Gwei Gwei’s Birthday Party

My boss Charlie has a 14 year old daughter, Gwei Gwei. Her mom, Anne is battling lung cancer and is currently in a re-hab facility. Saturday was scheduled to be Gwei’s party. She wanted to have it even though her mom was unable to be there. So a bunch of Charlie’s friends pitched in and made it happen.  I was in charge of planning and project assignments. We missed Anne very much, and were sorry she could not join us.

Gwei asked for a string maze to the goody bags and cupcakes in cones. Everything else was up to us.

I had never made the cupcake cones, before, but growing up my mom made them all the time, so I figured if Barb could do it so could I! The request for was 2 kinds, so I made some the night before and the rest the day of.

Oh and the party Saturday Feb 9 – the day of the blizzard!

I wanted something to display the conecakes in so I got a box, cut holes to fit 10 of them and wrapped in paper. Ally asked if she could decorate the box.

That is Ally and Gwei.

Ally with the finished box!

There was a driving ban in state until 4pm, so the party was rescheduled to start at 5pm and we loaded up the sled with a bag of stuff and Ally while I carried the cone cakes the 6 blocks to Charlie’s house.

A friend Anne, blew up balloons. Mark put together red paper lanterns.

Kim and Becky hung streamers, while Ally played on my new ipad!

We decorated the front hall, stairway, Gwei’s room and the living and dining rooms.

 

Becky made an awesome string maze. She wove 5 strands of string thru out the living and dining rooms so that each girl had a piece to unravel in order to get to her goody bag. Ally was pretty funny sitting amongst the string, and when it was complete she made several trips back into to get things we forgot or to add to the goody bags.

It took the girls just over 20 minutes to unwind the string and claim their prizes!

Ally and I had fun watching. The guests were impressed with the cone cupcakes, and asked Charlie how he made them! He confessed he did not, he asked a friend, me. Gwei was proud to tell her friends that it was her idea to have them.

Gwei and her dad.

After the maze it was time for dinner. The plan had been to order chicken fingers and fries from the place across from our house, but with the storm, it and every other take out place we could think of was closed. Whole Foods was open, so when the driving ban was lifted at 4PM I drove Charlie’s SUV and bought frozen and we baked those up and served them to the girls. I don’t think they minded at all.

That is Kim, a friend and very long time company client, she was in charge of decorations! We left while the girls we eating, and Kim was going to stay and help Charlie with the activities until bedtime, it was a sleep over party.

It was a fun time, and we were all really happy to help out.

My cupcake cones!

Valentine’s Day Prep

In the week leading up to Valentine’s Day we’ve been busy crafting and decorating at our house.

 

Ally really did not want to take her Christmas tree down in her room, so we bought a few heart decorations, Becky sewed a pink tree skirt and I made a paper heart tree topper. Viola! A Valentine Tree!

I did a little looking on Pinterest for Valentine crafts. The one above turned out pretty neat and was simple to make – its all out of paper strips folded to make a heart and then glued together.

But below not so great.

It was make your own window clings out of glue, food coloring an dish soap. You mix the ingredients and then paint them into a shape, we used hearts. It was kind of fun to do, but when they dried they did not really stick (or cling) to the windows. We made about 10 and only 2 are still attached. But it was a fun activity during the blizzard.

 

I offered to buy Valentine’s for Ally’s class, and I picked out packages of gummy heart snacks. They are very cute and Ally was thrilled with them. She sat right down to write each friend’s name on a package. Then crossed out the name on the list as she went. She had so much fun!

Ally has also been hard at work on Valentine’s for Becky and me. It’s a very secret project but I did manage to get a picture of the artist at work:

The Blizzard of 2013

In preparation of the Blizzard we brought up Ally’s old sled, bought a new sled and made several trips to the grocery store for “essentials”. Ally had fun taking her special things for an indoor sled ride.

School was canceled on Friday, so it was a relaxing morning at home with mama, while I went into work. Ally was so tired she actually took a 3 hour nap!

In the morning after the 20” of snow stopped. It was time to start playing in and shoveling it.

First up was shoveling the front porch, and half the steps. The other half made a fantastic sled run!

