Prairie girl

My grandmother indulged my every dress up desire when I was little. She made this prairie girl dress when I was going through a (rather intense and long) Laura Ingalls Wilder phase.



And now my daughter loves to play with it. I love that.

I think we need an agent...

Katie was in the paper again! Well, it was the online edition of the newspaper, but that's almost the same thing, right?

Here she is, at a Pink Week festival at the local high school.

Bringing home a baby bumblebee...

We are slowly (thanks to Angie) figuring out something about Katie's learning style. When introduced to a new concept, she will vehemently protest that she can't do it. Then, the next day, she'll do it very well. She seems to really need that down time to process her learning.



The practice of the letter b was like that. She did them all buy herself!

Johnny Appleseed...

He was quite a guy,
A hero guaranteed!
And as American...
As apple pie!

It's weird what you remember from elementary school. That was a song from our second grade play. RAM = Random Access Memory




Katie learned about Johnny Appleseed at preschool. She's wearing a Johnny Appleseed hat. They also made apple on a drink lid with tissue paper and small twigs. So cute! And when I got there to pick her up, all the apples were hanging in an "apple" tree!

A is for Apples

Katie's preschool teacher is so creative! The kids painted apple trees, and they used paint on their hand and forearm to make the trunks!

The County Fair

We've taken Katie to the fair every year, but this is the first year she rode a ride. And my little daredevil skipped the kiddie rides, with their cute spinning strawberries and their tame dragon coaster. Katie ran straight to the Ferris Wheel.


And she loved it!

Art in the Park

Katie and I headed over to Art in the Park yesterday. My friend Kelly is displaying her amazing art there. Kelly's mother-in-law was displaying her fiber arts in the booth next door. The newspaper was hanging around, waiting to take pictures of a little girl playing with Kathy's toys. Katie happily obliged!



Katie Whitney, 3, of Richland, plays with a cloth tea set by Kathy Wetherell of Kennewick who was inspired to create the washable toys for her granddaughter Emily, now 9, who suffers from severe allergies.

Happy birthday, America!

Meh.

Crazy as heck here. But I figured I could at least update the picture of K in 8 inches of snow to one that is slightly more current. Maybe I'll post again, if something interesting happens.

A glutton for punishment

Self-imposed deadlines. I love them. I also apparently love stress, drama, and masochism. I am crazy about setting a goal or a task, and arbitrarily setting a deadline to accomplish said goal or task. If I meet my deadline, I'm happy as a clam. Not meeting the deadlines, however, severely stress me out because I convince myself that failing to meet the deadline with cause nothing short of the End. Of. The. World. And. All. Humanity.

It's good to have a deadline, but I also have to work really hard to remind myself that the world will keep turning and no one's going to die if I take more time than I thought I needed. Especially if the barriers to my timely success are out of my control. (Home Depot, I'm looking at you.)

I know that there is a plan for my life. Since I'm not in any hurry to meet the final deadline (If you know what I mean. And I think you do.) I need to allow the plan to unfurl. Even when it's not to my immediate satisfaction, everything will always happen for a reason, and it will all work out in the end.

Blah blah blah. Shut up, and show some pictures of Kate, or maybe a video of her singing an inappropriate song. Well, the joke's on you--I can't find my camera. I think the plan has hidden it from me.

10 things I'm loving right now...

1. Knitting a delicious baby blanket for a wonderful friend.
2. Making progress on a big task.
3. Gone with the Wind and Olivia de Havilland.
4. Nathan Fillion
5. The conversations Katie and her new BFF (who lives two houses away) have yelling at each other from their front yards.
6. 7 more weeks.
7. My daughter's hilarious sense of humor.
8. A successful week of difficult labs--with students who said they loved it and learned a lot.
9. Learning to do new stuff, even though I may hate it at the time.
10. Plans for a productive and purposeful summer!

Just in time for Easter

Book Review

My Name Is NOT Isabella by Jennifer Fosberry

I love this book! It follows the day of little Isabella, who imagines herself as different strong, historical women. She pretends to be Rosa Parks, Marie Curie, and (my childhood hero!) Sally Ride, among others. Throughout her day, Isabella discovers that she can find the admirable qualities of these women within herself.

At the end of the book, there is a small piece of information about each of the women Isabella pretends to be. It's a great starting point for discovering what characteristics of each woman led her to be an inspiration.

I highly recommend this book for every little girl... and the mommies! One of the kindest, greatest women that Isabella pretends to be is her mommy. Reminds me to try to live my life to be a woman my daughter can look up to.

Three fun things!

A friend asked me to make some hats for a very special little girl.



I had so much fun making these, and I'm so proud of how they turned out!

Three good things...

** Menu planning. It's making my evenings so much nicer to know what's for dinner and get started on it as soon as I get home. I've been much more conscious about what we're eating, too--except for last night's caramel corn debacle. Hey, homemade means healthy, right?

** Knitting projects. I have a couple of things on the needles right now for friends. Every time I pick up that project, I think about the person I'm making it for, with prayers and good wishes going into each stitch.

** Plans. I'm excited about a few things that I probably shouldn't even bring up, since I don't want to talk about them here, yet. But they are good things, and I'm looking forward to the changes they will bring.

Our Favorite Books

One of our favorite read aloud books is Cool Time Song by Carole Lexa Schaefer. It's a story of animals on the savannah, and the peaceful time they share around the watering hole at sundown. There's a bit of an environmental message, too.

Our favorite part is the middle, where the animal noises make a song. We like to all make the animal noises in chorus.

There is also a white dove on each page spread. We like to search for the bird until we find it. Sometimes it's easy, sometimes it's more tricky.

Somehow, we ended up with more than one copy of this book. Lucky us!

Preschool projects

Katie made a Christmas ornament at preschool! She poured the paint inside a glass ball, and swirled it around. She chose 2 shades of pink (!) and one of blue with some white.





And today Katie painted an igloo! She loves to paint, and this was especially fun because she painted with a sponge.

Three good things...

**Pharmaceuticals. Man, I feel better already.

**Learning the brioche stitch. Have had to pull out this project three times, but hey, that means more knitting, right?

**Warm bath. That's my goal for tonight. Bath with a good book.

Today was a good day.