kirstencan

Love you

I was trying to whip out a batch of Happy Birthday cookies (why yes I DID make two batches of sugar cookies in a week, why do you ask?) and Monkey was asking to help.  I love him helping in the kitchen but that evening I just wanted it done as quickly and with as little mess as possible.  He was messing around with one of the other cookie cutters and was asking if he could just cut ONE?  And I started to get frustrated that he was playing with my stamping cutters (didn't want him losing any letters) when I saw what he had spelled on the heart one:

Oh, sweet boy.  Yes.

Year of the Goat

I didn't plan anything big this year, but everything fell into place last night when I realized we already had a stir fry on the menu, I could throw some decorations up...

...and then we took off to a big celebration.  Should have switched lenses so I got some better photos, but it was pretty fun.  I'm calling it a win.

Happy Year of the Goat/Sheep/Ram!

(I'm a dragon, what is your chinese zodiak sign?

Other Stuff

Some goings on around here:

For the record

Last night my daughter had a homework assignment to find a certain type of fallacy online (authoritative).  She was having a hard time, and I was helping her look up certain topics and wade through oodles of comments.

I tried looking up measles/vaccinations/autism articles, thinking I could find someone referring to the falsified 1998 study linking autism with vaccines.  Oh, I did.

I found an article.  Passed the link on to my daughter, and then skimmed the comments.  I was appalled that the article was from last month!  

The other that I found was published yesterday.   YESTERDAY!

People were still referring to that study!  The one that has been used by people/the media to say that vaccines cause autism and was completely and thoroughly shot down.  It was NOT a scientific study (The 'doctor' lost his medical license because of it).

I'm not going to bother linking to all the studies disproving that falsified study, or anything, they're really easy to find.

It frustrates me to know that there are still some people out there referring to such bogus info and spreading such fear about vaccines.  I know there is ignorance out there but this one topic just makes me crazy.  

So, for the record:

I absolutely and totally support vaccinating children.

My children are up to date on their vaccinations.

I do NOT believe that vaccinations 'caused' my son to develop autism spectrum disorder.  

You can especially tell because we vaccinated his younger brother.

If you do not vaccinate your children you are putting them in danger.

If you do not vaccinate your children you are putting MY CHILDREN in danger.

 

Please please please do not give in to fear-mongering about vaccinations.  If younger generations could remember diseases like our parents do I believe there would not be so much confusing information about them.  They remember polio.  They know how those vaccinations save lives.

Fear-mongering about vaccinations is also fear-mongering about autism.  Which isn't cool.  Autistic people have always been here.  

And my redhead is awesome.  Not something to be feared.

Do your research.  But make sure you are getting the real scientific info, NOT fear-induced propaganda/conspiracy theories. 

 

 

(I guess I will go ahead and link to this blog article, by an autism advocate mom, which does link to a bunch of the source material, since I am lazy).

Printing

Last week we tried a cool printmaking method.

Inspired by Alisa Burke's project, we made plastic bag prints.

To make it easier with two boys printing, I had three bags for each color.  I would roll more paint on one while the boys were printing the others, so there was always one ready to go.  We did red, then silver, and then blue/yellow.

They drew, scraped, and scribbled with various things to remove paint before printing.

The third pass they painted on the bag themselves.

The Redhead is much more free with his artwork, which is actually very inspiring to me, and often turns out with awesome end products.

Monkey tried several representational prints.  He was inspired by his brother to let loose, too, though.

Monkey's favorite print (mine, too).

They were having fun, and I decided to do some printing of my own.  I broke out the gocco and printed a run of birthday cards (old screen, new colorway).

Monkey helped me and was fascinated.  He doesn't really remember helping me before.  I think it's time for someone else to make his own cards... :)

Come Follow Me

I just have to show you this cool book I bought last month - this is only going to be of interest if you are LDS, but I have recommended this study guide to at least 15 people so far, and thought I might as well post it here.

It's Shannon Foster's Come Follow Me study guide:

It includes every YW/YM lesson AND youth Sunday School lesson for the year.  All it does is take what's online and arrange it in a visually-pleasing manner. ;)  No other ideas or anything, but for someone who's been teaching a few years now, it helped me get out of a little rut.

I open the lesson on my ipad, then it's REALLY easy to study/prepare since I can just tap to pull up scriptures, talks, and videos.

Another photo to show that it's really just an organizational tool.  Somehow it really works for me. 

I got mine on amazon.

I just bought one for my daughter for Valentine's day - she was flipping through mine and saw what an awesome tool it is for personal study.  It really is an excellent resource.  I am in sunday school, but I have done a couple of the YW lessons just as personal study. 

Just wanted to share in case anyone needs a little lesson prep help!

Little House

As usual, I have a million things I'd like to say here, and not enough time to post them.

So here's one random thing.

My boys have been listening to 'Little House on the Prairie' in the car the past week (side note: Cherry Jones is a great reader and that book makes great audiobook (not a lot of dialogue/voices, more description).  At first they weren't excited that I checked out that book, but I told them we could switch after we finished one disc if they didn't like it.

Yeah, it took about 5 minutes for them to be hooked!  We finished the audiobook today and they are currently watching this version of it (we've had it for years - much more true to the book than the tv show!).  They have enjoyed pointing out the differences between the book and movie, and as soon as he heard 'mosquito' Monkey said 'Oh, it's Fever and Ague!'

The Redhead was excited to learn there are more books in the series, and has been asking a lot of questions about Native Americans and white settlers.

We have also been talking about navigating the wagon, Jack the dog, wolves, healthcare for early settlers and tons of other stuff..

And that, friends, is why historical literature rocks.  Autobiographical is even better.

Coincidentally, the husband recently told me about this annotated Little House, which sounds amazing.  Until it comes in at the library or is back in stock, I'll be checking out their blog.