time for socks

It has been chilly in Arizona this past week...time to pull out the long pants, sweaters and, yes, even socks. There have been a couple mornings when frost has been spotted on the rooftop and snow on distant mountain tops. 

Lily starts out the morning with her jacket but if the sun comes out you can find her belly-up taking a sun bath.

day six, a rainy hanukkah

We heard news that there was a big storm headed across the Pacific Ocean early this week. The clouds rolled in yesterday afternoon. Overnight I listened to the wind blow. The morning was wet and chilly. Funny how it startles me to open the curtains and not see the mountain.

The sun battled with the clouds in the afternoon creating some interesting photo ops.

lemony tell you...

about the 6 lemons ripening in my yard.

hanukkah gifting- day four

 Last week after the Russian dance recital I printed several of the best dancing photos and we turned them into bookmarks for Natale to give as Hanukkah gifts. Today, after a productive morning of schoolwork we headed to the store to pick up supplies for more gifts. After reading Betsy's blog Natale decided she would like to try the Kisses melted onto pretzels. Although they were suppose to be simple we managed to mess the whole batch up....I think I left them in the oven too long and actually baked the chocolate.

Thankfully we still had plenty of afternoon left to make Warm Mixed Nuts with Rosemary as well as start on our hand soap making for tomorrow's gift. After labeling and wrapping a jar for her mother we delivered a second jar to our  neighbors. 

Happy day 4 of Hanukkah!

happy day three - hanukkah

The Hanukkah greeting at my front door.

ruby day

Most days my lone homeschool student shows up with a smile on her face and a hop in her step. There was one morning recently, however, that the proverbial "wrong side of bed" attitude arrived instead. The main factor seemed to center on the cute new denim jumper. Apparently it was extremely irritating to wear. Instead of happy hopping there were tears that morning. 

I was running behind that morning and, as is the privilege of homeschooling, was still in my jammies. I suggested to Natale that I too could wear a denim jumper and we could be twins. No sooner were the words out of my mouth when the thought hopped into my head....Ruby the Copycat! I quickly shared my idea with Natale and she was off to create flowers, modeled after the flowers on her dress, to add to my jumper. 

Ruby is a much loved book from my years in public school. It is one of the books I never tire of reading. In the book Ruby, who is good at hopping, wants to be like Angela. She copies everything Angela does including pinning painted flowers to a sweater to make it match Angela's. You can guess where this is going...for the remainder of the day I wore hand-colored flowers pinned to my jumper. Natale's jumper was no longer uncomfortable and it turned out to be a hoppy day.

hanukkah night two

Happy second night of Hanukkah. 
I saw a veggie hanukiah on facebook and thought I'd try to create my own for the Hanukkah party we are going to this evening.