Healthcare costs run amok in the U.S.

Christmas cards are ordered

I am on fire, peoples of the internet.

Henryism #44

You can't tell what's in a book by its cover, right? Unless it's like birds, and then it could have a bird on the cover.

Knitting: Easy Drop Stitch Scarf

With that alpaca yarn I got yesterday I'm making a scarf with dropped yarn overs. (Say wha?) Yes, dropped yarn overs. It feels all sorts of wrong but the scarf is knitting up quickly, the pattern is super easy, and the variegated colors look fantastic!

Kiyokawa Family Orchards, alpacas, and yarn

I bought another 40 lbs of apples to enjoy as applesauce, in pies, and all on their own.

Only runs on the weekend. Bummer.

Pears

Prefers being with mama in the sling to being in the backseat.

Mt. Hood

Apples. Delicious apples.

Road to apples

Knit the cat at the yarn store

Pastoral

Here come the alpacas!

It's a baby!

I just knit that alpaca.

Book eighteen: Liesl and Po by Lauren Oliver

A unique rewrite of the Cinderella story. It is very dark. While I'm sure Hen would be okay hearing the story, I'm not so sure more sensitive types would like it very much.

(That was the kind of world they lived in: When people were afraid, they did not always do what they knew to be right. They turned away. They closed their eyes. They said, "Tomorrow. Tomorrow, perhaps, I'll do something about it. And they said that until they died.)

Eighteen down plus 34 to go.

Book seventeen: Invisible Inkling by Emily Jenkins

Hen's summary:

There's a bandapat that goes invisible. He loves squash. Hank's dad has an ice cream shop. Hank gets sprinkles from his dad at school. Gillicut steals Hank's sprinkles and Hank does not like that. He meets up with the invisible friend and plans an attack on Gillicut. In the lunchroom the invisible friend bites Gillicut. And then Hank gets to see his invisible friend.

Would you vote for this book?

Yes, because there is someone invisible.

What I liked about the book: The story was very easy for Hen to visualize. There was enough action to keep things interesting. And the issue of bullying is addressed.

17 down plus 35 to go.

Henryism #27

You never say impossible when you say olive oil.

Thursday morning

Up at six to get breakfast made and lunch packed. Get dressed, brush teeth, direct Hen to do the same. Gather things for school and head out. Drop Hen off at class. Stay to volunteer during Writer's Workshop, where the kids write a sentence or two about their lives and draw a picture to go along. Help in the library on the way out. Stop at the grocery store. Head home. Take dog out. Bake banana bread, wash dishes, make beds, clean the litter boxes, and start a load of laundry. It is now 10:48 A.M. and I am going to work on my knitting project - color block handwarmers (a.k.a. fingerless gloves).

Henry turns six

The First Years went through a wand selection process, received owls, had their school picture taken, participated in a Potions class, ate lunch, Hen opened his presents, the kids hit Honeydukes for treats, and the day ended with birthday cake. There are a lot more pictures. You can view them here if you want.

The brick wall that almost wasn't

Brick wall that almost wasn't.

I have been really sick for three out of the last five days. Wipe you out, sleep all day kind of sick. This really threw a kink into my party plans. This unhappy and unfortunate sickness meant I had to scale back my expectations for the party a touch. I gave up the photo booth ideas and the enchanted ceiling. Sure, I made the candles to hang from the ceiling but it didn't make sense to use the candles during the middle of the day. Luckily, I woke this morning feeling much improved, enough to finish some of the remaining projects - labeling the bottles for the Potions class (and letting Hen test drive the Potions class), baking a pumpkin pie and two cakes, and creating the brick wall. About that brick wall...

After dropping Hen off at school, I made my way to Home Depot to pick up brick colored paint for the 9 3/4 platform I was going to make to hang in our doorway. I explained what I was doing to the paint specialists, they gave me a little advice, I got my paint and headed home. The rest should have been just fine. 

But it wasn't. Because I forgot one very small but extremely important thing until I had stamped nearly half the sheet with the dark brick red paint. 

You know that feverish state you sometimes get when you're getting over a cold? In the midst of experiencing that, I suddenly heard the paint expert's voice in my head repeating, "It'll soak through. It'll soak through. It'll soak through." Oh. Holy. Fuddruckers. IT WILL SOAK THROUGH. And we just had new tile put in last year. A very pale color of tile. A very pale color of tile that I had just painted a red brick pattern onto. Doh.

I can't say there wasn't a moment of panicking and expletive mutterings before I figured out my best approach was to clean it up as fast as possible, which is what I did. Quickly. Before that dang paint dried. 

I wasn't sure I was going to recover from that setback. There wasn't enough time to order another cheap gray sheet, I was already feeling pretty bad about having to scrap a few of my other ideas. But thankfully, a trip to Michael's helped me see an option that was still available. With 15 sheets of 12"x12" red paper, I was able to cut "bricks" out and tape them to our front door. It's not perfect. The kids should no longer attempt to run through it to get to the other side. But it will do the trick and it is definitely better than nothing. 

Of course, there are more pictures to share...

Note: The kids will have Galleons. Hen and I made salt dough money.

Everyone leaves with an owl.

There are spells and potions inside, along with much-needed note taking pages.

