Day 30. Curls!

Check out these curls! DD's hair is thin, fine, and straight as an arrow. She got a new curling iron of her very own, one with a very small barrel, that works pretty well on her hair. Much better than my big-barrel one. If we use a ton of hairspray it will actually stay curly for more than 10 minutes. Really all she needs it for is dance performances, but today she wanted to try it out, just because.

Day 29. Our afternoon entertainment

DD had a somewhat major dental procedure this morning, so I kept her home from school for the rest of the day. I've had this jigsaw puzzle for some time, and she decided she was up to the challenge. She's good at jigsaw puzzles but hasn't ever done one with this many pieces -- 500. They're very small too. The finished size of the puzzle is only 14x18". So we'll see how it goes.

Day 28. Dragon puppets

The kiddo chose this one for our photo-of-the-day. It's the mouth of a paper dragon puppet that she made at school today. I volunteered in her classroom and gave a short lesson on Chinese New Year, and this was one of two different art projects that they did.

More dragon puppet pics

Here are a couple more photos of the dragon puppet, which show it a little better. The pieces are printed on colored paper, but they had to color in the dragon scales, then cut everything out, fold in a certain way to make the hand-puppet part and the nose/nostrils. Then it is assembled mostly with glue, but the tail pieces are attached with brads so that it can move around. This was a great CNY craft for school age kids.

Day 27. CNY gifts are ready!

Everything is ready for the red envelopes! The bookmarks are two-sided -- you can kinda see both sides in the picture. Because it's traditional in China to give gifts of oranges or tangerines with the stems attached, we've traditionally given out candy orange slices with a candy mint leaves. We made the candy bag toppers and bookmarks using the Chinese New Year kit by lliella available at Funky Playground.

The book, Happy New Year, is the one I read to the class. It's a nice book for sharing CNY traditions, but afterwards I decided it wasn't such a good choice for a public school classroom because of all the references to gods and temples. I explained that it is folklore and not churches as we thing of them -- hopefully none of the kids went home and told their parents that I was talking to them about religion.

Day 26. Red envelopes

This Wednesday I'll be going into DD's classroom to do a lesson on Chinese New Year, combined with an art project. The kiddo enjoys giving out red envelopes to her classmates. Here she is putting chocolate coins inside them. We'll also put in a bookmark and small bag of orange candy, which we're working on this evening.

Day 25. Sleepover!

The kiddo with her best friend, who spent the night with us tonight while her parents were out of town. Believe it or not, her bedroom was completely picked up and clean a mere few hours ago, but when I went in to snap a photo I could not even see the floor. Not that she has much floor space in her little room, and most of it was taken up by the trundle bed that we pulled out for her guest, but still. How can a room go from picked up and tidy to complete disaster so quickly?

Oh, and the matching bathrobes were a Target clearance score -- $3.84 each. I also got them matching shirts for $1.84 each. Gotta love a bargain!

Day 24. First basketball game

Just after her team's 23-12 victory! She did great for her first basketball game ever. Got her hands on the ball a few times ... dribbled in the right direction ... successfully passed off to more experienced shooters. I was quite proud of her.

Day 23. Hard Rock Dino

I found this little guy resting comfortably on DD's bed today. Isn't he cute? He came from the Hard Rock Cafe in Guangzhou China, where we had dinner one evening. Each of the little ones in our travel group was given one, all in different colors. For a long time he was a favorite "chew toy" for my teething toddler. I had to rescue him many times. Lately he's found a home on a shelf in her bedroom, but apparently the child thought he'd be more comfortable on the bed.

Day 22. My new project

So, the kiddo's new interest in sewing has prompted me to tackle a quilting project. I really don't need another project, but I got an idea in my mind, so I'm gonna try and actual pull this off. With any luck I'll actually get it done before the year is out. We went shopping for some fabrics. I was looking for blues, a wintery color of blue, with an off-white base. Turns out these colors are not very popular right now. This is the closest we could find. But I do like them.

Day 21. My morning habit

Black coffee. MMMmmmm. I tried using the close-up setting on my camera to blur the background a little. Works pretty well!

Day 20. We went digital!

We're very low-tech around here when it comes to TV. I have two old ones, with rabbit-ear antennas. No cable, no dish, nothing. I finally ordered some $40 coupons from the government to be used towards digital converter boxes, which we'll need come February 17th (or is the the 19th? I'm not sure) when analog TV will cease to function. The coupons came last week in the mail, so I bought a converter box last weekend. It's there in the lower-left corner of the photo. Wow, what a difference in picture quality. I should have bought a converter box ages ago.

Also noteworthy -- today is the day that Barack Obama will be sworn in as our country's 44th President. It's a historic day, and quite exciting. The news coverage has started and will be going on all day, not that I'll be home to watch much of it.

