It’s spring! That means it’s tee-ball season and I’m so excited!
This is my first go on a team – 7 of my teammates live on my block – who could ask for more?
Category Archives: Stuff I’m into
Park City 2012
What a way to spend our winter break!
Here are some highlights of our trip to visit Havana and Charley in Park City, Utah and get a little skiing in.
I was proud of my parents because after not skiing since high school, they both gave it a try and did quite well. While, they couldn’t keep up with me, they still did a great job – Mom didn’t even fall once! (She did run into a tree though.)
That’s me in the crazy pants between cousins, Mark and Natalie.
You can’t miss me flying down the mountain. (I don’t use poles because when little kids first learn to ski, poles just get in the way – or fall of the lift…)
We skied a path through these trees – Tia Karen lost her pole and had to hike up, Natalie fell hard and Mom ran into a tree – Mark and I did just fine!
A beautiful place to be…
Apres Ski – one of the best parts of skiing – the time spent in the lodge after a day on the mountain. Annabel didn’t ski this year, but kept the lodge warm for us.
My dad and Tia Karen – best buds.
The last day was really warm, and we were pooped from skiing all week. Just enjoyed soaking up sun before heading back to Seattle.
Here’s a little video montage to give you an idea of what the week was like:
We can’t wait to go again next year!
Ski lessons
Will, Audrey and I are in ski school every week for the next 8 weeks. It was tough getting back out there after a year, but after a couple hours I had a decent run.
Then we have so much fun together just playing in the snow.
Like I said, a little wobbly
While we were skiing, Annabel ran into some other friends who had baby skis that she could try.
She went down a hill too!
And at the end of the day, I said “everything is sore except my phalanges.”
Annabel’s art
Annabel had fun this morning making her first happy face ever with no help:
Then she made a picture of her best friend Audrey:
Then a bunny
Then “just some hairy guy”
DIY Christmas
Christmas is one of the best times of year to show off some Do It Yourself Projects. A few new things in our house this year were handmade with love. DIY doesn’t mean perfect, but it means a lot of fun.
One of the things we did this year was make homemade notepads for my teachers. Online, there are a lot of great tutorials for DIY notepads, we didn’t use one in particular.
First, you gather all the paper you want in your pad – we printed out some of my drawings that were scanned. Then, you glue the edges (you don’t have to use a fancy clamp, books worked just fine.)
Then have kinko’s cut them down to the size you want!
I made these for my teacher:
And these with the school logo for other teacher’s and administrators:
We have new stockings this year – using this simple stocking tutorial, mom fashioned stockings out of some of my dad’s old work shirts. You can make anything out of an old dress shirt!
The patches came from this wonderful vendor on Etsy that we met at a craft show recently.
The red and green accent fabrics match the quilt that Grandma is working on – here is what the finished product will look like:
Everybody is DIYing.
Here is an ornament Annabel made out of painted pasta and red pipe cleaner:
Here’s one I made:
Dad didn’t make anything yet, but since he is so amazing, his Secret Santa at work made him something extra special for his office.
Today, Viviana showed us a tutorial on how to make gift bags out of any kind of paper.
So, we made this one out of a watercolor painting I made last week:
We are posting our Christmas cards by the kitchen table so we can look at them during dinner. We used paper chains and painted clothespins.
Finally, here’s Annabel’s homemade dress for Christmas Eve dinner. Fig Tree & Co provided this party dress pattern.
So, we hope we’ve inspired you to make a few things of your own this Christmas!
Dance class video
As you know, I take a jazz/hip hop class once a week. You may wonder, “why does Ben need a dance class if he is such an amazing dancer already?”
Well, you are right, of course, but taking a class helps me with fundamental moves and body control.
We spend the beginning of class on stretching and basic moves:
Then we do some floor work. Kicking our legs according to the teacher’s counting is tricky.
One of the most important things we learn is about choreography and how to follow the music with counts and steps. For holiday season we learned a dance to one of the grinch’s favorite songs.
Here we show you the process of practicing without the music and then we put it all together.