20+ inches of snow is a lot to shovel. Becky and I did the front walk and our front sidewalk. We live on a corner so that left the long side of the house, 3 cars (since I had a work car to deal with too), our driveway, the sidewalk into the street and a fire hydrant. LOTS of snow. Our neighbor came and did walk into the street and the hydrant, and a crew of 3 eighth grade boys I hired thru Ally’s school came and shoveled out the long side of our corner, and 3 cars. It took the 3 of them 4 hours! We fed them lunch, dried their coats, gave them water and paid them well.

The corner in front of our house, and on the right is the 3 boys – one standing on my work car to reach the roof. They worked so hard.

Later that day we went to Charlie & Gwei’s house to decorate for Gwei’s 14th birthday. Her mom is in the hospital so I was the party planner. It will be a post all in itself, but we came home in the dark and Ally begged to play in the snow. She was so good at the party it was hard to resist.

Above is the snow banks on our sidewalk, and the HUGE pile of snow at our driveway.

She had a blast playing and sledding. I finally made her come in because I was so cold!

Lazy Saturday Morning

I made quiche and Ally helped me with the crust.

Ally and Becky found our Muppet Monopoly game and had a blast playing together.

Sometimes its nice to enjoy family time at home with no commitments or rush.

Kindergarten Over Achiever EDITED

Ally’s class (all the kindergartens) are doing a big unit on Oceans and water. Friday Feb 8 is a showcase for parents to come and see what the students have been learning and doing.

Friday, Feb 1 I picked Ally up at school as usual and her teacher told me about some special homework Ally had. Suring choice time that day Ally was working with puppets (some parent donated some amazing sea animal puppets) and Ally had an idea that a puppet show for the showcase would be fun. Apparently the other student in puppets at the time was not so thrilled about the idea. But Ally was, and her homework was to write a story for 6 puppets (Ally said 6, two for each hand for her and 2 friends).

Seems ambitious to me. But Ally was game and pretty excited about it. So on Saturday she worked on it.

That is part one of the story. Ally got tired and stopped, but weere excited for part 2!

On Sunday she diligently finished the story:

She was so excited to show us. We sat down and read it together. There was only one word we could not understand – wesek means was stuck. As soon as we got it all understood Becky wrote it all down in “grown up words” so we would all remember and so Ally’s teacher would get it too, in case Ally forgot.

 

I spoke with Ally’s teacher on Monday and he said they used her story to create a script and he’s planning on video taping the puppet show and then playing the video on a loop during the Open House.

Ally is pretty excited about it, and she was super proud of how long her story was, and that we could “almost read the whole thing”.

Communion Bread

Last Sunday in Sunday School class Ally made Communion bread. I volunteered to help out and it was lots of fun.

 

Today at church we’ll eat the bread as we take Communion.

This has sparked some religious conversations between Ally and I. We’ve talked about praying and what it means to pray.

I heard her and her friend Willow talking about Easter recently. Last year they got their pictures taken with the Easter Bunny together, and Willow asked to do that again this year. I said yes we could probably do that. Ally piped up and told Willow “Easter is not just about the Bunny” … Willow said something like “yeah, huh?” and then Ally went on to tell her it was really about how God, I mean Jesus, died on the cross. I was pretty proud of her.

As we’ve talked about communion this past week, Ally wanted to know why it isn’t a big glass of juice since it tastes so yummy.  I told Ally how the bread represents Jesus body and the juice his blood. We eat and drink to remember Jesus and how he died on the cross for us. She asked how he died, and I explained that some people thought he was bad and they were afraid of him, so they put nails in his hands and feet to nail him to the cross. We talked about how the cross in Church is a T shape not an X shape. She commented on how that must of hurt, but then asked how he came back to life. I explained that it was a special kind of magic. The kind of magic that I believe in, and I hope she believes in too. That this is what going to Church is about,  learning about and how to believe in this, and this special kind of magic, its Faith.

Ally then asked if God was more important than Jesus. I thought about it and then asked her if she thought I was more important than she was. She said Yes, then giggled a bit, as if to say not really, she’s not sure. So then I told her I don’t think I am more important than her. I am her mom and she is my daughter. God is Jesus’ father, and so I think they are both important. She seemed to get it. But it’s a big concept, even for adults.

The subject naturally changed then and we moved on. But this conversation has stayed with me for several days now.

In light of my previous post about change, I find that my Faith is helping me, is giving me some comfort during this challenging time in our lives.

Thank you to all of you who encouraged us to take Ally to Church. Not only is it good for Ally, but its good for me as well.