Day 19. Favoring non-fiction

Lately my daughter has been choosing non-fiction books for her daily reading homework. Today it was this one - Cats and Kittens. It's a great book for kids about the care and keeping of a new kitten, well-written with darling photos. The downside is that she's now wanting a kitten. It's the first time that she's expressed interest in a new kitty since our beloved Rudy passed away last fall. There's also a "Dogs and Puppies" book in this series ... gotta keep that one away from her, wink!

Day 18. Lunch and dinner-gonna-be

Exciting, huh? We stopped for groceries on the way home from church today. As I was putting them away, I left out the ingredients for a pot roast for dinner, then made us some lunch. So, there you have it. Turkey and cheese on whole wheat, apples, salad for me, and a pile of black olives for DD, who's not a salad eater right now. She loves olives and can eat them by the handful.

I rearranged stuff for this photo. It was hard to get a good angle with the camera, which is why the can of tomatoes and bottle of salad dressing are lying down. I held the camera up as high as I could reach and aimed it straight down, and here's what I got.

I love my West Bend slo cooker. I wouldn't call myself a cook in any sense of the word, but I can handle pot roast and veggies in the slow cooker. Healthy and yummy! It will make enough for dinner for the two of us and at least 3 lunches for me to take to work this week. Good thing I don't mind eating the same thing every day. And now looking at this photo made me realize that I forgot to add onion. It's not too late ... I'm gonna go chop some up now and toss it in.

Day 17. Lazy Saturday

We worked on our sewing project again today. We've been 99% done for a week now ... all we needed was to add the velcro and elastic. Ran to JoAnn fabrics last night, but they didn't have any suitable elastic. Hard to believe, yes, but you see the store nearest us is near the end of a gigantic moving/liquidation sale and the pickins' were slim. We did find some Velcro tho. I didn't realize before purchasing it that it was self-adhesive -- I didn't even know there was such a thing. Cool! I did sew it in for good measure, but it was so easy to just stick it in place beforehand and not have to mess with pins. So, now the doll outfit we've been making is 99.5% done.

The photo is my darling daughter modeling her and her doll Jess's matching "skirts." The doll skirt is actually a scarf, and DD's skirt is leftover fabric wrapped around her waist and attached with barrettes. And don't you just love her top ... it's her new ballet outfit that we just got for an upcoming performance. It was scratchy, so she put on a purple tank top underneath, chosen because the color matches Jess's top. And the ensemble wouldn't be complete without the lovely black beaded necklace.

Isn't this the coolest thing? My friend Helen gave me this award. Thanks Helen!

And I figured out how to make a word into a link. So easy, even I can do it. He he he

So, now I'm supposed to post 5 things that I'm addicted to. Hmmm ...
1. Coffee. I love a good French Roast. Black.
2. Yoplait Light yogurt. I eat one every day. If I think I'm going to run out, I panic.
3. My Canon Rebel. I use it every day. Hah!
4. Estee Lauder's Beautiful. It's the only perfume I wear, and I wear it every day.
5. CDS (China Digital Scrapbooks). My home on the web.

And now to pass on this fabulous award to five of my fabulous friends:
1. Dawn
2. Marleen
3. Allison
4. Kelley
5. Makatila

It was a hard choice. I'd bestow this wonderful award to all my CDS friends.

Day 17. It's koi.

This painting is hanging on a wall in my office at work. I've been surprised at how many people ask me about it. I've also been surprised at how many people ask me if my daughter painted it. Uh, no, at which point I point out the drawings on another wall that ARE the handiwork of my little darling, including a darling crayoned rendition of Santa with a green beard drawn when she was four. I clearly remember the wall of Santa drawings at her preschool, all colored with red suits and white beards, all except for my little Rembrandt's green-bearded guy. It still cracks me up.

But back to the koi ... it was painted by the sister of the wife of one of my co-workers, and I snatched it up at a garage sale a while back. It's half of a pair of painting, and the other one is at home hanging in my bathroom. Another co-worker, who was also at the garage sale, and I were both wanting these paintings, so we agreed to split them up with the agreement that we each had first dibs on the other painting were either of us to decide to part with it. Some time later, I arrived at work to find this lovely gift on my desk. It turned out that my co-worker had moved, and didn't have a spot for it in her new home. So I know own the pair. I keep meaning to take this one home and get it back together with it's other half, but as you can see, it's still adorning my cubicle wall.

Day 15. Read a little every day.

DD doing her reading homework. It was close to bedime when I remembered that we hadn't taken a photo today, so I snapped this one, which captures a piece of our regular everyday life.

Day 14. First basketball practice

I took this photo with my phone, hence the poor quality. It was DD's first basketball practice. It was fun to watch her play.