I tried to make the sign with photocopied pages but it just didn't look right so I ended up tearing (GASP!) pages directly out of the cheap paperback I bought at Powell's.

It's not the same but I'm happy with it nonetheless.

HP Party - Galleons

We used this recipe for salt dough to craft our own currency for the party. It is super easy to make.

salt (1/2 cup)

flour (1 cup)

water (1/2 cup)

Mix all the ingredients together, knead until smooth, roll it out, and cut into shapes. I happened to have alphabet stamps so I stamped each item with the letter "g" for galleon. We baked them  in the oven at 200˚ F for 10 minutes, leaving them in the oven to cool and dry. Once that was done, we painted them with gold craft paint. Super easy but a nice touch. The kids liked getting money to use in the candy store.

Book sixteen: We Are All Completely Besides Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler

Loved this book but I can't write anything about it without giving away the big secret that makes this book so fantastically awesome. I do have a couple quotes that I noted while reading...

"In most families, there is a favorite child. Parents deny it and maybe they truly don't see it, but it's obvious to the children. Unfairness bothers children greatly. It's hard to always come in second." (pg 52)

"The only way to make any sense of the United States Congress, our father told me once, is to view it as a two-hundred-year-long primate study. He didn't live to see the ongoing revolution in our thinking regarding nonhuman animal cognition.  But he wasn't wrong about Congress." (pg 92)

"The world runs...on the fuel of this endless, fathomless misery. People know it, but they don't mind what they don't see. Make them look and they mind, but you're the one they hate, because you're the one that made them look." (pg 232)

"Children roughhoused until someone got hurt; it was the way families worked. Mothers, having warned everyone that this was what would happen, were generally more irritated than concerned." (pg 252) [So true, right?] 

16 down plus 36 to go.

LEGO Fest? Yes, please!

Sure, it's really one big marketing event but it is also fun and had freebies. Plus, some of the LEGO statues were very on point considering the theme of this year's birthday party for a certain someone at the condo who is about to turn six. 

Book Fifteen: 8 Class Pets + 1 Squirrel / 1 Dog = Chaos by Vivian Vande Velde

I have to start counting these smaller books I read to Hen, otherwise my book count for the year is highly inaccurate. Every book I finish for the little one might not be War and Peace but it should still count, so long as there are chapters and it isn't a picture book. Note: I'll exclude Magic Tree House books and any book with less than 100 pages to be as fair as I can be. Also, I won't go back and add all of the books I've read him so far this year.

In related news, I have been volunteering at the school library two hours every week (plus additional work for the book fair, book sale, and book club party). I have learned to cover the books and it is so much fun I'm seriously considering buying the necessary items so that I can add book jacket covers to all the hardback books in Hen's home library. Yep. I'm gonna do it! Anyway, all this to say that the reason we found 8 Class Pets + 1 Squirrel / 1 Dog = Chaos is because our librarian, Molly, hosts a book club for varying ages and the kids read from a couple of lists that are comprised of books being considered for various awards. The list Hen and I are using is the Beverly Cleary Children's Choice Award list. Molly selected several books from that list. If Hen and I get through them all between now and near the end of March, he'll get an invite to come to the party at the library (which I'm helping to plan - woot!). It is okay for parents to read the books to their kids but the kids have to write a summary of the story and then state if they would or would not vote for the book. Here's what Hen had to say about this book. Note: I asked him questions and wrote down his answers.

Twitch and Cuddles mess up the classrooms at school by ramming into things and the paint splatters off. The dog is chasing the squirrel because the squirrel stepped on his nose. And he was running so fast after Twitch the leash broke. They meet a turtle, geckos, a parrot. Visiting Artist comes and he likes their art.

Would you vote for this book?

Yes, because it is the best book ever.

What I liked about the book: Unbeknowst to Hen, he was hit over the head with a frying pan of literary elements like narrative point-of-view and narrative voice. Each chapter is told from the perspective of either the squirrel, the dog or one of the eight class pets. Hen experienced a few major episodes of chortles during the reading of the story and has requested I read the last couple of chapters again and again.

15 down plus 37 to go.

Babysitting duty

We played with Duplo blocks, wooden blocks, that classic Tupperware red and blue ball with shapes, and a big spiky ball. We also read a couple books, including one of Hen's library books, Star Wars: The Clone Wars.

HP Party - School uniforms

Yep, we're having school uniforms! I can't imagine a better photo op than a bunch of kids dressed like students of Hogwarts, can you? A Google search helped me find this lovely lady, who wrote a pattern to convert a black t-shirt into a robe. I modified her pattern and chose, for my sanity's sake*, to nix the hood on all but Hen's robe. Since he's planning on being Harry Potter for Halloween, I feel like I have to put forth the extra effort. Plus, I only had enough scrap fabric around for one. On Pinterest, I found this lovely woman who posted a pdf of her house ties and badges. Done and done. I ordered the shirts from Dormer's Embroidery & Promotional Products and, with a little help from some heat, we had these awesome shirts with faux ties.

Here's what it'll look like all put together.

We got to box up the supplies and deliver them to most of the kids today. Here's what those packages looked like. (I have to take a picture of the packages!)

*I have a tenuous hold on that, am I right?