Chinese New Year in Kaley's class

I was asked to tell Kaley's class about Chinese New Year. All the kids wore red and we celebrated by reading a book and giving out red envelopes.

Kaley, Ainsley and Anthony...

Running through the bike rack

The girls spent our last 15 minutes running back and forth through this bike rack.

Mommy and her girls

So much to see

Ainsley loved this bird. We tried to go into the puppet store, but it was closed. Probably a good thing, otherwise, I think we would've come home with a new puppet...or two.

Pier 43 Ferry Arch

Valentines Day horse and buggy

Very colorful street performer.

Sights at Pier 39

Snoozing Seal Lions

Oregon was playing UC Berkeley..we ran into the basketball team. Go Ducks!!

Kaley riding the Merry go Round

Look how long Kaley's hair is.

Sketching the Tulips

I took Ainsley and Kaley into the City for the Tulip Festival on Feb. 14th. They decided to camp out at the same spot as last year.

Pier 39- Tulip Festival

The girls on the Sea Lions

Tulip Art Sculpture with glass disks which picked up all the colors of the tulips.

More buildings

Kaley loves this building and gets very excited when she sees it. She says "the stair building, mommy". It is pretty cool- especially when lit up at Christmas.

Another shot of the Swamp people

At the East end of the Embarcadero is this bow and arrow sculpture with the Bay Bridge in the background. The girls thought this was put up just for Valentine's Day.

View from Michael's window on 4th street (16th floor). Rough!!

Sculptures and Buildings in The City

February 14th kicks off the annual Tulip Festival at Pier 39. We love this sculpture, which greets drivers traveling down The Embarcadero.

View from the top of the parking garage where we parked for the Tulip Festival...Transamerica Bldg, Coit Tower, Bell towers of St. Peter and Paul Cathedral,

Q is for Quilt

Mrs. Hanebury's class is studying quilts for the Letter "Q". She asked me if I could do something with some quilt fabric she had. One of the prints is the Bow Tie. Ainsley helped to pick out a backing print. We put batting in between the two, ran a binding with the backing and tied the squares for detail.

This block has various quilts draped over a white picket fence. We found a nice print for the back and ran a ticker tape ribbon around the perimeter.

Both quilt blocks on the wall.

Valentines Day Morning

Today was Valentines Day and Daddy left us Cream Puffs from Beard Papa's, a fancy schmanzy cream puff bakery in the City. Very yummy!!!
On our way to school for Valentines Day

"Twirler"- Little Orphan Ballerina

Mrs. Hanebury's class is sending toys, clothing and fabric to an orphanage in the Ukraine. Mrs. Hanebury's son, Lloyd, is with Fathers House, an orphanage helping children in Kiev. The students have heard many colorful stories from Mrs. Hanebury about life in Kiev and about the many children in the village orphanages. One such story touched Ainsley, which she shared with me. When Lloyd was married, he had a little friend who could not go into the church to witness the ceremony. This little girl loves to dance and twirl. Lloyd refers to this little girl as "Twirler". After the ceremony was over, Lloyd and his new bride were greeted outside by "Twirler", who did a dance for them. Sharing a love for dance, made Ainsley relate to this little girl. When we went shopping for fabric to put into the care packages, Ainsley was adamant about wanting to get fabric for "Twirler" so that someone could make her something warm to wear (the Kindergartners have been learning about the weather of Kiev and know that it is very cold there). We looked and looked and finally found the "perfect" fabric for "Twirler". The fabric Ainsley picked is Pea green flannel with hot pink ballerina silhouette's all over it. When we were packing the bag to take to school the following day, Ainlsey was very busy at her drawing table. She was making a note to accompany the fabric. I only wish I would've taken a photo. The note said " Dear Twirler". "Keep on Twirling". "Your friend, Ainsley". Mrs. Hanebury said that the fabric, note and tutus would find their way to "Twirler" From one Little Ballerina to another....across the globe

Reading to Kaley

Cuddled up wth sissy... And she's out, but that doesn't stop Ainsley from reading. Trying to figure out the word (would)

Ainsley is enjoying reading each night both to us and to Kaley. Tonight, she read to Kaley..which was great as Kaley fell asleep.

PInk Shell Pasta

Daddy worked late Tuesday, so it was "Girls choice" for dinner. Thinking back about the "pink party", the girls decided to have Pink Pasta. We then needed to have something "yellow"...thank goodness I had some corn on hand. A peanut butter and jelly sandwich cut in the shape of a heart rounded out this nutritious dinner. We'll get back on track tomorrow night.