12 Days of Christmas: The Return of the Charlie Brown Tree

The lights on my fiber optic tree no longer flicker. I'm a bit scared to turn it on these days so to make it festive, Robbie helped me wrap a somewhat traditional string of lights up and down and all around. The tree is decorated with train ornaments and a crafted ornament Robbie made in class by tracing his hand. He wanted to get the hole punch out and create a hole to hang it. I almost punched the wrong side. That would have been quite disastrous. Lucky for me I caught on just in time. Oh! It's a reindeer. Just with spots.

12 Days of Christmas: Gingerbread Village 2012

We crossed another Christmas tradition of our to-do list last weekend - the annual gingerbread village in Waikiki. This year they amazed again, making the village a global village to include the Eiffel Tower, London Bridge, Washington Monument, and a Japanese pagoda in addition to the Hawaiian buildings. We arrived early enough in the season that the smell of fresh gingerbread was still in the air.

12 Days of Christmas: I'm back!

All aboard! It's that time of year again. The holidays! We kicked the month of December off in grand style today with two fabulous and train-filled activities. First up - the Candy Cane Train. Technically not a train, but hey, it's Christmas. Not a time to get too technical about things, eh?

Mango season

They're here! One of my favorite treats - local, right-from-the-tree mangoes. Yum yum yum. During today's soccer game, another mom shared with us her yard bounty. Did not know when we signed up for soccer that this would be one of the benefits.

Newspaper print facility tour

Late last week we took a tour of the Honolulu Star Advertiser printing facility on the Leeward side. All was quiet as they were in-between jobs, but as we were with young Cub Scouts, that was probably for the best. Walked away with an insider's look at the paper printing process plus rolls of blank, unprinted paper they could no longer use. Great for drawing and painting and map making and all kinds of things you need to cover your kitchen table for. Here's a quick collage I made of the pictures I snapped on the tour. I just discovered one of my photo apps has a collage maker. You'll be seeing more of these! Fair warning.

And another bunny

Here's my other Easter finish this Spring. The free pattern was found on the Whispered by the Wind site. It's one of three bunnies in their free pattern pages. I think I'll print them now so I have them handy for more gifts.

More Easter stitching

I didn't get my homemade Christmas gifts finished in time this past December. Considering we don't exchange a lot of gifts in my family, I really blew it because I didn't have gifts to give. I vowed this year would be better so to get working on my goal, I've already started my gifts. I've stitched up a couple Christmas-themed items, but took a break from reds and greens when I found some cute (and free again!) Easter cross stitch patterns. I am happy to report that two Easter gifts were not only finished early but delivered framed and in time for an Easter display! Woo hoo! One project that didn't get done was this little set of three Easter eggs that I was going to turn into a card for a friend. Oh well. Given my history, I'm going to say two out of three ain't bad.

Happy Easter!

It's a very lazy day around here. No soccer practice or plans of much substance. I know I have a laundry list of things to do...starting with the laundry.
A few months back, inspired by blogs I found online, I started working on a number of small cross stitch projects. I found an adorable (and free) Peep-like bunny pattern on the DMC site. I made it for my sister's family and gave it to her on Kauai. And yes, I actually finished it! Framed and all. I forgot to take a picture when I was done so here's what I snapped nearly there.
The colors are looking a little more vibrant than the actual tones; they're a little more muted and pastel than they appear. I couldn't find all the recommended colors on the pattern, so I just stood at the craft store and picked what I liked.

Kauai photo parade!

How much do I love iPhone photography? A lot! Here are more pictures from Kauai in early March. The picture of the sugar mill remains I shot and edited with one hand while I enjoyed a gelato with the other hand. :)

Kauai for the day

It's not just the kids doing cool stuff these days - I get to get out once in a while, too. My sister and her family were on Kauai in early March and I went over for the day. We spent a few hours seeing a few things near their hotel in Poipu, including a stop at a coffee company where we did coffee tasting. Sounds fun but it was actually a little strange. I can't drink scalding coffee but I kind of forced myself to as I went around sampling. My brother-in-law and I both left with burnt taste buds. Great concept though - but even better to be with my sister and her family.

Cub Scout Pine Car Derby

Another cool Cub Scout activity - the Pine Car Derby, an annual event for all Scouts. Boys get a kit containing one wood block, two axels, four plastic wheels and are asked to make a race car. Of course you know some parents take this over, but I was really happy to be part of a group that instructed the little kids to just make a bus. That involved only a little sanding and as much or as little painting as you wanted. It's too bad we didn't get the memo.
Missed instructions aside, Noel did have fun working with Robbie to make a sporty, high-gloss red roadster based on a pattern found online. (It's in the back row of the picture, about three or four from the far end.) If Robbie continues to enjoy scouting and stays in, I'll look forward to this event every winter. I wonder how many years in a row Robbie will produce a red car? :)

Fire station tour!

Robbie and his Cub Scout den do some pretty cool stuff! Of course, a big mahalo to the parents who put it all together. This past January they went on a tour of a nearby fire station. Firefighters were great and spent a lot of time with the kids. They got to do all the "traditional" things like hold the water hose, watch the tall crane go up and down, and sit in the driver's seat of the big trucks. Plus we got to go in and out of their living and sleeping quarters - even their locker room. I haven't seen this crew at Costco lately, but when I do I hope I get a chance to thank them again.

