Week 36 - Making Moon Cakes

It always seems as though the Mid-Autumn Festival sneaks up on us - this year was no exception. The holiday is officially celebrated this coming Monday, but with a full day of school, the associated homework and open house night, we opted to celebrate early.

Grace and I spent our morning making moon cakes. We follow the recipe from this book, with the exception of the filling. Since the traditional fillings not considered edible around these parts, we fill our cakes with chocolate fudge instead (as seen peeking through the baked cake in the last photo).





A dinner of Chinese take-out, finished off by yummy homemade moon cakes made for a happy celebration indeed!

Week 35 - Horse Love

While searching for a lost memory card, I came across these pictures of Grace from her wee days.






Perhaps her love of horses dates back farther than I remembered!

Week 34 - First Day of School

On Monday Grace started back to school. To say she was excited to begin first grade is an understatement. But now that the homework has started, I do believe she wishes that it was still summer vacation. Overall though, everything is going along smoothly and she appears quite content with the new routine.



So here's to another wonderful year of learning!

Week 33 - Kentucky

We're just returning from a wonderful week-long vacation to Kentucky. In my efforts to share as many photos as possible (I believe we took over 200) I created my first ever photo mosaic. Despite a few oddly cropped photos, I'm happy with the results.


Descriptions of photos from left to right......

1. A barn located at Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill, where we stayed for two nights 2. Grace weaving potholders in the car to pass the time 3. On a tour of the Woodford Reserve Bourbon Distillery 4. The paddocks of Three Chimneys Farm, where champion racehorses are bred 5. Feeding a carrot to one of the retired racehorses at Old Friends Farm 6. On a riverboat ride along the Kentucky River 7. With the chickens at Country Girl at Heart Bed and Breakfast - Grace even got to collect their eggs 8. Crawling through Mammoth Cave 9. Dipping bottles of Maker's Mark Bourbon in the signature red wax as souvenirs 10. My favorite dessert while there - bread budding with bourbon sauce 11. At the Louisville Slugger Museum and Factory 12. Watching an early morning training session at Churchill Downs 13. Sketching a group of goats on the hillside 14. A family photo in front of one of the many limestone walls we came across 15. A horse animal cracker 16. One of the local restaurants we ate at, this one was in Hart county.

Ah yes, it was a fun filled week indeed!

Week 31 - Hat Making

Grace had been waiting all summer long for the release of the new Smurf movie (which she saw yesterday with Meme and Pop). I'm not quite sure where her interest in those little blue creatures came from, but she was excited none the less. In fact, she was so excited that she had her outfit selected weeks in advance. There was an issue however, a vital piece of the ensemble was missing - the hat!

After much discussion related to the lack of a proper Smurf hat, I suggested we attempt to make one. And believe it or not, she was quite smitten with the idea.

So with an old white t-shirt and a bit of creativity, Grace made herself (with just a little help from me) a hat that she couldn't have been prouder of.

Here she is working away......



And the result of all her hard work......


Ah yes, the proper attire makes all the difference, right?

Week 30 - All a Flutter

Our themed weeks are still going along strong around these parts. Grace's latest selection was butterflies. Here's some things we did and saw.......


.....Witnessed a "butterfly" resting on one of our sunflowers.


.....Made a bouquet of tissue paper flowers.


.....Watched a caterpillar munch away on our carrot leaves. With a bit of research we discovered that it will soon turn into a Black Swallowtail - how exciting.


.....Made wildflower cups to toss over the bridges in our neighborhood (a project from Volume 1 of Alphabet Glue)


.....Lastly, we planted a small butterfly garden.

Ah yes, things were certainly a flutter around here!

Week 29 - She Lost a Tooth

Over a month ago Grace discovered that she had a loose tooth - her first one! She had been waiting quite awhile for this to happen, as many of her classmates already had their fair share of loose teeth and to top it off, many of them had lost a few.

In preparation for the day that the tooth actually came out, we made a tooth fairy pillow together. It was a snap to make. Grace selected the fabric from our scrap bins, drew a tooth template (which was later cut out of felt and embroidered with eyes and a smile), I stitched a few seams, Grace stuffed it "full to the brim" and viola the pillow was ready.


Now fast forward several weeks and visualize Grace walking around with a tooth dangling by a thread - oh yes, Dean and I predicted this would happen. It dangled for days despite eating, brushing , flossing and the like........ until Friday night. That's when, while flossing her teeth, it literally popped right out of her mouth and landed on the floor in front of her. A bit of drama ensued (due to the sight of blood) but then all was well.



Now she can join the ranks of her semi-toothless classmates!