My Latest over at Crafting a Green World: A DIY Restaurant Log and a Giveaway!

I try to pretend that I'm sick of going to the same restaurant and ordering the same take-out pizza all the time, but really, I just WANT to be sick of it. Really, I adore going out to La Charreada, ordering a margarita on the rocks while Matt orders it frozen, downing my margarita as soon as it comes and then starting on Matt's (he's driving, after all!), listening to the girls order the exact same thing every time ("Beef nachos, please!"), filling up on chips and salsa before my bean burrito arrives, people-watching the sorority girls and frat boys in their matching T-shirts. I adore Family Movie Night with our half bacon, half sun-dried tomato pizza from Pizza Express, the spicy cheese dipping sauce that nobody eats but me (mwa-ha-ha!), the nommy salty breadsticks, the plastic cups that make great paint cups for the kids.

But, of course, there's also the fact that every time an out-of-town guest comes by, we either take them out to La Charreada or order Pizza Express. If nothing else, THEY'RE probably getting sick of it!

Unsatisfied with leaving well enough alone, last week the girls and I made a family project of creating a restaurant log, using supplies given to us by Full Circle Crafts:

I made a card for every restaurant that we wanted to try (THIRTY!!! Considering that we budget one outside meal approximately every ten days, and that we still want to go to La Charreada sometimes, this should take us well more than a year to accomplish), and the girls, as you can tell, put a lot of work into the book with me:

 I really like these pockets that Willow did in Faber-Castell Pitt pens and watercolors:

Yes, buffets OBVIOUSLY deserve their own category:

Many of the "treat" places are, sneakily, coffeehouses:

Many of the breakfast places are townie dives that we STILL haven't visited, and I put the fancy restaurants in the "lunch" category, along with the lunch places, because they're (a little) cheaper then:

Along with giving us the supplies to create this book, Full Circle Crafts is also hosting a giveaway over at CAGW, and I REALLY want you to enter it!

The restaurant log is so far a success. Last night for Family Movie Night (Legend of the Guardians, since Will recently listened to the audiobooks of the first three books of that series), instead of ordering Pizza Express, we tried out Mother Bear's Pizza--chicken sausage pizza, cheesy breadsticks, spicy tomato dipping sauce, and two brownies.

Well, don't tell the kids that there were brownies. There were only two, after all...

Adventures from the International Grocery: Dragon Fruit

We visited an EPIC international grocery in Indianapolis last week.

Seriously, it was incredible. It was the size of a supermarket, but had the same kind of dodgy ambiance that I'm much more comfortable in than I am in, say, Whole Foods. And it had everything. EVERYTHING! I wanted to buy ALL THE THINGS!!!

The girls were as enthusiastic as I was...for about ten minutes, until we realized that the freezing temperature that we were feeling inside the store wasn't just near the entrance, where we'd spent the first few minutes, but was the actual temperature inside the store. It exactly mirrored the outdoor temperature, but since we'd gone to Indy entirely for indoor activities--a memorial service for a beloved great aunt and great uncle, perhaps lunch downtown, perhaps a wander around Circle Center Mall, a visit to an epic international grocery--we simply hadn't packed coats and hats and gloves, just sweaters and hoodies that weren't cutting it in the sub-zero grocery store.

It was really disappointing, since my kiddos are enthusiastic eaters and I'd been looking forward to having them pick out a ton of new foods for us to try, but we eventually settled into a sort of compromise, with me quick-shopping each aisle, Matt quick-marching the girls up and down and all around to keep their body temperatures up, and each of us calling their attention just to the aisles that we knew they'd be super-interested enough in to justify freezing their buns off while they browsed.

And that's how we ended up with an absurd amount of international junk food, a few interesting things that caught adult eyes as we zoomed past, and an absurd amount of very odd fruit, such as this dragon fruit:

I've seen dragon fruit before but never tasted one, as I'm not in the habit of purchasing expensive, exotic things just for my own pleasure. For my girls, however...

Combine that with the fact that Sydney decided to do her Science Fair project on fruit this year, and yes, we did come home with an example of every single unfamiliar fruit in that store, cost be damned.