She begged and pleaded to play basketball this year, so how could I say no? The 3rd graders practice on Wednesdays, which really stinks because it's the same day she has dance lessons. Since basketball is only for 6 weeks, I decided to let her forego a few weeks of ballet. We can still make it to dance for her tap and jazz lessons after basketball, and then when BB season is over, return to ballet. We made it through the day, but hoo boy was the kiddo whooped by the time we got home. I question whether double-booking her for two back-to-back sports in one evening was a good idea, but she was loathe to give up either one. Fortunately basketball has a very short season.

Day 13. Fog!

When we left the house this morning, the fog was so thick that we couldn't even see the houses across the street. And it was very cold, which meant frozen fog, which isn't too fun to drive on.

There is a street not too far from our home called "Foggy Bottom," which the kiddo has always gotten such a chuckle out of. We drive down this street occasionally on the way to a friend's house. It is a pretty funny name for a street. This morning she wondered out loud, "I wonder if it's this foggy on Foggy Bottom? Wouldn't that be funny Mom?" I decided it might be a fun photo for today, so I grabbed the camera and tootled over there on my way to work. Okay, it's not exactly on my way, but it's not very far away so didn't take me too much longer than normal to get to work.

There were cars behind me, so the photo was a "drive-by shooting." I used the regular ole' standard setting on the camera, and I like how the sign kinda glows.

Day 12. Dance!

The kiddo loves to dance. She'll put on some music and dance her little heart out, but often stops when she realizes I'm watching her. Today she indulged me with her own unique dance, performed to Hannah Montana's "Make Some Noise." Good message in this song ...

"Don't let anyone tell you that you're not strong enough. Don't give up, there's nothing wrong with just being yourself, that's more than enough. So come on and raise your voice, speak your mind, make some noise."

Day 11. Afternoon at the movies

We have a tradition of taking a photo of the poster when we go see a movie. Today we went to see "Marley and Me." I've read the book and read movie reviews and wasn't going to take the kiddo to see it, but she talked me into it. She'd heard all about the ending at school, so no surprises. I was tearing up at the end, but she did fine. She's not as sappy as I am.

Day 10. Me, a Grandma???

A couple of fun shot from our lazy Saturday morning, with a story that I'm sure my fellow adoptive Moms can appreciate.

"Mom, guess what? You're gonna be a Grandma. See, I'm gonna have a baby!" my kiddo announced this morning, big belly and all. Oh my! "Get ready with the camera mom," she says. Have I trained her well or not? He he he. A few minutes later, she makes the official announcement. "Here she is! Here's your new granddaughter mom! Here, take a picture of us for our adoption paper," as she hoists the baby up near her shoulder, similarly to how I held her for our first family photo, the one that is on her adoption certificate.

Goodness I love her!

As part of this 365 project, I've been experimenting with different settings on my Rebel. I obviously didn't have it set correctly for the lighting in that photo on the left. I messed around a little with the exposure in my photo-editing software but didn't like any of the results I came up with, so this is the original photo here.

Day 9. Mmmmmm ...

Back at Christmas time, the kiddo received a gift certificate to Baskin Robbins from one of her friends, and it's been burning a hole in her pocket. So we ventured there this evening. Doesn't this look good? A big scoop of strawberry cheesecake on a sugar cone -- yummy! I snapped this picture just before that before the ice cream, which is perched on top of the cone and not actually stuffed down in it, rolled right off, down her hair and coat, and landed right in the palm of her hand. Nice catch!

Day 8. Uh, what was I thinking?

"You took a picture of SUBWAY and put it there on the internet Mom???" My child asked incredulously. "What WERE you thinking?" Yes, she really said that, with a "I can't believe you did that" tone of voice.

So, in a genuine "what was I thinking" moment, I asked her for suggestions as to what might have been better subject matter. I should know better than to ask such a question. "Uh, duh!" she says. "Moi! Moi Mom! You should take pictures of moi!" So, here's today's photo -- the child showing the world her "it's all about me!" expression.

Day 7. Wednesday dinners

First of all, I must admit that I made an error yesterday, as my young daughter was quick to point out. You see, the pink dragon Webkinz is not, I repeat not, named Pinkie. Pinkie is the pink poodle, who didn't make it into the picture. The pink dragon is as of yet unnamed, because apparently I wouldn't allow the child to register her. Hmmm ... I don't recall forbidding her from registering the dragon online, although I can easily conceive that I might have said "no" in a "not right now" kind of context. At this point in time however, whether Miss Dragon ever gets to take on a life in Webkinz World is highly unlikely, considering that the chance of us finding the little tag with the code on it is slim to none.

Todays photo is not all that exciting ... it's where I had dinner tonight. The kiddo has dance lessons on Wednesdays, so I often scoot the half block down the street to Subway for a sandwich while she's in dance class. Every now and then I manage to spend the two hours alone with my laptop, but more often than not I'm joined by a friend for dinner and grown-up conversation, as was the case this evening. Strangely enough, this photo reminds me of how important my friends are in my life.

