At the nutcracker

Here are the ladies, all dressed up at the SF Ballet's Nutcracker!

Festivities

A few fun things to report here:

Yesterday Nimue and I took a train adventure up to San Francisco (Caltrain, then BART) to go see the Asian art museum. Since Nimue is currenly fascinated by anything Chinese, I thought this was a good idea, plus I wanted to see the current exhibit of artifacts from Afganistan. Despite predictions of rain, it was an unusually mild day up there, and both of us enjoyed the museum thoroughly. I think Nimue looked at every single object there! Pretty good staying power for a six-year-old...

Today, Nimue has been glued to the NORAD Santa tracker, watching his progress as he works his way around the globe, tracked in Google Earth. Educational and fun :)

Fast Little Elfy

Fast Little Elfy has been very helpful around the house today. She cleaned her sink, made her bed, cleaned her room and worked on sweeping... Maybe it's the hat!

Elf Hats

Leftover fleece from the TV room pillow project magically transformed iteself into family elf hats...

Calm Cat and other Things

Bobber has been calm the last couple of days, but this evening she ran like crazy with all claws
out, I think. If you read the tooth blog post you would know I lost a tooth.
It was surprising!

Finally!

After more than two months of wiggling, Nimue's loose tooth finally popped out into her hand this afternoon as she was leaving school. I knew something was up as she began gesticulating excitedly as a group of her classmates milled around her by the classroom door; then she came running over to me with the tiny tooth pinched carefully between her fingers. The other center bottom tooth is also loose.

Before and After

The final score from the yard project:

My Dad: 3 (Oak, magnolia, and evil bushes in the front are all smaller)
Vegetation: 1 (magnolia branch nailed my dad in the nose)

All in all a satisfactory result. Thank you Daddy!!!

The oak in the back yard is no longer tangled in the power lines:




The magnolia in the front doesn't overhang the roof as badly, looks better, and has many fewer leaves to drop:



An added bonus: my mom taught Nimue how to crochet. Thank you!!!

Bright and Shiny Morning

Yesterday winter finally arrived here, in the form of a nasty driving wet rain, so we stayed inside. This morning, however, we had to venture out to go to school, so I got Nimue all bundled up in her storm gear and we headed out into the wet on our bikes. To my great surprise, it was gorgeous: though the road was wet and the horizon was engulfed by threatening gray clouds, the sky above us was full of patches of bright blue sky and poofy white cartoon clouds. As we rode to school, we enjoyed the contrast between the blue sky, the remaining brightly colored fall foliage against the dark clouds, and the bright sunshine -- and then a rainbow started to appear in front of us. By the time we made it to school, it spanned the whole sky and was about as brilliant a rainbow as I've ever seen. Gave us a wonderful sense of well-being for the morning :)

A Christmas Question

Rocket Science

It just makes a dad proud...

Tree carnage -- the warm-up

My dad is down here to butcher the trees that need pruning in our yard. Good recreational fun for him (and me!) After poking at some of the shrubbery with the shears as a warm-up, we got the pole pruner out, decided it was too wimpy, went to the hardware store to get the monster 14-foot one with extra-sharp teeth, and got going on the oak that was hanging over the power lines in the back yard. At that point, I had to go get Nimue from school. Much carnage ensued while my dad was left unsupervised...


The magnolia in the front requires a chain saw. Hee hee ho ho muahahahahaha! More to come.

Everyone Needs an Underpants Egg

Nimue's dresser was the pit of chaos that we attacked this week -- between having too many clothes, outgrown clothes, and a systematic pattern on her part of just stuffing things in haphazardly, the drawers were getting hard to close, and it was hard to find things. Upon starting the underwear drawer, we found this object:

Me: "What's that?"
Nim: "An egg"
Me: "Let's take it out of the drawer"
Nim: "NOOOOOO! You can't do that!!!!"
Me: "Why not?"
Nim: "It's my underpants egg!"
Me: "Underpants egg?"
Nim: "So that whenever I can't find a pair, I can just feel around until I find the egg."

Clever solution for those sad Monday mornings when one can never find the critical item.

Why kids like Thanksgiving

At least in my family...

My (current) Favorite Sandwich

This is Country Deli's "Ed's Special" -- smoked ham and Gouda on a Dutch Crunch roll. Yummy! Their chocolate chip cookies are awfully good, too... Country Deli is small, local, family-owned and operated, and completely makes up for the no-frills furnishings with good food and friendly service. They make an excellent cappuccino, too!