has been a great way for me to serve others while doing something that I love.  I've volunteered and taken shots for families in our neighborhood who are taking care of foster babies, which was fun and rewarding. 

So I've been thinking tons about photography lately.  I was thinking of maybe upgrading my camera but it really suits my needs right now.  I am drooling over a new portrait lens, though.  I have that old school 50mm, but it's super fiddly and I don't think I'd be great at manual focus in portraits.  Kids move too fast.  And I can't find my adaptor ring for it (where?!).  So I'd really like a new 50mm, and the one I'm looking at is supposed to be nice.  End of babbling.

My sidekick, sporting it's new camera strap and camera bag (Christmas presents - yay!).

Handmade gifts

So, guess how many gifts I made for my children's Christmas this year! 

Are you ready?

ZERO.  Edit:  One (duh).

But I did manage a couple little cute gifties for the nieces and nephew.

I used this awesome idea from Lil Blue Boo to make a wooden matching game.

The transfer method uses a laser printout and some natural orange cleaner.  I was pretty sick of the smell of the cleaner by the end, but it worked!

A few are smudged, but I'm pretty happy with it.  And it opens up all kinds of other ideas...

For my 1yo niece, I dyed some playsilks.  Having done it a few times before, it wasn't too hard. 

As a bonus, I discovered that after you dye these is the perfect time to clean your microwave!  Seriously, you are spending minutes microwaving water + vinegar + koolaid (citric acid!).  So there you go.

My daughter made her a better present, though.  Last time she was at our house, she loved one of my daughter's dolls (this one).  So the girl decided to make a Black Apple doll for her cousin.  Grandma helped her, so I had nothing to do with it, even.

It was appreciated, which made my girl happy.

How did you do in the handmade gift department this year?