Kid 1: Oh yeah! Boo-pow!
Kid 2: Uh, why boo-pow?
Kid 1: Because I’m not allowed to say boo-yah.

Scene from last weekend—a completely gratuitous shot of someone reading our paper.

Dave and I have a long standing Friday morning ritual. After we get the kids on the bus, he goes into the kitchen and fixes us breakfast (greek yogurt topped with blueberries, almonds and honey). I pour us coffee. Then we plop ourselves down on the couch, cue up Thursday night’s episode of Colbert on Tivo and hit play.

I’m sure we look quite the sight—us two, sitting side by side on the couch, feet propped up on the coffee table, laughing and eating yogurt. I don’t mean to be all sickeningly sweet, but I think it’s fair to say, I’m a lucky woman. I really love that yogurt.

Have a great weekend everyone!

I love Andrea

I know! I can’t believe it’s all paper either

I need to get myself invited to a costume party like this

Valentine’s Day cards with heart

I once had a guy come up to me saying the same thing. Seriously.

A great new project by two extraordinary women: Finding the lovely

Today, I found myself looking through photos from this past summer. It’s amazing to me what happens in such a short amount of time. Over the past month or so, my daughter has experienced growing pains. I mean this quite literally. Her legs are lengthening out and they ache.

I remember going through the same thing as a kid. I’d wake up in the middle of the night, walk into my parent’s bedroom and ask my mom to rub my calves. In the span of months, I went from being the smallest kid in my class to average. I guess it’s genetic.

My daughter has always seemed wiser than her years. Dave and I used to joke about it. I’d try to explain it to others, but I was never quite able to articulate it. When she was about two, we took a trip to Jamaica. The women there told me, “be careful, this one has an old soul.” I knew exactly what they meant.

She’s struggled a bit this year with the normal peer stuff that happens. I’ve shared with her my stories from growing up. And I’ve tried to counsel her best I can. The other day I caught myself. My ‘counseling’ was hurting more than helping.

“I’m sorry. I’m going on too much aren’t I?”
“Yeah.”
“Understood. Let me just say one more thing. I trust you to handle it the best way you see fit.”
“Thank you,” she said, then smiled.

This morning I heard the shower running. My daughter had gotten up, showered, dressed, fed the cat and fixed herself breakfast. I walked down to see her sitting at the table eating a bowl of cereal. Next thing I know, she’ll be off to college.

*sniff*

My son has blossomed since the summer as well. The other day, I took him and his sister on a walk around the neighborhood in their search for kids to play with. As we walked along, he crafted a story.

“I know what we should do! We should make a story about the Robots using this walk. So the Robot is looking for some friends to play with. He knocks on the doors and no one answers. Then he gives up and goes back home and orders a Robot friend to play with him. But here’s the funny part, a neighborhood friend comes and knocks on his door and he doesn’t answer it because he’s too busy playing with the Robot he got.”

“Yeah. So can we do it? Can we make the story?”

He got his first report card today. In the comments section, his teacher wrote, “He is an ‘Out of the Box’ type thinker.”

That, he is.

Tease me if you must, but I’m going to come right out and say it—I’m a sucker for hearts and Valentine’s Day. I’m also a sucker for making things. In an effort to combine my loves, and because I was inspired by Ali Henrie’s awesome tutorial + Liz’s freezer paper love, today I made my own V-day shirt.

It took me about 40 minutes from start to finish. Thirty of those minutes was spent watching paint dry. Ooh! Exciting!

For this project you'll need: a shirt, freezer paper, scissors, fabric paint, a small foam brush and an iron

Step 1: Cut a heart out of the freezer paper. Lay paper (waxy side down) on shirt and press with an iron. It'll stick to the shirt.

Apply textile paint using a foam brush. I found a dabbing technique worked better than a brushing one.

Step 4. Allow paint to dry for 30 minutes or according to manufacturer's instructions. Peel away paper. Turn the shirt inside out, iron it (to set the paint) and...

You got yourself a heart shirt

I’ll be honest, when I got a note home at the beginning of the year that my first grader would have monthly book reports, I couldn’t fathom how a kid who was still reversing b and d could pull it off.

Thankfully, his teacher is far wiser, and has more vision than me. She has the kids doing non-traditional book reports. One month the kids made character masks, another it was puppets. Last month kids were asked to make a book sandwich (pictured above).

Have your kids done “book reports” yet? What do you think about non-traditional book reports. They seem pretty fun, yeah?

Bread – Title and Author | Cheese – Picture of the Main Character | Meat – What the story was about (It’s a book about a boy who does bad things. His mother still loves him) | Last Slice of Bread – Student’s name

Image from The Happy Family Movement Winter Adventure Guide

My friends over at the Happy Family Movement put together a Winter Adventure Guide. It’s a list of 15 fun activities, printable resources and lessons learned to help get you and the kids get through winter in the most playful way possible. They even went so far as to break up the activities into three categories, those taking: under an hour, one to two hours and three to four hours. All of the activities use materials you have around the house. And if you don’t, they’re provided as printables.

To download a copy, visit their store. The guide costs $15, which works out to just a $1 an activity. It’s a great resource of playful ideas the whole family will love.

Dave snapping pics at theTreasure Map Play Date

This weekend we held a collaborative play date with (cool) progeny, aMuse Toys, and Childhood List. The idea, inspired by BIG Kids Magazine, was to celebrate the treasures of Baltimore by making a big ol’ treasure map. Heather came up with the genius plan, and provided snacks and giveaways for the kids; Claudia provided art materials, space and take-home gifts, her ridiculously talented staff painted a backdrop for the photo booth (aww yeah, MICA students!); Katie produced a brilliant map foundation; Dave took pictures and I made some silly props. We had an insanely good time.

It was a nice way to be welcomed home

I don’t know where the week went. It’s all a hazy blur. I have foggy memories of lunch packing, suitcase unpacking, meetings, signing school papers, searching neighbors’ lawns for errant nerf darts, an attempt to get into Downton Abbey, and an impression of Eddie Vedder.

“Um, you should probably stop that.”
“What? You don’t like my Eddie Vedder impression?”
“That’s what that is?”

See what I mean? A totally hazy blur…

Okay, so let’s get on with the Friday links. Here are a few links that compelled me to comment on this week. Now I’m kind of shy (Eddie Vedder impressions notwithstanding) so I consider this a major breakthrough moment…

Oscar watch is on!
All these people went to Alt and I only met a handful of them (sniff!)
Keeping the mystery
Making junk mail beautiful
Uncrushing a dream. <--If you read nothing else on this list, read this one. It's completely brilliant!

Have a wonderful weekend everyone!