This spread of Santa and Elf jars is headed to the girls’ schools tomorrow to spread some holiday cheer. This was a really cute and age appropriate DIY for the kids. Over the course of two evenings, they sorted M&Ms into green and red piles, and then divided them into 20 different mason jars so that every conceivable teacher was accounted for. James and I sat back and enjoyed some egg nog by the wood stove as they busied themselves. They made extensive lists of who should receive a jar, including school nurses, and bus drivers, and cafeteria cooks. I printed out tags and Sunny wrote out each of the teachers names. They needed some help tying the tags on the jars and adding the flair, but it was definitely a nice change of pace to have so much of the project executed, without adult assistance, by the kids themselves. They’re learning the joy of not just receiving gifts, but of being on the gifting side of the equation.
“A portrait of my children, once a week, every week, in 2015.”
Sunny: Riding the Elf Express, happily reading a story about Christopher Pop-In-Kins and sipping hot coco through the Green Mountains.
Kaki: We found snow in Manchester! And made an effort to play in it despite its limited supply.
More details about The 52 Project here. To view all the portraits in the series visit here.
O Christmas Tree! Oh Christmas Tree! How lovely are your tea leaves.
This project is pretty dang endearing, and was perfect for gifting to a number of the girls’ teachers this Christmas. Tea and cookies – a nice gesture of thanks and good cheer to the adults in their lives who nurture and support and inspire and teach them alongside their parents and friends. From classroom teachers, to babysitters, to swim coaches, to violin instructors, to ballet teachers, we are so grateful to have a tribe of wonderful grown-ups helping us develop them into passionate, thoughtful, well-rounded people (or so we aspire!). We have one more project in the works for gifting that I’ll share next week, but it’s been fun to work together as a family to create, bake, and write words of thanks and giving.
This project is relatively simple, and definitely wins on presentation.
Supplies:
An assortment of teas in individual bags (I opted for a variety of green packaging – so Peppermint, Green Tea and Irish Breakfast)
Styrofoam cone as tree structure (found at any craft store like Michaels)
Glue gun
Festive tree topper (I used toothpick cupcake toppers with seasonal snowflakes)
To adhere the bags, I put a strip of hot glue at the top of each bag, and beginning at the bottom of the cone and working my way up, glued them on until the tree was covered. The girls added the tops and determined the “pattern” for the tea bags. A team effort by all. And voila! Christmas Teas!
Oh the things we do for our children! We’ve been in full on craft mode chez Cart in preparation for both holiday gift giving to the girls’ teachers and loved ones, and for various activities at school. Last week, we found ourselves crafting interpretive Ginger Bread people representative of the Cart family for Courtland’s school project complete with ribbon and glitter and sequins and fabric and yarn and… let’s be honest, James and I were probably more into it than the kids.
This week, we were asked to come into Sunny’s classroom to talk about one of our family’s holiday traditions. Sunny insisted that James share our family’s “squirrel tradition,” which began during his father’s childhood. For whatever reason, each of the Cart kids have a toy squirrel that they hide deep in the Christmas tree every year. The goal is for other members of the family to find your squirrel. It’s a silly, simple game, but one of which Sunny is particularly fond. To accompany said explanation, we decided to make each kid in the class their own squirrels. On Sunday, we went on a hike through a local forest for acorns and mini-pine cones (great fun for Sunny and Kaki), and then James and I laboriously hot glued 20 squirrels for the kids in preparation for today’s visit to the classroom. The first graders’ contribution was to draw faces on their respective squirrels. They didn’t seem to mind the excessive glue.
And so here is our squirrel army pre-visit to the elementary school. I know that I am going to miss this stage in my life so very much one day, however silly and trite it may seem. These are the kinds of moments and experiences that I’ll carry with me and cherish long after my children require help with a hot glue gun.
Next week, the first of many new babes will enter the world in our town (and among my friends more broadly). I’m absolutely addicted to this seamless baby bootie pattern. Super adorable, and a really fun, clever knit. I can’t wait to see these booties on two pairs of itty bitty baby feet in the coming months!
“A portrait of my children, once a week, every week, in 2015.”
Sunny: Working the Christmas bloomers from Momar. So what if she’s a first grader now?
Kaki: A morning spent baking cinnamon buns before a day of holiday shopping, and birthday parties, and meeting Santa and Mrs. Claus, and a service of Lessons and Carols.
More details about The 52 Project here. To view all the portraits in the series visit here.
As I contemplate my family’s upcoming parental leave, I recognize that I am one of those 12% of families in this country that have the luxury of paid leave. But it shouldn’t be a luxury. I shouldn’t feel lucky that my husband and I get paid time off from work to heal and bond and nurture postpartum. In fact, though I recognize that by US standards my four months of paid leave, and my husband’s four months of leave (2 months paid, 2 months unpaid) are unbelievably generous, I am still critical of how limited this time is during such a fleeting yet crucial stage in a person’s life (mother, baby and partner alike). An investment and commitment to breastfeeding alone is enough to warrant a minimum of 6 months paid leave for all mothers given that solid food isn’t introduced until that time.
One of my dearest friends welcomed her first child into the world last month, and because she lives in Stockholm, she and her partner each receive 285 days of fully paid leave from work to be used however, and in whatever arrangement, they deem best for their family and their careers over the course of the baby’s first five years of life. Talk about empowering families and providing a work/life balance! And once they return to work, their child will have fully subsidized (read: free) childcare, so economics does not have to be the primary driver of their family’s decision-making.
As conveyed in this talk, the US is one of only 9 nations (all the rest of which are countries with fewer than 8 million people, as compared to the US’s 320 million) that do not offer paid family leave. If the rest of the world can figure out how to support new families, we sure as hell better be able to come up with a reasonable solution for our country.
It is long since time for the most powerful country on Earth to offer national paid leave to the people doing the work of the future of this country and to the babies who represent that future. Childbirth is a public good. This leave should be state-subsidized. It should have no exceptions for small businesses, length of employment or entrepreneurs. It should be able to be shared between partners.
^^Sweet lord we need to refinish this floor. Oof! But the pattern is adapted from Silver’s Sock Class tutorials. I knit both socks, toe up, on two size 5 circular needles. I did a seed stitch pattern on the top of the foot.^^
