A "George and Martha" Celebration

We celebrated Grace's fifth birthday today with family - in George and Martha style. Here are some pictures of the special day....


....Grace was all smiles wearing her George and Martha birthday outfit. It's hard to see in the photo but her skirt was hippo themed too.


....Some of the food was per the theme as well - the strawberries were for Martha's tulip and the pineapple slices were for George's gold tooth.


....The packages from Meme and Pop were themed too. And inside one package was the book, "George and Martha, The Complete Stories of Two Best Friends" - all 35 stories in one place, exciting times I tell you.


....Making a wish while blowing out the candles on her hippo birthday cakes.

A fun time was had by all, especially the Birthday Girl!

Happy Hippos

Grace and I spent the morning making a double batch of hippo sugar cookies in preparation for her birthday. The majority of the cookies will accompany the birthday girl to school in the morning, while the others will be given to family as party favors.

Tasty cookies topped with purple and blue colored sugar make happy hippos indeed!

Book Making

When I came across a homemade book swap hosted by Bird and Little Bird (here) I knew Grace would love to participate. With the deadline lingering it was time for a bit of book making.

Grace came up with the theme for the book on her own - rainbows. On the first page she wrote, "What is.....". On each page that followed she wrote the name of a color that's found in the rainbow and drew a picture to correspond with that color. Then on the final page she revealed the mystery.... "a rainbow".




I really disliked the idea of sending this little treasure off in the mail, but I'm sure Emma in Kansas will be happy to receive it!

Celebrations

Meme and Pop came to help us celebrate Chinese New Year and Valentine's Day today (we had to celebrate a day early since I work tomorrow). While they were here we did a group craft - yes, even Dean and Pop participated.

We each made a lantern to be used on the final day of the New Year festivities, known as the Lantern Festival. They were rather simple to make - we used a glass jar (from our recycling bin), tissue paper and a rather large helping of glue. Once the "lanterns" dry we plan on placing them in one of the trees in our backyard.




Oh, in case you were interested in who made which lantern - from left to right: Pop, Grace, myself, Meme and Dean.

After our craft project was complete we headed off to one of the local Chinese buffets for a yummy dinner. What a wonderful day we had!

We hope you have a great New Year and Valentine's Day too!

Valentine Creations

With Valentine's Day right around the corner, Grace and I spent the day at home finishing up on some projects for the special day. Here's some of what we accomplished......


......The valentines for her classmates were signed and bagged (the crayons were made last week). The idea for the crayon hearts came from (this) post.


......The valentines for a few special family members are officially in the mail.


......And lastly, some sweet treats were made. The shape of our kisses didn't quite turn out like Bakerella's but Grace and Dean said they tasted delicious anyway. Here's the (link) if you're interested in making a batch.

So there you have it - our Valentine creations!

Good Luck Paintings

Chinese New Year happens to fall on February 14th this year, the same day as Valentine's. We have a few things planned to help Grace celebrate the year of the tiger. The first of which was making good luck paintings to hang on our front door.




Grace copied the good luck characters provided in the wonderful book, "Moonbeams, Dumplings and Dragon Boats", using the Chinese brush painting kit that Meme and Pop gave her. She's always taken an interest in learning to draw and paint the characters of the Chinese language and this project was no exception.

And as you can see from the final photo she made more than just one. With so many doors in our home covered with good luck, there's no doubt that it's going to be a great year!

Remembering Molly

Molly left our little family over seven months ago - in many ways it feels like yesterday and in others it feels like an eternity ago. To remember her, on the day that was once her birthday, Grace and I planted flowers in our garden.





Soon after the flowers were planted and Grace had the opportunity to skip along the stepping stones, the rain came pouring down. Oh how "Mother Nature" has her way of telling us things.....

Groundhog Day

Grace couldn't wait to take the groundhog puppet she made outside to see if it cast a shadow. You should have heard her squeals of joy when she saw "Phil's" elongated shadow in the grass. Here's to another six weeks of winter!

Strawberry Blossoms

Our strawberry plants have started to bloom, which is a huge feat considering the current condition of our garden. All of the frost this season has turned our once green and lush backyard into a heap of brown twigs. Thankfully, these dainty blossoms remind us that the shade of green will return to our yard sometime soon - we just need to be patient!