And then we tasted everything:

Verdict: YUM! The dragon fruit tasted kiwi-ish, but much more lightly flavored (Who knows when or where this dragon fruit was harvested, of course, so I have no idea if it was under-ripe or over-ripe, both of which affect flavor). I really liked the texture and kind-of-crunchiness given by the tons of seeds. Matt and I each had a big bite to ourselves, but saved the rest of the dragon fruit for the girls, who wolfed it all down within minutes.

Fortunately, we all have Jaffa cakes, mochi ice cream, Ya-Cool, deep-fried plantain chips, and lots of other bad-for-us yummies in illegible packaging to subsist on.

Adding Multi-Digit Numbers Using an Abacus

Syd is actually really quick at math, but she gets frustrated SO easily, and so upset when she's incorrect, that we've been developing her skills at multi-digit addition systematically, with baby steps:

1. I had her daily building big numbers using Base Ten blocks for about two weeks, long after it was very, very easy for her. It's a good review!
2. I daily gave her a page of multi-digit addition problems that don't involve carrying, to complete by building both number using Base Ten blocks, physically combining them, and then counting the total. Syd was ready to move on from this activity after just three days, because that's a tedious way to add!
3. Because she found combining Base Ten blocks tedious, I was able to introduce the abacus without a tantrum by saying, "Hey, I do know a quicker, easier way to work these problems. Do you want to see it?" Mwa-ha-ha!

An abacus is dead easy to use, and almost completely interchangeable with Base Ten blocks, as well as intuitive for a kid who's used to them. We're using a vintage Playskool abacus from my own childhood--

but any elementary level abacus looks about the same.

We call the bottom row the units row, with the next row up the tens, and the next row up the hundreds, etc. At first, to work the problems, I showed Sydney how to simply build the first number on the abacus, using the units row and the tens row, and then to build the second number by counting on. So, for instance, first Sydney built, say, 14, using one ten and four units, and then built the number 34, adding three tens to the tens row and four more units to the units row. For carrying, I pulled back out the Base Ten blocks, and reminded Sydney that every time we had ten units, we needed to exchange that for one ten; it works the same on an abacus, but even easier, since there are no mistakes to be made. Every time you have ten units on an abacus, you HAVE to exchange it for one ten, or you can't continue to add the units!

Syd worked her multi-digit addition problems on the abacus for a solid week--

--quite happily (thank goodness!), and then I said to her, "You know what would be even easier?". I gave her a page of problems that don't require carrying, had her complete the first one the way that she was used to, then used her results on the abacus to point out that you could also solve this problem on paper simply by adding the ones, then the tens. She compared her answer when she did this to the answer that the abacus gave, tried both ways for a few problems, then decided on her own that solving these problems on paper is EVEN quicker and easier, yay!

Syd's now in the middle of her second week doing this, and although I haven't introduced carrying yet, I did introduce longer multi-digit numbers this week. You should have SEEN the fit that she threw when she saw that I wanted her to add a three-digit number to a three-digit number, up until the second that she realized that it was no different, and no more difficult, than adding two-digit numbers.

Sigh.

Winter Play: Wikki Stix

This winter has seemed to last forever. For instance, as I write this, on the morning of March 6, I'm looking out the window at a few inches of snow. To contrast that, check out my post of March 5, 2012. Take special note of Sydney's bare feet, and the green grass behind her. On March 4, 2011, she's wearing capri leggings and sandals. Today, Syd's wearing clothes upon clothes and snow pants and mittens and a coat and a hat, as I boot her out the door to go appreciate what will SURELY be the last snow of this season.

Surely?

Anyway, one benefit of the winter, I suppose, is that the girls, who normally only play with toy ponies, play silks, and each other, have been rediscovering what a bounty of toys they do, in fact, own. In between pestering the cats, Syd has so far spent a solid week obsessed with this giant Wikki Stix set that her Grandma Beck gave her for Christmas in 2011 and that had remained entirely unopened until last Wednesday:

I was only thoughtful enough to photograph this first exploration, but since then, Syd has learned to create three-dimensional figures with the waxed yarn, and has incorporated them into her play dough and clay sculptures, and has made herself (and me!) several pieces of jewelry, and has added them to her toy ponies as bridles, reigns, unicorn horns, etc. We've also had LOTS of conversations about (her lack of) keeping the darned things contained, as they're slightly sticky, which makes them easy to work with, but also makes them stick to the floor, the carpet, and the bottoms of my feet, and they're easy to cut with scissors, which makes them even more versatile, but also makes them the kind of odd shape that gets stickily stuck inside the vacuum cleaner. I've also come across them abandoned just everywhere, from the bathroom counter to the stereo cabinet.

