Nerdy Suburban Mom

If you need labels for clothing, lunchboxes, bookbags, towels — pretty much anything, I strongly recommend these: Lovable Labels. They’re based in Canada and may seem expensive, but they’re durable and pretty and absolutely worth it. Of the many that are on Lillian’s clothes and personal belongings, a grand total of zero have fallen off in the last year. I just ordered a batch of new ones with a fire truck, for Reuven.

The final phase of the teaching fellowship I participated in this year is a “teacher’s institute,” where we grad students show teachers some of the lessons we used. This includes giving them enough supplies to do the experiments with their students — 20 teachers, 20 students each…

Reuven’s traditionally favorite blankie is getting a bit worn; plus, it was store-bought (albeit a gift). So, I made him a brand new blankie for his return to daycare.

It looks more complicated than it is. I just took a piece of fleece and added satin blanket binding to the edge; but the patchwork styling of the patterned fleece makes it look more interesting and more handmade.

Either way, he sure liked it.

Lillian had a dance recital Wednesday night, and she did great!

We’ll be getting a better quality video of the whole performance in a couple weeks. In the meantime, here’s the footage that we shot at the recital… while you can’t clearly see their faces, it’s still adorable.

Lillian is the first girl to chassé onto the stage as they circle, then the first to chassé and kneel in line. She got distracted while kneeling, and was trying to find us in the audience (but didn’t have a chance, it was dark and we were a few rows back), and didn’t notice when everybody stood up. Oh well, she figured it out soon enough…

All the girls had a wonderful time and did a good job. We were worried that one had too much stage fright (the last dancer to chassé in the circle) but she came through!

We carved two jack-o-lanterns. The lumpy reddish one had very thick flesh, so we also made a tasty pumpkin pie!

I’m shamelessly proud of the job I did on both these home-made costumes.

Lillian got enough candy to last another whole year, at least. Wow!

This year, I asked Lillian what her brother should be for Halloween. She thought for a moment, then declared, “A pickle!”

So I made him a pickle. Green fleece, green buttons, and a bit of batting stuffed in the back to round out the pickle shape. Everybody loved it, and only a few people thought he was a peapod.

Plus, they both won the costume contest — Witch got first place, Pickle got second. I was totally stoked.

Taking your family on a trip through a graveyard looking for relatives results in rather morbid vacation pics!

Thankfully, that’s not all we did.

Lillian wants her little brother to be a pickle for Halloween. This is definitely not available off-the-shelf… but here’s the plan.

Note the crying face — he’s upset because while it was easy to get up, he had no idea how to get down. And he managed the climb in about 20 seconds. This kid is FAST.