No fooling

We're here, we are really still here. Been a busy time since the Christmas holiday but the real reason I haven't posted anything is because I was simply too lazy to download a blogging app on the new phone I got back in November. Sad but true. All my pictures worth sharing are on it, so I decided to remedy the situation recently and I'm now ready to roll. Here's a picture snapped in our front yard minutes before taking off for soccer practice one Sunday afternoon in March. Yes, I'm a soccer Mom. Robbie said he wanted to play so we signed him up. Definitely my kind of team - one practice a week and one game a week. Both on weekends! Woo-hoo. And a short two month season. OK, so maybe I'm a soccer Mom "lite."
More pictures to follow this week as I play catch-up. Along with a blogging app, I picked up a couple of fun photo processing apps. I tweaked the photo in this post to make it a little more vibrant but it is pretty close to what you see with the naked eye. Well, maybe if you have the magical ability to blur the background when you view the world. Or just need new glasses. I also used my all-time favorite photo editing technique - the crop! I'm a master of the crop!

12 Days of Christmas: Cookie swap

I think it’s about time I took a lesson in baking in low altitude, high humidity environments, or at least invest a few minutes of my time doing some Internet research in the area. I’ve tried to make cookies at least three times now that were supposed to “crackle” like the magazine picture on the left and it didn't work. I even used the shortening the recipes called for and didn’t replace it with butter (I read that this was really the only way to get a good “crackle” a few years back). Still, although these tasted fine, they clearly didn’t get the look I was going for (see my cookies on the right).
Robbie’s Cub Scout group held a small Christmas party for the boys and we were asked to bring cookies for a cookie swap. That sounded like fun to me, so when I saw this chocolate cookie recipe in a magazine I thought they looked festive and swap-worthy. I baked a batch yesterday morning but was disappointed. I vowed to do a few of things differently next time – one thing being dusting the cookies after they were baked and cooled. These cookies were rolled in powdered sugar before baking and it yellowed the sugar coating. Fail.

12 Days of Christmas: Snow globe ornaments

Early last month I braved Macy's holiday department with the boys. I say braved because it stresses me out; they like to pull and tug on the displays and it drives me nuts and makes me nervous. Pre-coaching about store etiquette and then in-store scolding does little good as they get so excited for the lights and all, so I try to make it a quick tour and exit. I was looking for snow globe tree ornaments and I struck gold!
In the 90s I started collecting holiday snow globes – the big, mantel showcase size. Sometime shortly after our move to Maryland I realized that although I still loved them, having a collection of fragile, bulky, and heavy items just wasn’t practical. I switched then to snow globe ornaments. Family had gifted me some over the years knowing I was collecting all snow globe sizes. I quickly realized how much easier they were to unpack, display, and pack up again. So a new collection was born.
Back to Macy’s last month – I went purposely to see if they had any snow globe ornaments. Hallmark has had a few nice ones over the years as part of their Keepsake collections, but this year I struck out with them. At Macy’s I found three! And better yet, they were already 40% off. (In November? I don’t get retail sometimes.) I noticed one had an on/off switch on the bottom, which I assumed was a switch for a music player. Just last week I pulled them out and went to take a picture. I turned the switch and to my surprise and absolute delight it lit up. And not in a simple, classy way, but a tacky, crap-tacular fiber optic rotating light display way. Merry Christmas to me!

12 Days of Christmas: Advent calendar

I'm back! I thought about starting my Christmas posts in October (if the stores can roll out the red and green, why can't I?). I was just kidding myself, it wasn't going to happen. But inspiration struck this week in the form of a gift from my sister: advent calendars for the boys. Arrived in the mail yesterday just in time to open door one. Beautiful!

Happy Thanksgiving

New find

How excited I am? This past weekend a Westside mushroom grower (I know, who knew?) was at my local farmers market. It was perfect timing as I was planning my holiday side dishes and needed some. The vendor was almost out and I took everything she had left. Only enough for one dish. Would it be the green beans or the stuffing? Well, I think they're too good to be paired with mushy bread as much as I like my version of mushy bread, so they will be with the green beans. The mushroom growers show up at the market depending on whether or not they have product to sell. Let's hope that is more often than not.

Happy Halloween

I'm heading to the Apple store later this evening. A new iPhone is reserved for me! So I decided to do a quick dump of pictures from the last month or so before I migrate to my new device. Here's a palm-sized pumpkin from the Farmers Market. No pumpkin patch for us this year. Luckily, a couple of these little ones filled in just fine.

Someone had a birthday...

Cub turned 4 at the beginning of the month. Robbie wanted Cal to wear a party hat but being a dog and all, he refused. Robbie improvised and snapped this picture. Cal ruptured the ACL in his other knee and had surgery this week to repair it (same surgery he had in May for the first busted knee). Broke my heart to take him to the vet clinic the night before and leave him in their kennel for the procedure the next morning. I don't think there was any doubt he knew what was going on and he wouldn't be home for a few days.
It was a bit rough the first 12 hours home, but it is now nearly 48 hours home and he's doing fine. I want to give him a new nickname but I don't know what to call him...RoboDog? What do you call a mid-size Beagle with two surgically repaired knees?