Our girl is 7! Her birthday was last Friday the 15th, and we had two full days of celebrating. Everyone here is still recovering, and I’m getting over a bug that left me with a fever upwards of 103 last night. Friday morning we were at school for her class’s birthday circle, then we left school for a day at Ikea (she asked for a new desk for her birthday) and Emerald City ComicCon. Saturday morning was her Wild Kratts-themed birthday party, and Saturday night we went to Monster Jam.
Category: Events and Celebrations
Here’s a simple, quick, cute project to make with your kids. We made these googly-eyed love bugs for H’s class Valentines this year, but we’ve made them in the past just for fun. H’s party was postponed a week because of a giant snowstorm the night of my birthday that, combined with midwinter break, meant school was closed all of last week. It was the fourth snowstorm we’d had in just over a week, February has been wild around here. So one day while H was home and I was working, I set her up to work on these for school.
It’s here, the milestone is here. I’m 40! I don’t remember the specifics of when I turned 30, but apparently I was in a cruddy mood all day (thank you, 11 years of blogging). I wasn’t taking photos of myself regularly then, and I thought I should start. When I’m 50, I want to know what I looked like today.
I went to ALA Midwinter while it was happening in Seattle last weekend, and it was amazing to walk the exhibits space and just see so many great books. I’m not as current with what’s happening in children’s lit since I left teaching, and I really miss it. I love being a full time, working writer, but…I love children’s books, and I love sharing them with kids. I was at ALA on Sunday, and then Monday morning they held the ALA Youth Media Awards, where they announce all the big winners in kidlit. This is what I watch every year for the announcement of the Newbery and Caldecott books, and then I immediately buy all of the Caldecotts for H’s collection–we have them all for every year of her life, plus the year I was pregnant (and lots of other years because I just love Caldecott books). I also picked up a lot of the other award winners announced on Monday, and by Tuesday they’d all arrived.
Read more on We’ve Got the 2019 Caldecotts (And Lots of Other Award Winners)…
I know I’m not a working librarian anymore, but the American Library Association had its annual midwinter conference here in Seattle over the weekend. Which was really exciting since this is where the announce the Newbery and Caldecott books every year! I didn’t go to the awards ceremony, but I did spend Sunday afternoon walking around the exhibit floor.
This was, by a mile, the best birthday party H has ever had. Four of her friends and their moms met us in Brooklyn at Brooklyn Owl, a unicorn horn store, for a day out in NYC. The moms went for coffee, and Adam and I stayed to take photos of the girls picking out their own special unicorn horns, making unicorn crafts, eating unicorn cupcakes, and solving clues for the store’s magic mirror, which spoke to them and transformed them from little girls into magical unicorns. We could not have packed more unicorns in if we tried, it was fabulous.
I made this quilt for H’s 6th birthday this week, I finished it last week just in time for her big day on Thursday. I used the Lisa the Unicorn pattern from Elizabeth Hartman, and it was phenomenal. Clear directions, and so much fun to make.
I turned 39 last Saturday! It’s been a week since then, and more than two weeks since I’ve blogged, and it’s been busy and eventful and so much has been going on. So I desperately need to catch up here.
I’ve been on a blogging break all month–work deadlines, holiday prep, everyone’s been sick (I have the flu as I type this, I never get the flu). But this was our December:
We had a wonderful Thanksgiving at our house this year. My family came over, there was turkey, I threw butternut squash in the stuffing, and I made an all-day bone broth with the turkey once the leftovers were eaten.