But keep her happy and busy and engaged, they do! And sneakily, now that I know what Wikki Stix do, I plan to incorporate them into our future lesson plans, as well as introduce some other cool ideas:

• practicing cursive letter formation
• tracing geometric figures
• creating window art
• copying coloring pages set under waxed paper or plastic wrap
• writing the signage for our Science Fair display boards

And then, since the rate of Wikki Stix attrition is high (when I find a Wikki Stix in the bathroom, or sticking to the bottom of my sock, I do NOT return it to its owner), I think I'm going to figure out how to make my own.

My Latest over at Crafting a Green World: Postage Stamp Quilts and Handmade Memory Games

a tutorial for piecing a postage stamp quilt

and a round-up of handmade memory games, including this felt and fabric scrap one that I've been working on:

I do love them (since I have a ton of that ecru felt, I'm looking forward to adding to the game using new scraps whenever I sew), but I have to say that they're highly engineered and really fiddly and time-consuming to create. I really regret deciding to make multiple sets all at once (one for us, one as a big sibling gift for two of the girls' friends, and one extra), as I am WEARY of the ironing, trimming, sewing, trimming, ironing, sewing, and trimming, and I'm going to have to force myself to complete at least that second set before we see our friends later this week.

Now the two baby gifts that I also need to make, neither of which I've decided upon yet? THAT I'm looking forward to creating!

Ending the Season on a High

Ice skating season is over in our little town, alas. I dreaded its passing this year, because the girls and I enjoy it SO much. It was also the first year that the three of us really took advantage of the nearly abandoned weekday afternoon skating hours, sometimes just the three of us, sometimes with a huge passel of friends, and so we'll all have that to miss.

But before the rink closed, we had one more date at the rink with all our friends:

The kids reached the tween-ish milestone of getting chastised over the intercom by the staff, although they were unable to appreciate such a distinction since the intercom only sounds like "Mwa-wa-wa-WA!" on the ice. It meant, however, "Stop darting around in all directions like maniacs before you kill each other!", and so order was somewhat restored. Although for a while there was an IU hockey player skating around before his practice began, and I swear that he was using our children as obstacles to slalom around at the last millisecond while skating a million miles an hour.

At least that was AFTER the children had stopped darting around the ice in all directions like maniacs.

The majority of the week, however, was spent in daily rehearsals for the Spring Ice Show. The kids were champs about all the work involved in being in the show, and were pretty great, if I do say so myself, in their performance, set to a confusing mash-up of the Hawaii Five-Oh theme song and a Hawaiian hula number. The children themselves, although garbed in grass skirts and with flowers pinned to their hair, did their usual Alpha-level skills of crossovers, glides, snowplow stops, and touching their toes while skating, while also skating in lines, circles, and figure eights, and at one point doing, inexplicably, the macarena. In my video of the performance, you can hear me laughing during that part--oops!

In other words, it was marvelous.

And thus the season ended, as all sporting seasons should, with medals--


--and milkshakes.

This is Why I Can't Get Anything Done

I've been doing a LOT of sewing lately...skirts, our fashion show dress, another dress, bloomers, two sets of fabric matching games, and after I finish the matching games I'm going to start on a couple of T-shirt baby bibs.

My sewing would go a lot more efficiently, however, if it wasn't for a certain cat named Spots:

This most gregarious cat will begin the morning by making the rounds of the neighborhood, catching one neighbor before he leaves for work in the morning and actually going into another neighbor's house, she confessed to Matt the other day. Who knows where else she goes and whom else she visits?

When her morning work is done, she climbs onto our porch railing, reaches out and puts her front paws on the living room windowsill, and stands there looking at us until someone goes to let her in. It never takes long, because a cat's stare through a window is quite disconcerting. Then she'll come find me, wherever I'm working--at the computer, with the girls, at the sewing table--and plop down for a nap in exactly the spot that makes carrying on with my work the most inconvenient. If there's no likely spot, she'll climb onto my shoulders, switch from shoulder to shoulder in front of my face, and basically refuse to stop until I hold her in my arms like a baby.

And then she purrs, of course.