Under Construction

Typing cow

Meet Farmer Brown and one of her talented typing cows.

Biscuit worked hard on this costume and I think it came out great. She painted her typewriter

and cut out her spots

I turned a bizarre-yet-perfect plush cow mask found at the thrift store into a cow headband. It was a rather disgusting face lift/scalping but sewed to a headband the ears etc look okay and are much more comfortable for Biscuit. (below is the BACK of the headband)

Given the level of adorableness and the number of compliments she received at kindergarten on this costume you'd think she'd be excited to show it off again tomorrow night. But no. She got a pair of purple vampire teeth at the school party and I can't even count the number of times in the last 24 hours she's whined/cried about how now she wants to be a vampire. And it would be "so easy" to make a black dress for her. And why can't I sew one right now? Sorry kid, no dice. Maybe next year.

A costume close up:

Why is that photo sideways? Why does typepad do this to me sometimes? Why? Why? Why?

Oh well.

Biscuit's essay

Because the school Biscuit attends is open enrollment, they have open houses for parents of prospective students to come tour and meet the principal etc. Biscuit's teacher asked her if she would write something about kindergarten and read it to the parents.

With much prompting and suggesting, here is what she came up with.

My name is Biscuit Haworth. I am in Mrs. M’s Kindergarten class. Kindergarten is a fun place where you can learn sign language, go on field trips and read. On Friday we get to see our third grade buddies and on Thursdays we get to see our second grade buddies. One thing I learned in Kindergarten is the Pledge of Allegiance. I really liked the French Cafe. I learned that when you say hello to somebody at French Cafe you say bonjour. I really like to hula hoop outside and play with my friends Abby, Eva and Sara. I really, really think Miss C, Miss L and Miss M are the best teachers in the world I can think of. I think your kids should come to this elementary school because it’s a really fun place and has really fun teachers.

According to the principal she did a very good job. And according to Biscuit she wasn't shy at all. So cute!

Halloween fruit

I signed up to bring fruit to the Halloween party at school on Friday.

Thought I'd at least make the fruit cute.

Luckily I'm volunteering at the party so I guess I'll volunteer myself to peel all these little suckers.

October 16, 2010 in Yosemite

Biscuit turned five while we were camping in Yosemite.

I just typed a post about this but managed to delete it instead of publishing it. And I was posting while my muffins were baking and now my muffins are done. So here are the photos without much of a post.

the PINK iPod was a hit

 

And then we were out of coffee

Want to hear about my morning? Probably not. Sorry.

We got back from Yosemite yesterday at dinner time, unpacked etc etc. I did not make Biscuit's lunch. Today is the first day of a new term for Mr. H and Biscuit has a field trip leaving at 8 returning at 1:30. I thankfully have the day off to run errands and get ready for the Girl Scout meeting.

Except I LEFT MY KEYS IN MR. H'S TRUCK. Which is now at his work 30 minutes away.

Mr. H thoughtfully called me at 7:10 just as I was getting up to say he left me the valet key since he hadn't seen my keys since camping. Nice except the valet key doesn't work for some reason. And then he saw my keys in his center console.

So, I dumped Biscuit out of bed shoved a slice of apple in her mouth and made her get dressed while I threw together a lunch. I put on a t-shirt with my pajama pants and found a brush to brush my hair and put hers in a pony tail. About this time I realized that yes, we could bike ride the mile to school but no, I coudn't fit her carseat on the back of my bike.

I called my friend about a ride. That wouldn't work but she offered me a booster seat drop off at 8:15. But the field trip was leaving at 8:05.

I hustled the kid onto the bike and into the helmet. My helmet had been outside so when I put it on a gush of rainwater went down my forehead. And I forgot a coat. Still, despite our super late start and her riding pace being one notch above snail we made it to school right as the kids were going in the classroom. And we didn't get hit by a car on the busy roads.

Another mom happened to have an extra booster seat in her car and we were all set. Things were looking up.

