Category Archives: Posts

making gingerbread houses

February 2, 2015Postsemma clover, family, gingerbread, Housessusan

Emma really likes the idea of gingerbread houses. She sees them in books, made of cardboard at Whole Foods and made of actual gingerbread at bakeries, so we decided to make mini versions of them with graham crackers. Last Sunday, we invited family to get together to construct some delicious little houses.

We all contributed something to make the sugary mess that was our gingerbread village. I used a combination of peanut butter and vanilla frosting to put together our house, mostly because it tasted delicious. I had a mug of coffee and unlimited supply of graham crackers with this tasty concoction and it resulted in a big sugar/caffeine high!

making lowly worm

January 31, 2015Postsemma clover, felt, joan, lowly worm, susan magnoliasusan

We went to JoAnn’s fabric store when we were in L.A. and purchased felt for our Lowly Worm project. Later that day we asked my sister Joan to help us with the sewing materials that we needed, and she graciously sewed Lowly together with her sewing machine. My niece Claire and I designed the parts of his body and Joan sewed and stuffed Lowly to life. There was a little bit of hand sewing required and it came together easily. Lowly was so fun to make, I am ready for the next felt project! ^_^

Joan had both Emma and her cat to contend with while she tried to sew Lowly together on the machine.

Here is Lowly the next morning, before the hand sewing of his smile and shoe laces.

We are so happy.

oakland airport

January 29, 2015Postsemma clover, oakland airport, susan magnolia, travelsusan

Emma Clover and I took a flight to visit family. It was an easy plane riding experience and Clover is now a pro at traveling. ^_^

photo booth in el segundo

January 29, 2015Postsel segundo, emma clover, grandma, photo booth, susan magnoliasusan

Grandma, Joan, Barbara, Emma, Susan! (photos taken in my sister Elayne’s kitchen, but she was not home to be in these pics. So sad!)

pre-reading

January 22, 2015Postsemma clover, maiki, pre-reading, readingsusan

Our house is full of books and we can always be found reading. maiki prefers the digital copies and Emma Clover likes the ones with pictures. I enjoy reading very much but every spare moment I am reading to Clover. Lately she has been asking me to read to her more and more often and her favorites have been the easy reader chapter books like Little Bear and Frog & Toad. In addition to lots of books we also have magnet letters and an alphabet puzzle that she plays with all the time, and now its all starting to click for her. Its such an exciting time because she is recognizing that these symbols stand for letters and numbers that one can read. We were given a Sandra Boynton board book and I read it to her a couple of times. Now she reads its aloud, and of course she memorized the words but she “reads” it in a left to right format. The other day we went to the Rose Garden and she discovered that there are plaques on the benches that are full of letters. She excitedly showed me our letters in every single one. E for Emma, M for maiki and S for Susan! On the walk home she could not help herself noticing that the world is covered with signs and letters and words to read.