My New Toy and Grandma

I have a new toy! DH gave me my Christmas gift early. It's a Nikon Coolpix camera. I'm very excited, because the LCD screen on my old Fugi camera hasn't worked in over a year and it was having increasing trouble focusing.



Now all I need is time to play with it. My schedule is kind of crazy. I'm in the classroom, teaching Language Art and Thematics (a combination of history and science) until 12:30p.m. four days a week. Blaze sits next to me in the classroom three mornings a week, but he doesn't work well when there are distractions of any kind, so even though I take school work to do, we frequently have more work to do when we get home. Then, two days a week I have to go back to school after work to tutor a middle school student. Blaze still has speech therapy two days a week and physical therapy once a week.

I would like to think that the holiday break will bring some much needed rest, but we will be traveling over the break. A couple months ago, my 90-something year old grandmother was placed in a nursing home and she has asked to see both her granddaughters. My sister was there over Thanksgiving and I will be going to visit right after Christmas. She's been a very tough and independent old lady, who still insisted on working in the garden even after she lost most of her eyesight and started having mobility issues. My father tried to get her live-in help, but she told him she would drive the person away, and she finally did. When she was diagnosed with a condition called "sundowners", a form of dementia that affects people mostly at night, it became obvious to her sons that she could no longer take care of herself. My parents have been divorced since I was ten, but my father called my mother when he moved Grandma into the nursing home to let her know what was going on and he explained that he believed that this choice was probably saving her life.

My mother called last night and told me about the visit that she, my sister, and my sisters family had had with Grandma. She says Grandma's happy where she's living now, although the food is not always to her liking (this is a woman who has always canned a lot of her own vegetables and has never liked trying new foods, so that's not that surprising).

Party Invitations

My first attempt to make party invitations didn't work out well. I had used Mod Podge to attach a pictures to cards made out of heavy scrapbooking paper, and then had covered over the cards with more Mod Podge to make them shiny. The result was cards that stuck to each other and tore when I pulled them apart.

The solution was to go with a much simpler design. I just printed out the following design on a full sheet of paper. I filled in the information by hand on one page and then ran off copies. I also stapled a map to each invitation and folded it in thirds, like a business letter.



Each folded invitation now has a child's name written on the outside and is ready for Blaze to pass out before school on Monday.



If you are having a steampunk themed party and do not want to make your own invitations, and have a slightly bigger budget then I'm working with, I found these amazing cards on Etsy:



http://www.etsy.com/listing/49880124/steampunk-invitations-set-of-10

Thanksgiving Day

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving meal at DH's professor's house! There was good conversations, good food, and Dr. D always has the best toys!





He has an amazing collection of vintage toys, as well as other fun antiques, like this working 1923 record player (the very first portable).





The centerpiece on the table:


DH cooked the turkey.



Blaze's favorite things about Thanksgiving dinner were having a big furry dog to play with, and playing with all of the noise-making toys in the house.

Happy Thanksgiving!

In preparation for Thanksgiving, there has not been much cooking going on, since we are going to a potluck, but there has been reading and crafting.

Every Thanksgiving, there are two books that I love to read. One is 'Twas the Night Before Thanksgiving, by Dav Pilkey:



The other is Cranberry Thanksgiving, by Wende and Harry Devlin, which must, of course, be followed by baking cranberry bread using the recipe in the back of the book.




Blaze made these cute little door decorations with the younger elementary kids at school,



While I had the older elementary students write what they were thankful for, on colored construction paper leaves.



I hung the thankfulness leaves on the outside of our classroom door, so that all the parents would see them when they came to the Thanksgiving feast at school yesterday at lunch time.


At home, Blaze has added this year's "hand turkey" to the Thanksgiving tablecloth.



This has been a family tradition since 2003.





I suppose that a first attempt at learning how to play football counts as Thanksgiving Day preparation, as well.

Thanksgiving Mad Lib Round-Up

I want to do something fun with my Language Arts students tomorrow, since it is the last day before the five day Thanksgiving break. I discovered that there are a few, free, printable, Thanksgiving-themed "Mad Libs" available on-line.


A pilgrim's letter home

A new Thanksgiving tradition

The family visit

Turkey dinner

Party at the Pla Planetarium

We attended the most awesome birthday party today! It was held at the Kika Silva Pla Planetarium on the Santa Fe College campus.



Before the planetarium show began, the children were able to run off some of their energy at "The Rock Cycle" walk, next to the planetarium, which included this dinosaur footprint on the stone that held the commemorative plaque.





Then, it was into the planetarium for the show "Space Park 360", during which the viewer feels like they are on theme park rides on different planets. At the conclusion of "Space Park 360", the very entertaining planetarium operator showed what the night sky will look like on Tuesday (the birthday boy's true birthday) and what it looked like the day he was born. He also told stories about the signs of the zodiac that were prominent in that night sky.





After the show, we had cake and the birthday boy opened presents.

The dinosaur in the cake roared and moved, and the candles were also sparklers.

Just Checking In

I have not been eaten by the alligators or fallen off the face of the Earth. I have just been keeping busy, but none of it has seemed "blog worthy". Most of what I've been doing has been seen here before, such as assembling 22 of the little popcorn boxes.

My most resent project has been making checklists of everything we will need to pull off Blaze's tenth birthday party (the airship pirate party). The very limited budget, and the unconventional theme, means this is taking a lot of work, time, and imagination. That is what all those popcorn boxes are going to be used for.

One of our biggest concerns about the party had been where to have it. Our apartment is far too small. That worry has now been alleviated. The common room for our apartment complex can be reserved, free of charge, for residences, but only if there is not something already planned for that day. This means, we have been able to reserve it, but we must wait until Dec. 17th (11 days after Blaze's birthday) to have the party. The 6th, Blaze's actual birthday, falls on a Monday this year, so that day was out of the question, if we want children to show up. The weekend before, is someone else's party and the day Santa visits. From the 9th through the 13th, the room is reserved for people who need a quiet study space for exams.

Here are two examples of the lists I've been making:
These lists are for the things that are already in a cardboard file box, ready to go ( I've been referring to the box as my "party-in-a-box" kit and it is already filled to overflowing. I want this thing to be as low-stress as possible when the time comes. We will have only an hour and half to get everything set-up before guests start arriving, so this needs to be well planned out ahead of time.




I have almost a month to work on this still, so I may come up with more decorating ideas, or if anyone else sees any that would be good for a child's airship/steampunk party, please post links in the comments. It will be an evening party, so I'm hoping dim lights might improve the look of the space we are using. With the lights on, the common room has all the charm of a sparsely furnished hospital waiting room, in a not very well funded hospital.

Today we have a child's birthday party to go to that has almost the same guest list we have made, so this will be a good way to see how many people will really show up to something like this. Now, off to figure out how to wrap a toy light saber so it doesn't look like a light saber.