I planned to leave her bike at school at the bike rack. No lock but I figured nobody would notice amongst the other bikes. Oh, right. NOBODY rides to school anymore. There was one other bike in the bike rack. Oh well, if someone wants her ancient bike I guess they can have it.

After buckling her into the loaner booster and apologizing to the volunteer driver who I had bailed on in order to run errands for Girl Scouts I biked home. Got a flat on my street. And then found out we're out of coffee.

I'm starting some laundry and walking to Starbucks. Then I guess I'll clean my house for the Girl Scout meeting.

Why I haven't been blogging

Last January we had to decide where to enroll Biscuit for kindergarten. I can't recall if I blogged about it at the time but we're in a district that has an open enrollment system where kids can attend any school in the district. There are two schools in our region that are open enrollment only and offer special curriculums; children get into those schools based on a lottery. Our neighborhood school is great but for a variety of reasons we decided to put Biscuit's name in the lottery and she was fortunate enough to get into the open school of our choice.

During the tour the principal was very clear about the level of parental volunteerism required (2 hours per child per week) and how critical volunteerism is to the program at the school. But I think she underestimated just how much having one kindergartener could take over a family's life. No idea what the families with three kids do.

Behold, the last week:

Monday: Pumpkin Patch field trip (I volunteered as a chaperone)

Tuesday: regular school day (but started work on cake walk banner)

Wednesday: School pictures--minimal impact. (Continued cake walk banner which was due to the parent volunteer coordinater by Thursday. Baked cookies. Meanwhile, Mr. H was making lathe turned wine "olive oil" stoppers for the craft fair and cutting boards for the carnival raffle)

Thursday: Took cookies to celebrate Biscuit's b-day at school. (Turned in banner. Baked 2 cakes for the carnival cake walk.)

Friday: French Cafe at school. (I volunteered as a waitress while other parents served as decorators, photographers, maitre de or as part of the LIVE musical trio (!!))

I know, it's getting ridiculous, right? All this cuteness and that's without showing the kids in their berets or doing their French dance!

Musee d Louvre (Biscuit's is the Madeline with the black hair and the black sun)

Anyway, back to the schedule:

Saturday: School carnival. The cake walk cakes and banner as well as the wood items were all for the carnival which we missed because we were camping.

Tomorrow: Another field trip. (Thankfully I got out of driving so I can get ready for our first Daisy Girl Scout meeting Monday night.)

Camping in Yosemite was a welcome respite from this crazy week and fun way to celebrate Biscuit turning five.

In other news, I was brushing her teeth at the campground and lo and behold she has an entire new molar. And a loose tooth. Whoa!

She's five! (next week)

Anyone else know that song?

The French Cafe birthday seemed to be a hit.

Predictably almost all the kids ordered the gratin de macaroni and only gave the soup a polite taste but we had plenty of adults on hand to munch up the leftovers.

After entrees they had time for a quick game of boules (national game of France per the kids' reference book we got at the library). And, yes, this looks like a bocce ball set. Boules, bocce, whatever. Thanks, Lisa, for the loan. It was a hit and Biscuit is a total ringer!

Cake, presents, favors, a bit more socializing and then we all took naps.

 

Party prep

On one hand I'm going kind of crazy with party prep considering the b-day girl doesn't seem to care that much. On the other hand, I'm having a load of fun.

Recipe testing

Favor planning

Lots and lots of recipe testing. I should probably think about decor.

 

I feel a recipe book coming on

These are the menus for Biscuit's birthday party which is coming up this Saturday. I scanned the cookbook cover and struggled with Gimp (a free photoshopesqe program) to enlarge the orange box and erase the text. It took a lot longer than it should have but I love the result.

Now I want to use the image as a cover for a mini cookbook of birthday party recipes. Party favors for the parents! We'll see if I can pull that off by Saturday.

Ode to my canning jars

I really love some of my quart jars. 

 
They used to be a lot easier to find (and cheaper) at thrift stores. Now I guess everyone is canning so I rarely find cool ones.