Day 6. Smilie, Pinkie, and Hippie

The kiddo snapped today's photo this evening. As you might imagine, and as is likely the case at homes of young girls everywhere, the Webkinz have invaded. I'm not sure how many we have around here, but it's more than three.

I'll tell ya, I searched far and wide for that pink dragon last summer, thinking it would be a great birthday present for my Year-of-the-Dragon girlie. I even had difficulty finding them online (for a reasonable price that is). I left my name and number with a number of shops around here that carry Webkinz, just in case they happened to get any. From what I understand, stores have little, if any, say in the specific Webkinz's that they have to sell. They get a shipment, and they get what they get.

So anyway, I was quite excited the first time I got a call from a store letting me know they had received some pink dragons and would hold one for me. Yay! I tootle over to the store to get it, only to find that it was a dinosaur, not a dragon, that they had received. A few weeks later that episode repeated itself. Different store, same dinosaur, same lack of dragon. When a third store called me, I didn't get there quickly enough, and it was gone. I dont' know if they, in fact, had any dragons tho ... it could have been a dinosaur all along.

The fourth call came from the same store #1. The gal there was nice as can be, leaving a message on my machine that, for sure, she had a pink dragon for me, emphasizing that it was indeed a dragon and not a dinosaur. The bad news was that the kiddo heard the message, so no birthday surprise for her, but by now it was long past her birthday, so it didn't really matter. So, child in tow, I picked up the dragon the next time we were close to that part of town. She is quite cute, isn't she?

Day 5. More snow!

We got another dumping of snow on Monday. It was very very pretty, and I thoroughly enjoyed it while looking at it out the window, but getting to and from school and work was, well, less than enjoyable. The roads were horribly slick. It took me 3 times longer than normal to get home. But once here, DD's first order of business was to jump out of the car, jump into the snow, and make snow angels. Brrrr. Ah, to be a happy-go-lucky, carefree child!

Day 4. The Joy of Sewing.

I'll be honest, this photo is from yesterday. I snapped a couple more today of my sweet pea working on her first sewing project, so technically I HAVE kept up with the one-photo-a-day project, but I like this one from yesterday best. In fact, I adore it. I love the expression on her face as she admired her first practice seam on a scrap of fabric.

We got quite a bit done on the doll dress this weekend. She sewed the straight seams while I manned the machine for the seams that were curvy or required more precision, like the hem of the wristband. I let her "practice" on scraps of fabric, which she thoroughly enjoyed. I think she tried out most of the decorative stitches on the machine, and I only had to unjam the thing once. Not bad!

Day 3. Ah, my beautiful, trusty Bernina!

I dug out my Bernina today and dusted it off. I can't even remember the last time I used it. BC (before child) I enjoyed quilting, but lately, well, there just aren't enough hours in the day.

Backing up to earlier today ... we went out to run a couple of errands, and while driving down the road I couldn't help but notice how pretty the hills near our home were, with the sun shining on the snow. I commented to the child about taking a photo of the scenery (all the while wishing I had a smaller camera that I could keep in my purse so that's it's always handy). At first she was agreeable, then started asking questions about where we would be going in order to take photos of HER in the snow-covered hills. When I broke the news that I meant taking the photo of the hills, not of her, she was rather miffed, then confused. "But mom, why would you want a picture without ME in it?"

So therefore, it came as no surprise that she's not happy with my choice of photos today, especially given that I took several of her manning the sewing machine for the first time. Maybe tomorrow's photo will show her in action.

Day 2. Family Night

So the kiddo has been asking me to teach her how to sew. Okay, that's a good idea. I haven't sewed in years, but I can rekindle my interest in sewing in order to teach her. I had something simple in mind for her first project, like a small 4-patch quilt, but she had other plans -- a dress for her American Girl doll. She knew that I recently found a some great (and free!) patterns for AG clothes online, which I'd downloaded and printed out. She picked out a dress and set her heart on making one, so here we are.

Fridays are family night for us, so last night we got started and cut all the pieces out. She picked out the white-with-black-polka-dots fabric herself, and reverse print black-with-white-polka-dots fabric for a coordinating shawl. Should be cute, if we can actually get it made.

Day 1. Rum pa pum pum

Late in the day, I mentioned to DD about needing to take a photo today, and she was happy to oblige. There's a house not far from where we live where the owners decorate to the hilt with holiday lights, and she wanted to go there once more before the holidays officially end and the lights come down, so off we went. I snapped about 30 photos -- this one is my favorite. I wish I'd had my video camera handy as she drummed along with these little drummers. If I had to title this photo with one word, it would be "spirit." The child definately has it.

Happy New Year!