THIS WEEK'S DAILY PHOTOS
Saturday, November 26
We had friends over for a Thanksgiving dinner. It was ultra-casual, embarrasingly so, but we pulled it off. We were the only Americans in attendance so the staple traditional foods, were ours to make (sweet potato casserole, cornbread stuffing, pumpkin pie, turkey, pecan pie, mashed potatoes). It was fun to share our traditions with people who had never experienced them. This is a photo of Braden while he was playing around with our neighbor's toddler son during the meal preparations. I have other photos, but I won't share them here because they have other peoples' children in them.
Photo #2 - cleaning up after all our guests had gone home.
Sunday, November 27
We had our very own shop in the playroom selling ice cream and toys.
Photo #2 - The signage
Monday, November 28
Reading my book club book for book club on Wednesday: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. I enjoyed the story. I especially found it fascinating to get a glimpse of what life might be like to come from generations of uneducated people. I have never thought about it or imagined it to the degree that this book caused me to do so. I loved getting to know Henrietta and her daughter through this book.
Tuesday, November 29
Nicholas took this photo with his camera. I am going to assume he was so excited I let him pick out this peanut butter that he had to take a photo!
Thursday, December 1
This photo will have to count for Wednesday since we did our Christmas decorating Wednesday night. We decorated the tree and had some hot chocolate. Early Thursday morning you can see the storage boxes are ready to be put away.
Photo #2 - Nicholas read Braden his bedtime story tonight.
Friday, December 2
Today was the Upper Elementary Winter Concert. Here the fifth grade is performing a song from New Zealand. That's Nicholas on the left spinning his thingy on the end of the braided yarn that is twirled during this native song.
Photo #2 - Later that afternoon, I was invited to Braden's classroom to share how to make ice cream in a bag. Their umbrella unit studies different cultures and their foods, so this was the basis for the activity. I told his teacher we often do this activity at home as a science project in school or for fun in preschool or in summer school. This was the largest group I've ever shared it with - 28 students (two 1st grade classes) and it was quite an ordeal. We didn't have quite enough ice, the ice probably should have been crushed rather than cubed, our recipe didn't require enough salt and our large Ziploc bags started leaking half-way through!! But in the end, most of the ice cream did eventually freeze and the kids reported the taste was delicious! Luckily Braden's teacher was helpful, understanding and totally went with the flow! Phew!
Photo #3 - Later that evening, the kids and I walked the two blocks to China World to see their Christmas decorations and have dinner at Fatburger! We ran into another first grade boy that Braden knows and who was in the other class that made ice cream with us earlier in the day. He is from Pakistan. It was a pleasure meeting his family and chatting briefly with his parents.
PROJECT LIFE ALBUM UPDATE
I completed four layouts this week. They are all from the summer.
This one is the rest of the layout I shared last week.
As you can see, I'm keeping it very simple to speed up the process. I'm varying my handwritten text a bit for some variety and visual interest but I have not added hardly any embellishments. I've attached a few notes to some of the photos and tucked in a few bits of memorabilia. I have tons more memorabilia in a drawer that I will add at a later time. It will take me some time to go through it and organize it but I don't want that step to slow me down right now.
At this point, I would rather get the foundation of the album complete. If I never add any other memorabilia, I will still be more than happy with the end result.
Still keeping it very simple. What could be easier than punching a hole in the tag from a brand new sweatshirt and throwing it in the album? I didn't have a photo for the last day of the week so I tucked in the packaging for a book set I bought for my youngest earlier in the week.
Ideally, I would like more variety in each spread than you see here, i.e., a few 4x2 photos in place of journaling cards in every pocket and more ephemera tucked in the pockets or added in additional page protectors of varying sizes, but my priority at this point is getting the project done. And as I said before, this is a lot of great documentation as it stands, so I am happy with this layout as is if I never get a chance to return to this spread and add to it. (The BCIS graphic is cut from a shopping bag they gave to new students at orientation day.)
Well, that's it for this week. I haven't had a lot of time to search the internet for recent album inspiration. I will post later in the week if I find anything. And again, if you post finished album pages on your blog, leave me a comment and I'll link to you next week.
Thanks for stopping by! What are you doing to finish up your Project Life 2011 and/or get ready for Project Life 2012?
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